Best Piston Engined Fighter Ever

Jabberwocky · Feb 16, 2007

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
Depends on what country you are talking about. The US did not enter the war until 1941 and the P-51 first flew in 1940 therefore the P-51 was in production for the whole war that the US was involved in. Same with the P-47.

As for the arguement that the Spitfire was the only allied aircraft that was competative throughout the whole war that is completely wrong.

Both the P-47 and the P-51 were competative throughout the whole war and the P-51 and P-47 could do something that the Spitfire could not. Do you know what that was?

They could take the fight to the Germans because of there long range.

Now having said that I think the Spitfire was an overall better fighter than the P-51 but the Spitfire was not the only allied fighter to remain competative throughout the whole war.

Considering that the P-51 didn't enter combat service until May-1942, or some 32 months after the war started, I'd say that calling it "competitive throughout the whole war" is a little of a stretch.

Same thing for the P-47; it didn't enter operational service until June-1942 and it didn't see combat service until Mar-1943, some 41 months into the war.

On the other hand, the Spitfire first entered combat in Oct-1939 and recorded its final kill WW2 kill against Japanese kamikazis in Aug-1945 (in its Seafire form).

renrich · Feb 16, 2007

There was no way an F8F could have a prop reverse system. The reason the weak brakes were an issue, as I originally stated, was that because the airplane could not be held still on the ground with the brakes under full power, then you did not know if you could get full power until you actually were in your takeoff run. The 440 t0 450 mph figure at low levels came from a graduate of Annapolis with an aeronautical engineering degree,(he later was a US Navy test pilot) who flew the F8F operationally for quite some time during the time between WW2 and Korea.

mkloby · Feb 16, 2007

renrich said:
There was no way an F8F could have a prop reverse system. The reason the weak brakes were an issue, as I originally stated, was that because the airplane could not be held still on the ground with the brakes under full power, then you did not know if you could get full power until you actually were in your takeoff run. The 440 t0 450 mph figure at low levels came from a graduate of Annapolis with an aeronautical engineering degree,(he later was a US Navy test pilot) who flew the F8F operationally for quite some time during the time between WW2 and Korea.

I have read an article about Herb fisher, former curtiss test pilot, running navy tests on an F8F using prop reversing in flight to acheive ridiculous vertical speeds in a dive...

Maybe it had a modified propeller assembly? I don't know.

FLYBOYJ · Feb 16, 2007

And if the F8F couldn't stay put during run ups, then indeed that was a problem, at the same time you always don't have to go to full power to ensure proper engine operation....

mkloby · Feb 16, 2007

FLYBOYJ said:
And if the F8F couldn't stay put during run ups, then indeed that was a problem, at the same time you always don't have to go to full power to ensure proper engine operation....

I've never gone to full power in any aircraft until taking the active runway and starting my T/O run...

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Feb 17, 2007

Jabberwocky said:
Considering that the P-51 didn't enter combat service until May-1942, or some 32 months after the war started, I'd say that calling it "competitive throughout the whole war" is a little of a stretch.

Same thing for the P-47; it didn't enter operational service until June-1942 and it didn't see combat service until Mar-1943, some 41 months into the war.

On the other hand, the Spitfire first entered combat in Oct-1939 and recorded its final kill WW2 kill against Japanese kamikazis in Aug-1945 (in its Seafire form).

That was not the point of my post. The point was that the Spitfire was not the only competative allied aircraft of WW2 as his post made it seem. As I stated in the other post the P-51 and the P-47 had one major advantage over the Spitfire. Range they could take the fight to the Germans where as the Spitfire remained largly a defensive fighter until mid to late 1944 in Europe.

pbfoot · Feb 17, 2007

mkloby said:
I've never gone to full power in any aircraft until taking the active runway and starting my T/O run...

Wouldn't the F8F just nose over if you applied brakes and full power

davparlr · Feb 17, 2007

renrich said:
There was no way an F8F could have a prop reverse system. The reason the weak brakes were an issue, as I originally stated, was that because the airplane could not be held still on the ground with the brakes under full power, then you did not know if you could get full power until you actually were in your takeoff run. The 440 t0 450 mph figure at low levels came from a graduate of Annapolis with an aeronautical engineering degree,(he later was a US Navy test pilot) who flew the F8F operationally for quite some time during the time between WW2 and Korea.

