Best twin engine dogfighter

OldSkeptic said:

The Hornet design came from early studies on the Mosquito being looked at as a long range escort fighter.
The results were that it couldn't, but they did some trials with a (very) lightened Mosquito and the performance was remarkably better, but not operationally practical.

Basically the Hornet was to the Mosquito what the prototype super lightweight Mustangs* were to the P-51D (with their also remarkably better performance).

*Note the P-51H was not one of those, it was only slightly lighter and the real rational for it was the ever decreasing G limits of the P-51 A, B D (each model going down) especially with high fuel loads.
The H restored those even with high fuel loads and its higher performance really came from using a 100 series Merlin.

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True the F/G/J Mustangs were even lighter (~600 pounds) than the H, but the H was ~1000 pound lighter than the D/K and 500 pounds lighter than the B/C - but carried 6x50 cal vs 4x50 for the B/C

The 1650-9 engine on the P-51H was basically the 1650-3 with WI added to a modified pressure injection Simmonds boost control.

The Rolls 14 S.M. was in the last two of five XP-51F's and re-named XP51G - and this was best performer with 495mph at 26,000 feet and service ceiling of 46,000 - only because cabin not pressurized to enable pilot to climb higher. Having said that, when you added guns and armor and external racks it would nver have climbed to 20000 in 3.4 minutes, made 495mph or climbed to 46000 - it would have dropped closer to P-51H capability

vikingBerserker said:

Now that is impressive.

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I am reading that right 4 mins to 20,000ft at combat power!! I wonder what the max initial climb rate was

Glider said:

I am reading that right 4 mins to 20,000ft at combat power!! I wonder what the max initial climb rate was

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Have a look at these (5,500ft/min).
You can see the difference between the low level RM-14SM Merlin 130s and the high level Griffon 65.
Note that the Sea Hornets were slightly slower.

altsym said:

Are you serious? Where are you getting this information from (please don't say Allied flight reports from captured aircraft)? High speed control forces on the late 109's are much more manageable then the "E" "F" series.

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Nonsense. Eric Brown wings of the Luftwaffe, 109 G6, page 210..
"Control harmony was poor for a fighter, the rudder bring light, the ailerons moderately light and the elevators extremely heavy".
".... in a dive at 644km/h (400mph)the controls felt as though they had seized! The highest speed that I dived to below 3,048m (10,000ft) was 708km/g (440) and the solidity of control was such that this was the limit in my book".


And since he was a professional and definitely not biased against German kit by any means (he loved the 190 in all its versions and especially raved about the TA 152H).

"However, things were very different at high altitude, and providing the Gustav was kept where it was meant to be (i.e. above 7,620m, 25,000ft) it performed efficiently both in dogfighting and as an attacker of bomber formations. To give some idea of its performance, I measured 618km/h (384mph) in level flight at 7,010m (23,000ft), which confirmed pretty well with the officially claimed maximum speed pf 621km/h (386mph) at 6,900m (22,640)."

jim said:

Mr OldSceptic
I would like to obsrve that the climb performance at Erich Browns book is at 9500kgr . That means it includes a 500kgr bomb.

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I find it difficult to believe that a test pilot of the caliber of Eric Brown would take a plane up to evaluate its performance while carrying a 500kgr bomb ?????

Aozora said:

We only have your word and no real evidence that the Do 335 was carrying a bomb. It's interesting that Luftwaffe fans always seem to need to quote projected performance figures as proof that their wundermachines were better than everyone elses. Even with all the advantages of MW50 and more powerful engines etc the climb rate would not have been anything special or spectacular. You keep quoting "official figures" but have shown none of them here.

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Mr Aozora
Its my last answer to you since you dont read them carefy or you ignore them, and you put words in my mouth

In every of my post i say that I dont consider Do 335 wundermachine or even slightly superior to the hornet. I simply i have not enough datas to give the edge in one of these close matched aircrafts. My argument is that Do 335 is not the dog that is very often presented in this forum
But it appears that for you that if a LW aircraft claimed performance near that of the late alleid fighters it was a fantastique wundermachine

As for the 9500 kgr it was with a bomb , you like it or not. Check the bibliografy. You can start with the link that Mr Tante Ju posted at post #85
Even if you dont speak german you will be able to notice that it clearly says that at 9500kgr weight a 500kgr bomb was included
Read the french experience with the Do335 ,where captured examples in poor condition outrun their escorts.

