renrich
Chief Master Sergeant
According to my source, "The Great Book of WW2 Airplanes," the first Hamps were encountered by the Allies in October, 1942, over the Solomon Islands. The AVG had essentially ceased to exist in July, 1942.
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According to my source, "The Great Book of WW2 Airplanes," the first Hamps were encountered by the Allies in October, 1942, over the Solomon Islands. The AVG had essentially ceased to exist in July, 1942.
"Who fricken cares about a single pilot shooting down many aircraft with a specific type. In the end it only proves he was a good pilot, but it says nothing about the aircraft or which one is better."
I can't see how this is a valid point. The aircraft and the pilot work as a team, like a horse and rider. You put Hartmann in a Storch against and mediocre Allied pilot in a P-47 and Hartmann won't last very long. As I said earlier, the worlds best aircraft is just another sitting duck without a pilot.
As for the P-40 shooting down AM6, I think a couple P-40's shot down a few during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
"Who fricken cares about a single pilot shooting down many aircraft with a specific type. In the end it only proves he was a good pilot, but it says nothing about the aircraft or which one is better."
I can't see how this is a valid point. The aircraft and the pilot work as a team, like a horse and rider. You put Hartmann in a Storch against and mediocre Allied pilot in a P-47 and Hartmann won't last very long. As I said earlier, the worlds best aircraft is just another sitting duck without a pilot.
I think the AVG still referred to the type 96 and 97 as Zeros since they resembled the same carrier based version the A5M claude.
They also encountered ki-44 and 43.
The bulk of their kills appear to be Oscars, Nates and Sallys.
I wonder what Erich Schillings rather descriptive encounters with "Zeros" refers to.
FlyboyJ I thought the Zero went Model 11, 21, 32, 22, 52, etc. The first number the airframe/anciliaries mod, second one the engine mod.
Initial A6M2 then Model 11 no carrier gear about 50 made for service trials.
Model 21 was fitted with carrier gear, that's the airframe modification for the new model designation. Several hundred built and initial carrier version.
Model 32 cut the wingtips (just a removal of the folding tips), lowered internal tankage (for balance) and upgraded the engine, they were meant for land based operation but kept carrier gear. Both numbers changed.
At the end of 43 fields in Rabaul were putting the wing tips back on their Model 32 so making them Model 22, also a Hamp.
I've heard it said directly the Hamp was intended as a land based Zero specific to operations like the Solomons (not necessarily that one specifically but for stations like that and as a quick and easy land based navy interceptor ready for production). That would infer the first dedicated update of the Zero specifically for carrier operations was the Model 52, which actually isn't a bad plane once they introduced armour and water injection in 1944 production, but it should have had those in 43 and suffered the operational range hit for better mission survivability.
Again, think about it....
Alright I did think about....
Take the P-40M-15-CU (last version used in Europe)
~ six .50's
~ Allison V-1710-81 - 1,200hp
~ max speed 360mph @ 15,000ft
~ cruise speed 290mph
~ rate of climb 2,050ft/min
~ ceiling 30,000
~ combat range 700 miles
~ wing loading of 36lb/sqft
compare it to the Standard Me 109G-6
~ 2xMG 131 machine guns one 2cm or 3cm engine mounted cannon
~ DB 605ABM - 1,475ps
~ max speed 390mph @ 16,000ft
~ cruise speed 340mph
~ rate of climb 2,850ft/min
~ ceiling of 36,000ft
~ combat range 550 miles
~ wing loading of 40lb/sqft
Nevermind the G-5/AS or G-6/AS which was considerably faster w/ greater rates of climb. These 109's were up at 25,000ft engaging B-17/24 when the P-40M was for the most part ground strafing and bombing soft targets.. hence its 'other' nickname the B-40. You can compare the 109G-2/4 to the P-40K, the 109F to the P-40F/E (timeline wise) with simular results. Yah the P-40 did alright in N.Africa, but came up short to its rival. Seems the only advantage the P-40 had in the desert was when it met the 109, the Luftwaffe was usually outnumbered. The P-40 was a great handling a/c that could out turn a 109 at slower speeds.. but the 109 had the speed advantage. Speed = Life.
They would have been different, like much worse.
Just because a plane has a radiator located under or behind the cockpit does NOT mean it was like the Mustang's radiator setup. Production P-40s (long noses) had the radiator in the 3rd position tried. There are story's that the nose/chin radiator was done because of the sales/marketing department. However all configurations were test flown and the highest speeds were achieved with the nose/chin radiator like the production model had. The Speed difference was around 20mph. The Army engineering dept had told Allison that the type of reduction gear used on the 'long nose' engine was suspect even before it went into production. They were proved right ( there were reduction gear failures) so this 'problem' can NOT be laid at the Army Air Corps door step.
Curtis is "supposed" to have sold the radiator design to North American for use in the Mustang, if this is true they much have sold all rights to it because no Curtiss ever used that design. Not the P-46, or the P-55 or any of the liquid cooled P-60s or any of the several modified P-40s in experimental programs.
See: http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/5160/xp4011.jpg
or find the XP-40K that used radiators and oil coolers in a thicker than normal wing center section which was different that the radiator set up used in the P-40Q.
The original P-40 was tested in the Full size wind tunnel at Langley because it was NOT performing up to expectations. Of course to some people this means that Langley (and/or the Air Corp) ruined the P-40 like they did the P-39. Of course the fact that not only was this the ONLY full sized wind tunnel in the country ignored but so is the fact that if either company even had a tunnel it was the size of a bread box.
In my reading, the P-40 was never designed to fly higher than 15,000ft.
Only if the A6M or Me 109's were 17,000ft below the P-40.Quite often pilots admit it was used in situations it wasn't designed for, aka, taking on A6M or 109s from 27,000ft.
The P-39, -40 -51 have had about equal wing loading, so at the end it was all about the capability of the engine to produce more power at high altitude.