British escort fighter--what might it have been like?

tomo pauk · Nov 21, 2022

Shortround6 said:
We do have to be careful about what altitudes we are talking about.
Yes once the British got 100 octane fuel they could get 1310hp out of a Merlin.
2 problems,
1, that was at 9000ft. at 16,250ft it was still a 1030hp engine, even with 100 octane fuel. Official up-rating was March of 1940. Obvouly they had doing testing much earlier.
2. The Climb rating took a while to upgraded. They allowed 2850rpm when climbing for combat conditions in the summer of 1940. RR lists 2600rpm and 6 1/4lbs of boost for 30 minute climb. The 2850rpm limit below 20,000ft and 3000rpm above 20,000ft have the same limitations as the 12lbs of boost. Every use of these climb ratings must be reported upon landing and an entry made in the engine log book.
Take-off power rating was never changed.

Topic is escort fighters. That means they are already done with their taking off and climb to the desired altitude (16-17 kft for the Merlin III powered A/C?). What matters, once they are in enemy airspace, or in a contested airspace, is that they can fight the enemy fighter there. Merlin is a go-to engine for that, as early as 1938.
100 oct fuel helps if the combat descended towards lower altitudes, 10000-15000 ft.

Shortround6 said:
And since these radial engine Hawks showed about 20-22% increase in drag over the P-40 with the Allison what are these 1200hp engines at sea level actually getting you?
Same for the R-2600. 1400 HP @ 2400 rpm at 10800.
Once we figure in the extra drag and the difference in altitude the R-2600 is giving us just about 22% more power than the C-15 long nose Allison (not counting exhaust thrust)

I have mentioned the turbo helping out for a reason.
Experience with A-20 shows that brute force is/was a good replacement for finesse. The 1040 HP C-15 was not a thing in 1939 in-service; from 'Vee's for victory',pg 112:
... the P-40's (sic!) entered service with 950 bhp rating [in July 17, 1940], though this was to change within a year when the Allison 1040 bhp rating was approved.

pbehn · Nov 21, 2022

Shortround6 said:
A lot of claims being made.
On both sides.

US army may have been guilty on the P-51. The manual says to burn off 30 gallons out of the rear tank after take off. Then switch to the drop tanks if fitted. Then switch to the wing tanks ( keeping the plane in balance) and then go back to rear tank for the reserve and landing.
This is a post war manual so they had plenty of time to figure it out.

Flying high powered fighters with less than stellar stall behavior was always tricky.

I thought it was just flag waving nonsense TBH. The rear fuselage tank was added to give extra range, any instability caused goes with that territory, it wasnt the original design but added after a client request. Take that tank out and the Mustang or P-51 still has more range than all others on internal fuel at the time.

Shortround6 · Nov 21, 2022

tomo pauk said:
Experience with A-20 shows that brute force is/was a good replacement for finesse. The 1040 HP C-15 was not a thing in 1939 in-service; from 'Vee's for victory',pg 112:
... the P-40's (sic!) entered service with 950 bhp rating [in July 17, 1940], though this was to change within a year when the Allison 1040 bhp rating was approved.

It was and it wasn't. It was designed/developed to be a 1040hp engine.
However they kept breaking the engine on the test stand. (Test stand may have been partially at fault). There was also a problem with the Army wanting to rate the engine at 1090hp at 13,2 instead of the 1040hp at 14.3 (?). At any rate they de-rated the engine by restricting the engine to 2770rpm (which also slowed down the impeller) and the army accepted the engines with the understanding that Allison would bring the delivered engines up to the contract performance at Allison's expense. Which Allison did reworking over 270 engines in the fall of 1940 and the spring of 1941. It required new crankcases and new crankshafts.
Please note that the engines were failing in the late stages of the test and the US was the only nation that was using a 150 hour test.
The Early British P-40s never got the upgraded engines although later ones did.
Test stand was modified for better vibration adsorption.

tomo pauk · Nov 21, 2022

Shortround6 said:
It was and it wasn't. It was designed/developed to be a 1040hp engine.

A distinction between the terms "designed/developed" and "in-service" is rather obvious.

