Best Piston Engined Fighter Ever...

Best Piston Engined Fighter Ever...

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Hi Welch,

>It is kind of interesting why the Ta-152 is getting so many votes. As far as we know it shot down one Tempest at low altitude (the Tempest was not good at low altitude turning) and a couple of Yak's over Berlin. It never shot down a P-51, P-47,P-38, or a Spitfire.

Here is a speed comparison of the various late-war Focke-Wulfs versus the North American P-51D and P-51H.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)
 

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And a lot of people vote for the Bearcat, and how many aircraft did it shoot down?
 
How many aircraft a specific aircraft has shot down should not be the deciding factor of what makes an aircraft the best or not.
Click to expand...

Granted, the Bearcat or the Hawker Sea Fury have not seen much combat either, and likely never will now.

Still it would be nice for the Smithsonian to restore the Ta-152 they have right now, and get it flying, then you could see some fine stuff I'm sure. At least for the Bearcat and Sea Fury we have more visual information on it.

The closest thing to the Ta 152 is the FW 190D, which we have a lot more information on, but they were quite different birds on the whole.

Is there any video footage of the Ta-152 from German tests?

Ho-hun, I'm suprised to see how fast the Fw 190D 12 is. It way outspeeds the FW 190D 9. I'm suprised by how slow the P-51H is, only 720 km/h? I thought the H could reach a top speed of 784 km/h?

Must be cruise speed I suppose.

Edit: Found this thread. Seems like the P-51H had a rather disappointing top speed after all, at least in combat mode. Wasn't much faster than the P-51D.
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/p-51h-flight-test-performance-5515.html

Still it brings up an interesting question. Is possible the Ta-152 is given a higher top speed of 759 km/h than it could actually reach in reality? It probably wasn't flown much in combat above 40,000 feet. It's possible an actual Luftwaffe pilot couldn't get it up to the speed the German graphs indicated.

I'm sure the Ta-152 had a high top speed, but seeing how much slower the P-51H may have been in reality makes one wonder about engineering vs. combat figures.

Maybe I'm wrong, perhaps Germans were better at being accurate than the Americans were.
 
Sea Fury is my bird.
I could compete against any of those from the list, while able to land take off from a carrier.
 
For pure peak of prop development (just an excuse as it's a favorite too) I voted Sea Fury. Happy to see it is among the Top 5 vote getters
 
Guys, I don't understand why the Ta-152H was voted as the best piston engined fighter. Just because it was the best piston engine fighter that saw combat during WWII doesn't make the best piston engine fighter of the World War II era. Aircraft like the P-51h were far more superior than the Ta-152H. The P-51h was really a p-51 that used a light structure like the spitfire. This improved things like range, maneuverability, climb, and especially speed. So in my opinion, the P-51 probably the most advance single piston engine fighter of WWII since it was faster, more maneuverable, and had a better rate of role than the 152.

But, I think the best single engine piston fighter was the P-47N. The P-47N was an amazing advancement over the D. The P-47n had more range (since it fought in the pacific) and it had new features such as the installment of the 2,800hp Pratt Whitney R-2800-57C engine, clipped wings, and wings of slightly larger span and area. These features contributed to the 47n's speed (maximum speed of 397 mph at 10,000 feet, 448 mph at at 25,000 feet, and 460 mph at 30,000 feet), climb (Initial climb rate was 2770 feet per minute at 5000 feet and 2550 feet per minute at 20,000 feet), maneuverability, rate of role, range, and dive.

If in fact the P-47n fought in Europe against the 152h, it would have been an excellent aircraft having the advantages in dive rate of role and pretty much tied in speed (although the 152 had a higher top speed, the 47n was faster at 30,000 and below which was were most combat would occur). And dont forget the p47's amazing fire power of 8 x M3 .50cal machines guns (which equals to 12 x M2 .50cal machines guns), its durability, and its close support/fighter-bombers capabilities, something the Ta-152 could never have.
 
"And don't forget the p47's amazing fire power of 8 x M3 .50cal machines guns"

I have heard speculation about the high cyclic rate M3 being fitted to the P-4N but have never actually read of a source for that claim.

Do you have a source?

I think the P-47N was a pretty impressive plane. With a "D" load of fuel (370 gallons) its performance would be closer to an "M".
 
Ther is one aircraft that was admittedly a prototype, but is often argued as the best piston engined aircraft of all time. The MB-5, Whilst i dont deny the sheer excellence of the Ta 152, and it deserving every inch being at the top, it was nevertheless essentially only a prototype. so if we have the Ta 152 as a proto type, why not the MB-5
 
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