If you search for wundermachines you may look at the other side of the Atlantic or in the Soviet union . Aircrafts claiming superlative perormance and agility with absolutely zero weaknesses or shortconings.Aircrafts that eg the weight went down 500kgr but the claimed structural strength went up 10% !!! Have you ever seen such a claim by a german machine? But what a coinsidense. None of those super,duper machines saw combat despite the fact that ,unlike Do 335, had all the fuel,and pilots, and time to fully be develped and everything that was nessecary. But of course nobody wants to lose a wing during combat, and some of those super aircrafts were losing half their wings even in exersices. Or in the case of the soviets , had to be removed from service after a few months
Friedrich schier flew a Ta152H to an altitude of 13654 metrs . He had a partially working pressure cabin and he was half paralyzed .
American pilots could fly at 46000ft without any pressure cabin . Wonder pilots as well ! Ta152H with its huge wings ,even with GM1 ,could not surpass 14000-15000metrs . American fighter with much shorter wings could reach over 46000ft, even then the limitation being the pilot!!!! F4E phantom II barely surpassed this claimed performance having a ceiling of 60000ft!!!!
Please look elsewhere for wonders

jim said:

Mr Aozora
American pilots could fly at 46000ft without any pressure cabin . Wonder pilots as well ! Ta152H with its huge wings ,even with GM1 ,could not surpass 14000-15000metrs . American fighter with much shorter wings could reach over 46000ft, even then the limitation being the pilot!!!! F4E phantom II barely surpassed this claimed performance having a ceiling of 60000ft!!!!
Please look elsewhere for wonders

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Not sure where you get that from. Way above the Mustangs maximum height. That was the height even the late PR Spits could barely reach (Spit XIX service ceiling was 44,500)... and they all had pressure cabins.

I think you need to check your nums (perhaps the meters to feet conversion?)

redcoat said:

I find it difficult to believe that a test pilot of the caliber of Eric Brown would take a plane up to evaluate its performance while carrying a 500kgr bomb ?????

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He didn't. I checked his report carefully.

He was a test pilot going up in a very iffy plane (due to maintenance issues), no way he was going up with a bomb as well.
What he was doing was dodgy enough, shortly after that another RAF pilot was killed in testing the same 335, due to a rear engine fire.

Killed 2 German test pilots that thing, personally I wouldn't have flown in if you put a gun to my head.

He flew the 2 seat A0, which probably explains the higher weight.

Why they wasted their time developing it is a mystery, they had the excellent Ta-154 as an alternative and, perhaps, if they had managed to get 10,000lbs of bloat off the Do-219 then it might have been pretty good too.

Jim, I don't think anyone (with maybe one or two exceptions) is claiming the Do 335 is a dog; it was, as has been pointed out, an exceptional design, but what frustrates many is the fact that actual figures that were recorded by the aircraft that were available are what's being asked for and not claims of the aircraft's potential that never materialised because of the end of the war. Stating that the Do 335's performance would have been better if MW 50 was added just isn't going to stand up to criticism. Can't you post actual occurances that took place rather than hypothesies based on potential improvements that never happened?

...and here's a bit from Brown's Wings of the Luftwaffe on the Do 335;

"The Do 335 had certainly proved itself the most troublesome, mechanically, of the captured German aircraft that we has tested at Farnborough, probably indicative of the fact that it had been committed to production before all of its bugs had been wrung out, but despite all the trouble that it gave us I was of the opinion that it would have made a highly successful night fighter with its good stability, endurance and excellent turn of speed. As a day fighter, however, although possessing an impressive performance by piston-engined fighter standards and a pretty potent armament, it was no aircraft for dog fighting. To be fair, fighter-versus-fighter combat was never intended to be the Do 335's forte and it certainly could have given Allied heavy bombers an unpleasant time with its good overtaking speed, its lethal firepower and its worthwhile endurance which would have enabled it to fly standing patrols while awaiting intruding bomber formations."

nuuumannn said:

...and here's a bit from Brown's Wings of the Luftwaffe on the Do 335;

"The Do 335 had certainly proved itself the most troublesome, mechanically, of the captured German aircraft that we has tested at Farnborough, probably indicative of the fact that it had been committed to production before all of its bugs had been wrung out, but despite all the trouble that it gave us I was of the opinion that it would have made a highly successful night fighter with its good stability, endurance and excellent turn of speed. As a day fighter, however, although possessing an impressive performance by piston-engined fighter standards and a pretty potent armament, it was no aircraft for dog fighting. To be fair, fighter-versus-fighter combat was never intended to be the Do 335's forte and it certainly could have given Allied heavy bombers an unpleasant time with its good overtaking speed, its lethal firepower and its worthwhile endurance which would have enabled it to fly standing patrols while awaiting intruding bomber formations."