33k in the air · Nov 21, 2022

Macandy said:
And then of course we have the B-29, dates from 1939 - incorporating technology, mass produced technology, that no other combatant ever successfully developed, let alone mass produced.

The first prototype didn't take to the air until 21 Sept. 1942. It didn't enter combat until 5 June 1944, which is some 20.5 months after the prototype's first flight.

(The above is better than the B-32, whose prototype first flew on 7 Sept. 1942, and entered combat on 29 May 1945, some 32.7 months later.)

don4331 · Nov 21, 2022

Isn't the answer to a British escort fighter, a light twin = Westland Whirlwind.

L6844, 1st flew October, '38 - we can pull that in by having RR substitute a pair of Kestrels (and bolting 100lb lead/side on engine bearers) and expediting landing gear.
Kestrel comes in un-supercharged form, so with relative ease, RR can build a reverse rotation engine, so RAE can test and determine that "handed" engines aren't required.
My proposed Whirlwind Mk. 0 can have 8 x 0.303" weapons egg, while production for Hispano is ramped up. Allows RAF to train pilots on plane pre-war.

Whirlwind Mk. II with 50% more fuel than historic Mk.I (27 gal forward and 35 gal aft fuselage tanks as proposed by Petter) gets 450 mile combat radius.

Historic, Whirlibombers carried 2 - 500lb bombs = 75 gal drop tanks for another 200+ miles range.

RAF had a plane; they just didn't develop it.

PAT303 · Nov 21, 2022

Macandy said:
Hint, Ford was an American company using the best US practice.

Ford UK was an independent company from Ford America, Hint, Ford's two most well known performance cars, the Ford GT Cobra and the Ford GT40 were English cars, totally designed and built in England, yes the Americans has production capacity but their aircraft/engines were 2-3 years behind Europe.

PAT303 · Nov 21, 2022

Macandy said:
And always forgotten that until it burned off a fair chunk of its huge fuel load, a Mustang was a dangerous beast that killed plenty of unwary pilots in take off accidents.

And the finest fighters of all time didn't kill a huge number of it's pilots in take off and landing accidents?????

PAT303 · Nov 21, 2022

Macandy said:
Design spec let in 1938 and manufactured using techniques the much vaunted Germans never even though of.

Like what?.

don4331 · Nov 21, 2022

PAT303 said:
Ford UK was an independent company from Ford America, Hint, Ford's two most well known performance cars, the Ford GT Cobra and the Ford GT40 were English cars, totally designed and built in England, yes the Americans has production capacity but their aircraft/engines were 2-3 years behind Europe.

Isn't it AC Cobra (or may be Shelby Cobra); certainly not Ford Cobra.

Add original GT40 is a Lola Mk. 6

Both very British, just not Fords (Although both powered by Ford).

Add Cosworth Formula 1 v-8 to well known British Fords

GrauGeist · Nov 21, 2022

The AC Cobra was made by Auto Carriers of Britain (hence the AC).

33k in the air · Nov 21, 2022

PAT303 said:
And the finest fighters of all time didn't kill a huge number of it's pilots in take off and landing accidents?????

I remember hearing similar claims about the F4U Corsair (one of its nicknames purportedly being 'Ensign Eliminator') and the B-26 Marauder ('Two a day in Tampa Bay').

The question is separating the mythology from the reality.

Shortround6 · Nov 21, 2022

P-36/Hawk 75 had a higher than expected accident rate.
P-40/Tomahawk started out high. It was solved (somewhat) by training. They both tended to ground loop.
The Pilots manual needs a little reading between the lines.
They were using the P-40s as transitional trainers in 1943. Manuel says if the student pilots (disappointed they weren't going to fly P-38s or P-47s or P-51s) could fly a P-40 then they would have no trouble flying anything else. Kind of a left handed complement.

Now was the problem with the P-51s or was the problem transitioning from AT-6s to P-51s?

PAT303 · Nov 21, 2022

don4331 said:
Isn't it AC Cobra (or may be Shelby Cobra); certainly not Ford Cobra.

Add original GT40 is a Lola Mk. 6

Both very British, just not Fords (Although both powered by Ford).

