Best piston engined fighter of 1945?

[drgondog]

It also turned out that the P-47M wasn't that much faster or better climbing than the P-47N.
They built about 130 of the Ms but how many got to Europe?

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-47/comp-p47dmn.jpg

They may have been spinning things a bit but.........
The C series R-2800 and the new turbo made up a lot of the difference on the R-4360 engine in the P-72.

most if not all arrived in ETO in November. Multipe engine related issues plagued it from becoming operational w/56th FG until Early April. Some issues incl. wiring harness were caught early but others like internal engine rust from sloppy preparation weren't caught until after engine failures.

 

[Engram]

If we are talking about the best aircraft and not just the best one in service, I would go with the Martin Baker MB5

 

[wuzak]

If we are talking about the best aircraft and not just the best one in service, I would go with the Martin Baker MB5

View attachment 759554

Has that any advantage over the Spiteful, ts contemporary?

 

[GrauGeist]

Then there was the Vultee XP-81 - another one-off for the "best" category.

 

[NevadaK]

Given how the war was evolving as the emphasis is shifted to the PTO, I would say F4U4.

 

[J.A.W.]

Given how the war was evolving as the emphasis is shifted to the PTO, I would say F4U4.

Only in the 3rd quarter of `45, before that it was a relative 'backwater' by comparison to Nazi smashing, only the massive technical/funds
effort put into the B-29 program & its tag-along Manhattan project, plus a few dozen carriers, support fleet, a USMC division, bit of army,
several score subs, & a snifter of Limey stuff, bugger all really - in the big picture - right?

(I always wondered why the USN took so long to get a 4-blade prop on its R-2800 powered fighters, when it'd be a given for climb off,
& the USAAF P-47 always had one - which only got fatter, as the plane did, hell even their B-26 had 4-bladers from the get go.)

 

[PAT303]

Has that any advantage over the Spiteful, ts contemporary?

Or the P51D?

 

[J.A.W.]

Or the P51D?

Or indeed, the totally revised P-51H.

It'd be a curious thing if reliable flight-test data were available to make a fair comparison - of all 4 Griffon powered late-war prototypes to fly.

(CAC-15, Fury I, M-B V, Spiteful).

 

[wuzak]

It'd be a curious thing if reliable flight-test data were available to make a fair comparison - of all 4 Griffon powered late-war prototypes to fly.

(CAC-15, Fury I, M-B V, Spiteful).

The Spiteful was faster than the others, and climbed faster.

So the others would have to be better in other areas to be the preferred choice.

The CA-15 suffered from a lack of engine and then work slowed considerable after the war was over. Its first flight was around 2 years after the others.

 

[J.A.W.]

The Spiteful was faster than the others, and climbed faster.

So the others would have to be better in other areas to be the preferred choice.

The CA-15 suffered from a lack of engine and then work slowed considerable after the war was over. Its first flight was around 2 years after the others.

Yes, CAC had put it on 'the back burner' & taken up the offer of being the sole non-US producer of the Mustang.

 

[Shortround6]

(I always wondered why the USN took so long to get a 4-blade prop on its R-2800 powered fighters, when it'd be a given for climb off,
& the USAAF P-47 always had one - which only got fatter, as the plane did, hell even their B-26 had 4-bladers from the get go.)

Propeller design is in the same realm as witchcraft.
Things to consider are
diameter (disk area)
Blade area (disk solidity?)
Blade airfoil/s.
Blade profile (?), like where on the blade the area was, near the hub the root of the blade did very little for propulsion. At times they tried to get that area to aid in cooling.
Number of blades but see Blade area.

I have no idea what the blade area of the early Corsair prop was compared to an early P-47 prop. We do know that the F4U prop was about 4 in greater in diameter which means about 6.6 more sq ft (139.3 vs 132.7)
On the other hand the B-26's started with a 12'2" prop which meant about 120 sq ft of disc area.

Most of the time when a plane got more blades it was because the plane was limited to increasing the prop diameter due to ground clearance or due to the prop tips exceeding the speed of sound.

 

[NevadaK]

Only in the 3rd quarter of `45, before that it was a relative 'backwater' by comparison to Nazi smashing, only the massive technical/funds
effort put into the B-29 program & its tag-along Manhattan project, plus a few dozen carriers, support fleet, a USMC division, bit of army,
several score subs, & a snifter of Limey stuff, bugger all really - in the big picture - right?

