Hellcat vs Spitfire - which would you take?

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All the advantages stated by BiffF15 would still be applicable in a Mark IX or VIII, albiet less pronounced. However, available more than a year before the first Hellcats.
 
GregP said:
I would suggest it wasn't and they weren't. They were not carrier-capable and didn't have range. The Hellcat could turn with a Zero for at least PART of a complete turn and the Spitfire, in most versions, could not.

So ... again, if I were flying from a land base, I might choose a Spitfire or a Hellcat (Hellcat for me and Spitifre for others), but it would be a Hellcat hands down if I were flying from a carrier and needed to go more than a short distance and actually land back aboard.
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The Spitfire had much lower wing loading than the F6F and it could out roll the F6F through most typical combat speed ranges:

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/naca868-rollchart.jpg
 
BiffF15 said:
I think I would pick a Spit Mk14 with the bubble canopy.

Pros:
Spit - faster, lighter, better power to weight ratio, more maneuverable, better visibility
Hellcat - legs, air cooled engine

If the fight requried both aircraft to take off and fly a long distance prior to their engagement then the Hellcat could fight longer. If the fight allowed both to takeoff at light fuel weights then the advantage I would think would go more to the Spit (power to weight would be greater).

Regardless of the altitude the fight starts the lower it goes I think the greater the advantage the Spitfire will have (lighter weight / wing loading) and it should have a speed advantage as well.

Of course this is my opinon but I welcome disenting points of view.

Cheers,
Biff

PS: I think it might be a bit more "even" of a fight between the F8F Bearcat and the late model Spit...
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British tactical trials showed the Spitfire XIV was superior to the Bf 109G and Fw 190A when carrying a 90 UKG drop tank which was half full. I guess this holds true for the Spitfire vs the Hellcat too?
 
OMG! Those last few pages were....... entertaining??!!?? For the record, Wikipedia as a source for your opinion will give you a very, very poor and ultimately wrong opinion! :)

...For carrier based aircraft, only once in WWII was a naval based carrier air group tasked with actually winning air superiority on a permanent basis, and that was off the coast of japan in 1945....
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I'm gonna play Devil's advocate and say you might have missed one, Parsifal!

Trägergruppe 186 was also operational in the early days of the war before finally becoming StG 1. :)
 
parsifal said:
Hellcat always held a range advantage over the Spit, but not by much. In 1945, when the BPF committed Hellcats, Corsairs and Seafire IIIs to the battles off Japan, Hellcats and Corsairs were found to have an effective combat radius of just over 230 miles. Seafires were 175 miles. The Seafire XV, which just missed the war, had comparable range to the Hellcat, whilst the Seafire 47 had greater effective combat radius and endurance to the F6F
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I would think that the Seafire XV was technically feasible for 1943, since the similarly powered Spitfire XII went into service then. Of course there were other considerations and priorities.
 
i dont care what i take off on or from...but i sure do care where i land and i would prefer a long piece of god's green earth to short narrow moving ship that is upteen feet above the water. when you come in all shot up plunking down on a carrier might be impossible and i would perfer to belly in than ditch in the sea. i want firemen, medics, and rescue teams chasing me and reaching me with in a minute or two....rather than inflate my mae west...crawl out ( maybe bleeding in shark infested waters ) and inflate a dingy and wait for that slow boat to reach me... there is no guarentees you are going to come back in as good of shape as you left...or come back at all for that matter.
 
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Njaco said:
OMG! Those last few pages were....... entertaining??!!?? For the record, Wikipedia as a source for your opinion will give you a very, very poor and ultimately wrong opinion! :)



I'm gonna play Devil's advocate and say you might have missed one, Parsifal!

Trägergruppe 186 was also operational in the early days of the war before finally becoming StG 1. :)
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This one youll have to explain Chris. I confess, in the words of my mentor, Sgt Shultz...."I know nothsing"

I looked up felgrau site which gave me this on Tragergruppe 186

Trägergruppe 186

Gruppenkommandeure (I./186):

Maj Walter Hagen, 15.9.39 - 5.7.40
Gruppenkommandeure (II./186):

Maj Walter Hagen, 39 - 15.9.39
Maj Heinrich Seeliger, 15.9.39 - 5.7.40
II./186 was ordered formed 1.8.38 at Bug/Rügen, but was cancelled 22.10.38.

Reformed 1.11.38 in Kiel-Holtenau: 4. (Stuka)/186 with Ju87B, and 6.(Jagd)/186 on 15.11.38 with Bf 109B from 4./JG136.