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That at least appears to be a balanced assesment, and certainly would be consistent with what the LW high Command was looking for towards the end of the war. They wanted survivable bomber destroyers, not aircraft to tackle the allied fighters so much...

Dornier Do 335 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Delivery commenced in January 1945. When the United States Army overran the Oberpfaffenhofen factory in late April 1945, only 11 Do 335 A-1 single-seat fighter-bombers and two Do 335 A-12 trainers had been completed.

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Personally I wouldn't get too excited about an aircraft that had only 13 production models, all of which were built under conditions where German industrial production was falling apart.

OldSkeptic said:

Nonsense. Eric Brown wings of the Luftwaffe, 109 G6, page 210..

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Exactly what I meant when I said, 'please don't quote/say/use flight reports from captured 109's lol

altsym said:

Exactly what I meant when I said, 'please don't quote/say/use flight reports from captured 109's lol

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And why not? What possible incentive would the Allies have in being wrong?
Given that their pilots lives depended on this information, they would do their best to make them as good as possible in fact.
In fact if they understated German performance figures they would very quickly get feedback from their own pilots that this was not true, probably very forceful feedback (along the lines of "you told us that X does Y mph, but I was at Z mph and it caught up with me, you stupid prat").

Quite possibly in the very early days they would have had issues with correct maintenance and procedures, therefore not getting the best out of any captured plane.
But by later in the war they would have gotten that worked out pretty well.

For example, Rolls Royce had stripped down Jumo 211s totally and tested them on their own testbeds to measure their performance.

Plus by '42 the British had worked out the Luftwaffe's order of battle pretty well. RV Jones famously stated that he could give a month's warning of any new Luftwaffe bombing campaign and then proved it, hence their terrible losses in Operation Steinbock (he also predicted to the day when V1s would be launched at Britain).
The Germans Knew about the Mustang long before it appeared and had a very good idea of its performance, ditto the Allies with the introduction of the 190D.

So I just can't see how they could be dramatically out. This also applies to the Germans, by later in the war both sides had a pretty good idea of what they were up against.

The argument about not relying on allied intell reports is that we dont know how to get the best out of superior german equipment, or that the aircraft we were tested were clapped out clunkers anyway.

I dont buy it either....

Yeh, that might have been an issue on both sides early in the war, but not later. Both had too much to lose by getting things wrong.

Were they 100% perfect, of course not. But neither were performance tests done by both side on the own equipment.
There was always a fuzz factor due to manufacturing tolerances.
Take the Spit LF IX, top speed given as 404mph, but if you got a good one you might see 415, or 390 with a bad one as the allowed tolerance was 3%.

Then you have the test methodologies and standards. On the face of it the British were the leaders in this with very vigorous standards
The US was behind at the beginning of the war (and produced some very ropy numbers for their early planes), then caught up.

I might be wrong in this, but the Germans seemed to just leave it up the manufacturers, rather than having a central Govt body, with a consistent set of testing standards (and unbiased), to do the testing. If that is not the case I'd love to learn more about it.

OldSkeptic said:

Have a look at these (5,500ft/min).
You can see the difference between the low level RM-14SM Merlin 130s and the high level Griffon 65.
Note that the Sea Hornets were slightly slower.

*snip graph*

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Since Wunderplanes are a popular term recently, I wonder which one of the above Wunderplane curves have been flight tested, under what conditions, which one are specially prepeared prototypes and which ones are random serial production aircraft, and which curves have been calculated by the manufacturer for sales purposes based on expected (but perhaps not realized/realizable) conditions.

P-51H projected vs final/measured/serial production condition performance figures come to mind.

OldSkeptic said:

I might be wrong in this, but the Germans seemed to just leave it up the manufacturers, rather than having a central Govt body, with a consistent set of testing standards (and unbiased), to do the testing. If that is not the case I'd love to learn more about it.

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Yes you are wrong, sry. The Luftwaffe's own Gov't BAL service did all the acceptance tests, not the manufacturers (though the latter did tests too), while 'official' specs were usually based what tthe Luftwaffe's own testing station at Rechlin measured. From what I read from Fey (sp?) they would reject aircraft not meeting specs without missing a heartbeat, even in 1945.

Thanks for that Tante.

