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I like the D.520 naval variant. Of all the European in-line-powered single-engine fighters intended/modified for carriers (Seafire, Sea Hurricane, Fulmar, Firefly, Bf 109T, Reggiane Re.2001), I'd say the folding wing D.790 as it was continually developed would have been only second to the later folding wing Seafire or later Firefly.
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Images courtesy of DEWOITINE D.790
Which they could not make post war. Also please look at what the Swiss did to get comparable power during/after the war. It took the Swiss until 1943 (?) to reliably get the rated power out of their engines.The VG 33 also looks very good, and especially some of the later variants (assuming they could really make the engines produce that much power, which they seemed confident they could
Don't confuse heroic/desperate crews with promising aircraft.They had the very promising Breuget 693 fast / light bomber
The Defiant worked real good too, twice.I don't fully grasp the strange Latecore 298 float plane torpedo bomber seemed to be pretty good in actual service.
Which they could not make post war. Also please look at what the Swiss did to get comparable power during/after the war. It took the Swiss until 1943 (?) to reliably get the rated power out of their engines.
Don't confuse heroic/desperate crews with promising aircraft.
Used the same engines as the German HS 129, in fact some them may have been the same engines taken off of Breuget 693s.
Figures given on Wiki do not seem to match the text. Range is given as 840 miles but the text says they did not have to range to evacuate to North Africa and is roughly 500 miles from the south coast of France to Algiers?
Using two 14 cylinder engines to carry the same forward firing armament as the MS 406 is a rather French thing to do. How promising it is???
The Defiant worked real good too, twice.
Trying to draw conclusions from a very limited number of engagements is difficult.
In 1945-46-47 and even later, the French and Italians and British were all scrabbling for any sort of foreign trade. They were trying to sell anything they could cobble together. And cobble is pretty much accurate as most of the French and Italian factories have been bombed or fought over in land battles. Prewar workers were gone (some returned?). France was actually trying to sell Jumo 213s seeing as how the Germans had left a production line there in 1944. Also Argus V-12 air cooled engines.Postwar interest in piston engines had waned a great deal, for smaller engines even more so, and if you did want an engine, you could get a Merlin pretty cheap.
Switzerland had 4 million people just before WW2, France had 42 million. And a lot more money, experts, factory space, raw materials from overseas colonies, and every other kind of resource you can think of.
I don't know for sure they could make the power they believed they could, but if you look at what happened in the late 1930s, the power of the much maligned 12-Y, even with intermittent funding and very bad management, increased along a fairly predictable curve, going from 800 hp in 1934 to 1,000 hp in 1936. In 1939 alone the D.520 went from a 922 hp 12Y-45 to a 950 hp 12Y-46, and by June 1940 they were just completing trials with an 1,100 hp 12Y-51 with some kind of improved supercharger.
Gnome Rhone had some issues.. These are tiny aircraft, definitely smaller than a Hurricane (even though slightly wider wing span). A 300 mph strike aircraft, with a 700 mile range, cannon armament and a 1,000 lb bomb load in 1940 definitely has potential as a design. Objectively. And all this with 700 hp engines. Gnome Rhone may not be your favorite but they could have improved the power on those. The Breuget 693 also weighed 1,000 kg less than an HS 129 (and was 50 mph faster0 so I don't think it's an apt comparison.
Define series.The Gnome Rhone 14M wasn't the only engine they made in this series.
Se above.The GR 14N which was in the Bloch 152, and had a second row of cylinders, produced almost double the power (1,180 hp) for an additional 200 lbs or so,
You forgot the Soviet M-85 (?) though M-88 series but that shows us the difference between license built and "the basis for".The Gnome Rhone 14K was the basis for the IAR K14 which powered the IAR 80 fighter, and the Piaggio P.XI which powered the SM.79 and the Re 2000, all successful aircraft. And all producing around 1,000 - 1,200 hp.