Probably an observation and not a test, therefore highly suspect. As I have stated many times, obtaining a TAS without a proper instrumented aircraft is not an accurate process. One must have outside air temperature and impact pressure (a correct one, which is not indicated, but rather equivalent airspeed). Few aircraft of WWII era had outside air temperature. Also, most used indicated or possible calibrated airspeed. As airspeed increases, the pitot pressure becomes compressed which causes the airspeed to read too high. Equivalent airspeed corrects for this error. The official tested TAS of the F8F-1 is probably the 421 mph recorded. This is much more reliable than pilot observation, even an aeronautical engineer.

FLYBOYJ · Feb 17, 2007

pbfoot said:
Wouldn't the F8F just nose over if you applied brakes and full power

Not if you keep the stick back - that will keep the tail on the ground.

mkloby · Feb 17, 2007

FLYBOYJ said:
Not if you keep the stick back - that will keep the tail on the ground.

Fresh off the taildragger too, huh joe!

Morai_Milo · Feb 17, 2007

Didn't some a/c have mechanics sitting on the stab when the engine was being run up?

FLYBOYJ · Feb 17, 2007

Morai_Milo said:
Didn't some a/c have mechanics sitting on the stab when the engine was being run up?

Yes, but that was probably more the exception than the rule...

FLYBOYJ · Feb 17, 2007

mkloby said:
Fresh off the taildragger too, huh joe!

Yeppers!!! 8)

renrich · Feb 19, 2007

Re performance figures on A/C, ( especially WW2 A/C) I have learned to my benefit, since I joined this forum, that there is a lot of data available much of which seems credible which seemingly is contradictory. If the US Navy tested an A/C it got one set of numbers. If the USAF tested the same A/C, they got another set. If the British did the testing there was another set. The manufacturer got something different. It seems that the different services and different countries had an understandable proprietory bias toward their own airplanes. Consequently, it doesn't seem very persuasive anymore to me to use raw performance numbers to justify a belief that a certain model of a certain A/C was the "best." The nice thing about that is that everybody can have an opinion and everybody can feel they are "right."

Civettone · Feb 19, 2007

A couple of days ago I posted a link to an article on the performance of the Fw 190D to show that it usually achieved a speed less than the often quoted 685 km/h. And there are several other good articles available which lists different test data of several aircraft. They do a good job at explaining the differences between the data, and give a pretty good view on what was the most common data.

Kris

Soren · Feb 20, 2007

Wouldn't happen to be from WWII aircraft performnce would it ?

The Fw-190D did 702 km/h alt with MW-50 and 612 km/h at SL.

Civettone · Feb 20, 2007

Soren said:
Wouldn't happen to be from WWII aircraft performnce would it ?

The Fw-190D did 702 km/h alt with MW-50 and 612 km/h at SL.

Are we talking about the D-9? I gave it just as an example, not to discuss the Dora in this topic, it's already going on in another thread.

But FYI this was the article I was referring to: FW 190 D-9 Flight Trials
Kris

Soren · Feb 20, 2007

From the place I expected.

That site is good for info on Allied aircraft performance, not for axis aircraft performance. Original FW documents rate the top speed of the D-9 as 702 m/h at alt and 612 km/h at SL.

Morai_Milo · Feb 20, 2007

It should be noted that the speeds Soren gives are with MW50. Without MW50 the speeds are 572kph and 685kph.

Not all Dora 9s had MW50 installed.

Wespe · Feb 20, 2007

Besides the D9's, the Fw 190D-12 had a top speed of 725 km/h with MW50, not to mention its further development from Zwischenloesung into the Ta-152With the MW50 the DB 603 engine pushed the speed up to around 750km/h and plus the GM1 it could reach probably 780-790km.
The allies had nothing that could match the speed of a Ta-152 and D0-335.
In June 1942, a Luftwaffe pilot fortuitously presented the Allies with a Fw 190A fighter intact, the detailed examination of this plane profoundly influenced fighter thinking in Britain and probably also the US. It directly results in the issue of specification F.2/43 to which was designed the Hawker Fury, embodying numerous features directly copied from the Fw 190A, and F.19/43 which produced the Folland Fo.118 fighter project, also owing much to the design of the Fw 190A. What higher tribute could have been paid to what was undoubtedly the finest prop fighter which Germany had produced.
The same plane was able to be highly effective as a ground attack plane which could not be said of the Spitfire or Mustang, if not armed with rockets.
If Germany would have been able to stop the continued production of Bf-109's in favor to an all Fw production who knows how the air war especially over Germany would have developed.
Had the Ta 152H been built in enough numbers and been flown by knowledged pilots it could have taken its place alongside the Me 262 as a near unbeatable air superiority fighter and bomber killer.

But history tells us why this was not possible or done.

Wespe

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