(I always wondered why the USN took so long to get a 4-blade prop on its R-2800 powered fighters, when it'd be a given for climb off,
& the USAAF P-47 always had one - which only got fatter, as the plane did, hell even their B-26 had 4-bladers from the get go.)

With the sequence of events in the PTO, I would say that mid-first quarter no later than mid-second quarter with the invasion of Okinawa. I'm pretty sure by 2nd quarter 1945, the outcome in the ETO/MTO was determined and German resistance was waning. It's true that the ETO gets all the "big press" but don't underestimate the scope of combat in the Pacific. The most powerful invasion fleet of the war was at Okinawa and the largest airport in the world was on Tinian, for example.

 

[Venomstick121]

The CR.42 was the best biplane of ww2 imo

 

[special ed]

Check out the Avia B.534 Srs. IV. As in Czech it out.

 

[SaparotRob]

 

[J.A.W.]

With the sequence of events in the PTO, I would say that mid-first quarter no later than mid-second quarter with the invasion of Okinawa. I'm pretty sure by 2nd quarter 1945, the outcome in the ETO/MTO was determined and German resistance was waning. It's true that the ETO gets all the "big press" but don't underestimate the scope of combat in the Pacific. The most powerful invasion fleet of the war was at Okinawa and the largest airport in the world was on Tinian, for example.

Okinawa invasion was bigger than D-day?

Recall that at start of 1945, the US Army was suffering its heaviest losses since the Civil war, futuristic Nazi missiles were raining down,
the Luftwaffe had just put 'a thousand plane raid' on Allied airbases so - from Eisenhower's view - it was far from a 'done deal' yet.
& yet again, the 'It'll be over by Xmas' claim - was mere mockery...

 

[SaparotRob]

I took NevadaK's post to mean the actual fleet. Okinawa was a bigger logistics hurdle than Normandy. Equipment had a lot farther to go. Without any documentation to back up my feeling, I believe the U.S. fleet arrayed at Okinawa was larger than that sent out on Overlord.

 

[J.A.W.]

I took NevadaK's post to mean the actual fleet. Okinawa was a bigger logistics hurdle than Normandy. Equipment had a lot farther to go. Without any documentation to back up my feeling, I believe the U.S. fleet arrayed at Okinawa was larger than that sent out on Overlord.

Fleet of warships, sure but as for all the LST type stuff, & logistic support 'Mulberry' artificial harbours/pipe line layers etc.
The air-fleets Overlord mustered were orders of magnitude greater of course, as was the contribution from other Allies.

(Not to take anything away from the stupendous logistics issues the USN had to master for the US Army to boot-stomp Okinawa)

Edit: Fixed typo.

 

[J.A.W.]

Propeller design is in the same realm as witchcraft.
Things to consider are
diameter (disk area)
Blade area (disk solidity?)
Blade airfoil/s.
Blade profile (?), like where on the blade the area was, near the hub the root of the blade did very little for propulsion. At times they tried to get that area to aid in cooling.
Number of blades but see Blade area.

I have no idea what the blade area of the early Corsair prop was compared to an early P-47 prop. We do know that the F4U prop was about 4 in greater in diameter which means about 6.6 more sq ft (139.3 vs 132.7)
On the other hand the B-26's started with a 12'2" prop which meant about 120 sq ft of disc area.

Most of the time when a plane got more blades it was because the plane was limited to increasing the prop diameter due to ground clearance or due to the prop tips exceeding the speed of sound.

Typhoon got the Tempest's 4-blade, because it shortened the take-off run considerably - a matter of import, due to D-day pending,
& the need to haul a couple of thousand lb bombs plus another 1/2 a thousand lb of extra armour - off extemporised strips in France.

 

[Shortround6]

From Wiki.

Okinawa naval order of battle - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Down at the bottom

Allied logistics and support vessels
3 seaplane tenders
3 small seaplane tenders
and others.

Logistics and Support Vessels
49 oilers
16 ammunition ships
9 cargo ships
8 hospital ships
6 reefers (store ships)
2 survey ships:
2 stores-issue ships:
9 gasoline tankers
6 station tankers
10 repair ships
6 floating drydocks
12 fleet tugs
4 ocean tugs, 3 ocean tugs

The total number of ships may have been smaller than Normandy,
But the mix of ships was rather different.