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It certainly did, as long as the fighter got its targets handed to it, but AFAIK those early radars were pretty much fire control within a fairly narrow cone, but didn't have much wide angle search capability. Not like the ones I worked with in the 70s that had a search pattern 120° wide and 60° tall and detection range in excess of 300 miles and could lock up a fighter sized target nearly 150 miles out. It could also fry deck apes and set off pyrotechnics if someone ran BIT checks and let it slip out of standby without the dummy load on the antenna.
Cheers,
Wes
Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Remember that when de Havilland proposed his unarmed bomber specification..............
APQ72 and AWG10 in various versions of the F4. Remember, it was designed as a fleet defense interceptor to counter stand-off missile equipped attackers and be able to operate with little or no airborne or surface radar support. I locked up a P3 at 100+ miles from an F4J at 25K ft while he was at low level over the Dry Tortugas, and I'm not a trained operator, just a simulator tech.Wes,
What radar had 150 mile locks on fighters in the 70s?
Biff
British bomber development, at least to my eyes (I don't have the benefit of air ministry memo's) seems to have been a sort of order everything on the menu, throw it at the wall and see what sticks.
A bit harsh but consider from Jan 1935 to Oct 1939 the RAF had placed in service or flown prototypes of of aircraft that would later enter production 18 different "bomber" aircraft.
If your "normal fighter" is a short range British interceptor it certainly won't do it, no matter how many of its hard points are plumbed for fuel.As for long range fighters, both the British and the Americans (to say nothing of other countries) made the mistake of approaching the problem with the mindset that a "normal" fighter simply couldn't do it.
If your "normal fighter" is a short range British interceptor it certainly won't do it, no matter how many of its hard points are plumbed for fuel.
As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, you can't carry more dropable fuel than internal if you expect to make it home from every mission. So turning a 150 mile radius fighter into a 300 mile escort bird still leaves a lot to be desired.
Cheers,
Wes
It started with a bigger standard fuel tankage, then it could carry a fairly large extra rear internal tank, then it could also carry (eventually) a huge external load. But even that isn't the secret to its success, its lower drag while cruising meant it needed less fuel than a Spitfire for any given range. For a Spitfire to match a Mustang on range it needed to be made of petrol with no pilot lol. The P-47 was much bigger and carried much more fuel but also used much more.On this train of thought did the Mustang require loaded external tanks in order to put fuel in the fuselage tank?
I'm interested in what allowed the Mustang to be able to carry so much fuel as compared to its contemporaries. I understand the lower drag allowed for higher cruise speed and better MPG.
Cheers,
Biff
On this train of thought did the Mustang require loaded external tanks in order to put fuel in the fuselage tank?
I'm interested in what allowed the Mustang to be able to carry so much fuel as compared to its contemporaries. I understand the lower drag allowed for higher cruise speed and better MPG.
Cheers,
Biff
On this train of thought did the Mustang require loaded external tanks in order to put fuel in the fuselage tank?
I'm interested in what allowed the Mustang to be able to carry so much fuel as compared to its contemporaries. I understand the lower drag allowed for higher cruise speed and better MPG.
Cheers,
Biff
The Mustang started with 180 US gallons in the wing tanks, perhaps a legacy of trying to build a better P-40 (about 160 gallons in the version being built when pencil was put to paper in designing the P-51) , as Tomo has said, a lot of this had to do with size and shape of the wing (and putting the landing gear forward of the front spar).
Even if the plane was not really flyable (hard maneuvers) with 85 gallons in the rear tank it certainly was with 30-55 gallons.
Now the Mustang were not operating from the 500-750 yard pea patches many prewar fighters were operating from which allows for long take-offs and climb outs.
The change in supercharger gears on the engines used in the Ds allowed for 1490hp at take-off vs the 1380hp of the B & C.
Size, layout, and propulsive efficiency which required less fuel to begin with. North American managed to corral all the variables into a "sweet spot", a knack which they displayed repeatedly in those days prior to their post-Hun decline. Somehow the Vigilante, the Bone, and their various forays into General Aviation never quite captured the simplicity, elegance, and efficiency of their earlier efforts. (Bob Hoover's Shrike Commander excepted!)Also why did the Mustang have so much room for fuel as compared to its contemporaries on either side?
SR6,
Thanks for the reply. If I'm to understand you the P51 BCD models could takeoff without drop tanks but with a full fuselage tank? I'm trying to determine fuels effects on C/G, or allowances.
Also why did the Mustang have so much room for fuel as compared to its contemporaries on either side?
Cheers,
Biff
This was in very late 1941 or very early 1942 which is a bit late to plan a massive production schedule and bomber campaign around.
Notice the lack of Soviet 'strategic bombers'. This was because the SU wasn't convinced that this 'bombing the civilians' into submission idea would ever work.
Followed by the Spanish Civil War and the realisation that it wouldn't work.Actually, the "bombing the whoever into submission" was integral part of the Soviet military doctrine for quite long time. Massive fleet of TB-3 have been built not just for parades. Strategic bombing force of the USSR has been probably the largest in the world until the WWII. Articles, books and movies of 1930s entertained the ideas of large bombing raids deep into the enemy territory.
Followed by the Spanish Civil War and the realisation that it wouldn't work.
I understand the lower drag allowed for higher cruise speed and better MPG.
The question I have is, did all the design choices that resulted in less drag, effective cooling thrust, more fuel volume availability, better compressibility performance, etc, result from a coherent attempt to build a better P40, or were they a string of happy coincidences, where one choice more or less led to the next? The last, of course being the right engine for the eventual role.the Mustang was not specifically designed as an escort fighter for the RAF, but a replacement for NAA being tasked with building the P-40 for the British Purchasing Commission