The UK figures are always (within the allowed tolerances) pretty good. Random testing (which later the US did as well) of production machines by the RAE were also taken.
Plus there was the feedback from the production test pilots (like Alex Henshaw) plus they (under strict instructions) would reject planes if they didn't meet specs (again within the allowed tolerances).
Every single production plane was tested in flight. Henshaw's book tells you what the test schedule was. Climb, speed, dive, maximum speed, stability, turn, etc, etc. Everything was documented and the individual plane's results would be available.

Hence the practice of people like Squadron Leaders carefully selecting the best ones for their use.

I can't speak for the others but North American did the same, though there was a wrinkle in this. Yes they were tested as they came off the production lines, but then broken down for shipping. Then reassembled in Britain.
Does anyone have any information on what happened when they were reassembled in the UK? were they retested again? Frankly I'd expect so, but any information would be interesting.

By and large the Germans and Americans were well ahead of the UK on quality manufacturing (the typical British problem, excepting Rolls Royce*), through the Germans deteriorated towards the end of the war due to dependence on slave labour (plus sabotage) plus over complex designs (of a lot of equipment).

That meant that if you had (say) a 109 G6 and the specification speed was (again say) 386 mph, your one would quite probably do that. If you were a Spit IX pilot and low on the rank levels, you might be struggling to get within a cooee of the specified performance, especially if it was a bit older. Low quality meant that planes also aged faster. As they age they always get slower. Opening and closing panels, repairs, re-painting, etc meant more drag and the engine was getting older (anyone else here old enough to remember the effect of your points needing maintenance on your car/bike? plus the 'joys' of tuning carbies). Doesn't take a lot of wear on the bores or valves before your real compression levels are well below the 'spec' ones.

Typically you'd see a typically downward 'saw tooth' shape of performance as the plane ages

The US, once it spun up to speed, led the World then in high quality mass manufacturing of, often, pretty good designs (we take the Sherman off that list of "often petty good" of course).

But even Mustangs aged. If you had an old one, with 30+ missions (roughly 1,500 air hours) under its belt and your speed might be down 20 or 30 mph. Up against an experten (note that they always grabbed the best ones and made sure they had the best maintenance) with a brand new model 109G at 25,000 ft. You'd be struggling.

* Sir Henry Royce famously said "the future is quality mass manufacturing .. and the British are poor at both".

nuuumannn said:

Jim, I don't think anyone (with maybe one or two exceptions) is claiming the Do 335 is a dog; it was, as has been pointed out, an exceptional design, but what frustrates many is the fact that actual figures that were recorded by the aircraft that were available are what's being asked for and not claims of the aircraft's potential that never materialised because of the end of the war. Stating that the Do 335's performance would have been better if MW 50 was added just isn't going to stand up to criticism. Can't you post actual occurances that took place rather than hypothesies based on potential improvements that never happened?

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Mr Nuuumannn
Since you posses Eric Browns "Wings of the Luftwaffe" on page 74 he states that he achieved 692 km/h (430mph) at 5486m (18000ft) with the TWO sets version and WITHOUT MW50. Considering that the single seat version was 40-50 km/h faster thatn the two seat version, i believe that we have an indication of impressive speed performance( note the relatively low altitude)
Generaly i agrre that do 335 probably couldnt mix it with late sinlge seat fighters.
As far as Mw50 is concerned is proven beyond any doubt that it added 350-450 Ps to the output of jumo 213A&E and DB 603. Why would be any diferent in Do 335? Is un reasonable to assume that additional 700-900 PS would have positive influenceon Do335s performance?
Jumo 213 with Mw 50 saw extensive combat. Db603 EM was flying on othet prototypes. MW 50 was always intende as standart equipment,
Honestly i cant understand why you dont accept its use.
I dont speak about exotic engines( 213EB J, 603L&LA&N, Jumo 222) I speak about standart equipment of all late war german figthers.

I repeat, Hornet ,Ki 83 , Fw187C were superior .They achieved similar performance with more conventional and reliable methods

Jim, you are missing the point.

Why would be any different in Do 335?

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You can assume as much as you like, but it didn't happen - the Do 335 V7 didn't get anywhere. There's nothing wrong with presuming things that might have happened or were going to happen, but didn't, but do you understand what it is that Aozora and others are pointing out to you? It's nonsense to compare the de Havilland Hornet's figures with the Fw 187C (for example) because the latter did not exist. Do you understand the point I was making?

Hornet, Ki 83, Fw187C were superior. They achieved similar performance with more conventional and reliable methods

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Again, this is what I'm talking about; the Fw 187C was not real, so this entire statement is nonsense.