Add Cosworth Formula 1 v-8 to well known British Fords

Ford paid for it via their racing program but yes you are right, the Cobra was made by AC ACE cars in England and shipped to the US to Shelby American to fit Ford V8 engines, and the GT 40 is indeed the Lola Mk6, funny enough the Mk6 which used the Cosworth V8 was faster than the Ford powered car but they were not allowed to run it once the GT 40 program started.

PAT303 · Nov 21, 2022

33k in the air said:
I remember hearing similar claims about the F4U Corsair (one of its nicknames purportedly being 'Ensign Eliminator') and the B-26 Marauder ('Two a day in Tampa Bay').

The question is separating the mythology from the reality.

Corsair loses explained

This is listed on Wiki for the Corsair loses By aerial combat: 189 By enemy ground and ship-board anti-aircraft fire: 349 Operational losses during combat missions: 230 Operational losses during non-combat flights: 692 Destroyed aboard ships or on the ground: 164 Aerial combat is easy to...

ww2aircraft.net

The Corsair became a great aircraft but it took a lot of time and work to get it there. As for the P51, both it and the Spitfire required level wings and gentle climb out with rear tanks full and both were forbidden to enter combat with more than 36G of fuel left in them.

33k in the air · Nov 21, 2022

PAT303 said:
The Corsair became a great aircraft but it took a lot of time and work to get it there.. As for the P51, both it and the Spitfire required level wings and gentle climb out with rear tanks full and both were forbidden to enter combat with more than 36G of fuel left in them.

Which has nothing to do with what I was responding to:

PAT303 said:
And the finest fighters of all time didn't kill a huge number of it's pilots in take off and landing accidents?????

Feel free to post the relevant data so we can make proper comparisons to other aircraft.

wuzak · Nov 21, 2022

PAT303 said:
Ford paid for it via their racing program but yes you are right, the Cobra was made by AC ACE cars in England and shipped to the US to Shelby American to fit Ford V8 engines, and the GT 40 is indeed the Lola Mk6, funny enough the Mk6 which used the Cosworth V8 was faster than the Ford powered car but they were not allowed to run it once the GT 40 program started.

The AC Ace was the model on which the Cobra was built.

The Ford GT (It was never officially the GT40) debuted in 1964. At raced at Le Mans in 1964 and 1965 before winning 1966 - 1969.

The Cosworth DFV debuted in 1967.

wuzak · Nov 21, 2022

don4331 said:
Isn't the answer to a British escort fighter, a light twin = Westland Whirlwind.

L6844, 1st flew October, '38 - we can pull that in by having RR substitute a pair of Kestrels (and bolting 100lb lead/side on engine bearers) and expediting landing gear.
Kestrel comes in un-supercharged form, so with relative ease, RR can build a reverse rotation engine, so RAE can test and determine that "handed" engines aren't required.
My proposed Whirlwind Mk. 0 can have 8 x 0.303" weapons egg, while production for Hispano is ramped up. Allows RAF to train pilots on plane pre-war.

Whirlwind Mk. II with 50% more fuel than historic Mk.I (27 gal forward and 35 gal aft fuselage tanks as proposed by Petter) gets 450 mile combat radius.

Historic, Whirlibombers carried 2 - 500lb bombs = 75 gal drop tanks for another 200+ miles range.

RAF had a plane; they just didn't develop it.

Whirlwind with Kestrels would lack performance.

I am not sure why unsupercharged engines would make converting to reverse rotation easier?

PAT303 · Nov 21, 2022

wuzak said:
The AC Ace was the model on which the Cobra was built.

The Ford GT (It was never officially the GT40) debuted in 1964. At raced at Le Mans in 1964 and 1965 before winning 1966 - 1969.

The Cosworth DFV debuted in 1967.

If you read Keith Duckworths book he talks about the Lola Mk6 being faster and lighter with a cosworth V8, I can't remember what one because I'm away from home, part of the deal with Ford was that the Mk6 couldn't be run at Le Mans.

PAT303 · Nov 21, 2022

33k in the air said:
Feel free to post the relevant data so we can make proper comparisons to other aircraft.

There's plenty of evidence, simply look at the non combat related losses compared to combat loses.

British escort fighter--what might it have been like?

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