Can we make a slightly smaller Fulmar as an improved carrier fighter?

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Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
yes sorry, my mistake there. But I meant the Seafire ops off Japan. I'm interested in the details. Do you have anything other than what's on Armoured carriers?
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I'm not sure what else you want about this. Armoured Carriers draws heavily on the books I provided details of. "They Gave Me a Seafire" is probably the best first hand account as it was by the CO of 880 squadron on Implacable at the time.

The BPF at this time operated as a fourth task group to the US Fast Carrier Force TF38, mirroring their movements up and down the Japanese coast from 16 July 1945 to the end of the war, striking when they did and replenishishing when they did. Seafire formed over 50% of TF37 fighters and the drop tanks were essential to giving them an offensive role. If you look at the RN ops in July/ Aug 1945 you will see that with these drop tanks the Seafires were able to range all the way to Japan's west coast to strike places like Maizuru. They fought their last aerial combat on the morning of 15 Aug 1945.

If you want more on BPF operations try

The Forgotten Fleet: The Story of the British Pacific Fleet, 1944-45 (World War Two at Sea) eBook : Winton, John: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

The Forgotten Fleet: The Story of the British Pacific Fleet, 1944-45 (World War Two at Sea) eBook : Winton, John: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
www.amazon.co.uk
 
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

I was going to answer the questions here, but it dawned to me that life is too short.
 
I'm well aware they got some use out of Seafires.. eventually, by using external tanks. They ended up using external tanks with almost all fighters. Including Wildcats etc. That doesn't eliminate the problem of having too little internal fuel. It only moderates it a bit. Part of why Seafires could still operate over Japan with big external tanks on is that there were almost no Japanese fighters left by the time they were operating there. All of which is pretty obvious though I'm still patient enough to point it out.
 

The post war Mk IV and subsequent variants had the 2 stage Griffon.

Similarly powered Seafires (45, 46, 47) were ~90mph - 100mph faster.
 
Firefly F1 performance and range:

Performance:
(Clean) Max speed:
284 mph (457 km/h) at sealevel,
273 mph (439 km/h) at 3,500 ft (1 O70 m),
319 mph (513km/h) at 17, 000 ft (5 180 m).

with two 90 Imp gal 409L drop tanks):
:257 mph 413 km/h) at sea level,
:266 mph (428 km/h) at 3,500 ft(1 070 m),
:288 mph (463 km/h) at 17,000 ft(5 180 m);

climb (normal climb rating):
(at 12,200 1b/5 534 k g) to 5,000 ft (1 525 m), 2:5 min
:to 10,000 ft (3 050 m), 5:75 min
:to 15000ft, 10:48min (Friedman)
:to 20000ft, 12.4min (RAE Testing at 11830lb from Mason, Secret Years)

range
: internal fuel with allowances for warmup, TO and climb) 774 miles(1245 km) at 233 mph (375 km/h)

: with two 45 Imp gal/204.5L drop tanks), 1,088 mls (1750 km) at 207 mph (33 km/h)

: with two 90 Imp gal/409L drop tanks), 1,364 mls 2 195 km) at 204 mph (328 km/h

From Wings of the Navy. Friedman states that the above performance included a load of 8 RPs.

By 1945 max combat boost was increased and max speed clean was ~325mph at 14k ft.
 
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No fighter other than the Spitfire MkXIV can fight with external tanks, no pilot would ever go into a fight with drop tanks still attached so I don't understand the question.
 
PAT303 said:
No fighter other than the Spitfire MkXIV can fight with external tanks, no pilot would ever go into a fight with drop tanks still attached so I don't understand the question.
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That is not entirely the case - A6M pilots fought with drop tanks on routinely. Pilots of many other types of aircraft also did sometimes.

But that isn't the point I was making. The glaringly obvious point is that a very small internal fuel capacity (relevant to fuel burn) cannot be overcome by just adding large external tanks. Precisely because you have to drop the tanks, in most planes, under most circumstances, to engage in combat with enemy aircraft. If your internal fuel is very limited, and you have flown out beyond your normal operating range, you very likely won't have enough fuel to fight and still get back to base.

If it wasn't for this unfortunate fact nobody would have ever bothered with putting more internal fuel capacity in aircraft like the Spitfire (which they certainly did do, at least to some extent) or the various other combat aircraft used during the war. It's certainly much easier to put an external tank or two on the outside of an aircraft than to increase the internal fuel capacity.
 

It might not be that simple. Or if it was, I'm sure they'd had done it for both the Merlin and the Griffon (they did slightly increase the max rpm when they developed the Kestrel into the Peregrine, both of which had somewhat lower MPS than the later engines). The 51L engine above with a stroke of 188mm would have a MPS of 18.8 m/s at 3000 rpm, and 17.2 m/s at 2750 rpm. But perhaps you're right that the understanding of materials and engine design had improved so that a modest MPS increase over the Merlin/Griffon could be done.

For comparison, the Jumo 213 had a MPS of 17.9 m/s at 3250 rpm, and the 213J 20.4 m/s at 3700 rpm. But as impressive as the 213J was, it was only a prototype, unclear how well it would have held up in service. Then again, the engine conking out after 20h would perhaps have been the least of LW's worries in 1945..
 
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