DBII
Senior Master Sergeant
The poll is for fighters but the Mosquito keeps poping up. Since the Mosquito and B-25 are both twin engine medium bombers, I was wondering everone thoughts. May be a poll for a later time.
DBII
DBII
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
The P-80 was single engined...
koll kitty89 said:I didn't really mean dismiss jets for the comparison, I just meant they were in a whole different league, and had completly different advantages and tradeoffs. DerAdlerIstGelandet, you said yourself: "Save that for a best jet thread. There is allready one but I think it might be dead."
Though if it was truely intended for piston engine fighters only, which the list implies, it should have said that up front.
P-38. Destroyed more Japanese planes in the pacific theater than any other us. fighter and performed well in ground attack duties in Europe.
The only exception was landing, which was all too fast
What was the landing speed of single engines fighters at the time?What was considered "too fast?"
It was one of the top US fighters and one of the best escort fighters of the war. Too bad many were diverted to the pacific theater early on, since by the time the time they began escort duties in Europe, the P-47 with extended range (external tanks) was nearly entering escort duty as well. It would have saved many unescorted B-17s in the early months of the war. Even after this the P-38 required less fuel to obtain the same range as the P-47 even though the Lightning was heavier. The lightning also had advantages over the P-51.
The 1st and 14th FG were in 8th AF late summer 1942 and diverted to Africa in Dec 1942 - could have made a difference in early 1943 and certainly in the early Schweinfurt-Regensburg raids in Aug 43... but the 51 took over the bulk of deep excort beginning in Dec 1943 until the last of the P-38 groups converted in July 1944. The P-47 didn't have the legs to go beyond western Germany until after D-Day.
The P-38 was always slower than the 51B/C/D and H at altitude, but could climb faster and climb higher than the 51
Too bad the high performance aspects of the P-38K weren't combined with the advances in the P-38L for production. The L varient already had uprated engines but needed the larger propellers to take full advantage of this added power. This would have doubtlessly extended its service life, possibly even for use in Korea. (The P-51 was great, but it lacked the toughness and durrabillity of the P-38 and P-47, and though it had good altitude performance, its supercharger was still not as efficeint as the turbos of the other two.)
If the 51 was faster and accelerated faster at altitudes from sea level to 27-30,000 feet, how would that make a difference?
The Germans could really have used the FW-187, it had awesome performance, and excellent range, but as I mentioned previously, politics killed it.
Thanks for the info Bill - I bet the scars are still there from those beatings!The P-38 was one helluva a fighter
Joe - the book said 105mph over the threshold but I was brutally beaten into 110-115 under the theory that you can't 'buy' airspeed there w/o throttle and that was dangerous with flaps at that speed.
The 51 was also a little coltish on a three point - particularly in a cross wind. I kept the butt up for awhile befor dropping tail.