5.(Jagd)/186 was formed 15.7.39.

On 10.9.39 Stab I (Stuka)/186 was formed in Kiel-Holtenau, together with 1. and 2./186, and 4./186 were renamed 3./186. Stab II (Jagd)/186 was also formed, but the new 4. (Jagd)/186 was not formed until 11.10.39.

Trägergruppe 186 now consisted of the following units:

I. (Stuka)/186 with 1. - 3. Staffeln, Ju 87B
II. (Jagd)/186 with 4. - 6. Staffeln, Bf 109B

On 29.2.40 a new 4./186 was formed from 2./JGr. 101. On 27.6.40 4./186 moved to Köln-Ostheim, and was renamed 3./Erprobungsgruppe 210.

TrGr. 186 was disbanded 5.7.40, I./186 became III./St.G. 1 and II./186 became III./JG77.

If that is correct, what was its mission as a formation?
 
GregP said:
Hey parsifal, where did you find the minimum turn radius for the Spitfire ... or the Hellcat?

I haven't seen those tests and would like to do so.

Thanks!
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Spitfire is easy, Mike Williams has the data, and ive also read in the RAAF combat testing flights dated in 1943.

Hellcat is much harder, and if youve got information, please post. In the meantime I will try and locate the reference for my source.

Both aircraft were manouverable, but you and I are on the opposite sides of the fence, insofar as which was the more manouverable.

Edit

This is not the source of my claim, but it does give some very valuable insights of what the hellcats oponents thought of the Hellcat. The book title is Target: Rabaul: The Allied Siege of Japan's Most Infamous Stronghold, By Bruce Gamble. Warrant Officer Sadumo Komachis account of the power and potency of the Hellcat was particulalry enlightening, but he does maintain the Zeke could still out turn the Hellcat. Its just that the hellcat could hold it for long enough to usually bring down a Zeke that it was chasing.

However the RAAF test actually show that the Spit, at speeds above 300 mph could turn inside of a Zeke.
 
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You are probably right about being on opposite sides of the fence.

Minimum turn radius has everything to do with the strength of the airframe and the excess power. For instance, the airframe might well handle, say. +6 g, but the aircraft might not have enough excess power to stay level in a 6 g turn. If so, then he can stay level at 6 g. If not, he descends to maintain speed and g or backs off on the g's until he CAN stay level. I am under the very strong impression that no WWII fighter aircraft had enough excess power to handle a sustained 6 g turn, and would love to find out I am wrong from some hard data.

So, while I might believe differently from you, I don't really have hard data to argue with.

Therefore, I wanted to read the reports and see for myself. If the data exist, it would be good to have. I'll start digging on it.

Cheers.
 
GregP said:
You are probably right about being on opposite sides of the fence.

Minimum turn radius has everything to do with the strength of the airframe and the excess power. For instance, the airframe might well handle, say. +6 g, but the aircraft might not have enough excess power to stay level in a 6 g turn. If so, then he can stay level at 6 g. If not, he descends to maintain speed and g or backs off on the g's until he CAN stay level. I am under the very strong impression that no WWII fighter aircraft had enough excess power to handle a sustained 6 g turn, and would love to find out I am wrong from some hard data.

So, while I might believe differently from you, I don't really have hard data to argue with.

Therefore, I wanted to read the reports and see for myself. If the data exist, it would be good to have. I'll start digging on it.

Cheers.
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The USN conducted flight trials between the A6M-5 and the F6F-5:

Rolls of the Zeke 52 were equal to those of the F6F-5 at speeds under 200 knots and inferior above that speed, due to high control forces.

The Zeke 52 was greatly superior to the F6F-5 in slow speed turns at low and medium altitudes, its advantage decreasing to about parity at 30,000 ft. In slow speed turns it could gain one turn in 3 and 1/2 at 10,000 ft.
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/japan/ptr-1111.pdf
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Given the low wing loading of the A6M the results were pretty predictable.
 
Njaco said:
OMG! Those last few pages were....... entertaining??!!?? For the record, Wikipedia as a source for your opinion will give you a very, very poor and ultimately wrong opinion! :)
Click to expand...

They were very entertaining. I was thinking of starting a sweepstake on how many posts before USS E got the ban stick but I didnt move fast enough :lol:

Back to the subject did the Seafire III get any boosting for tackling Kamikaze, water or Nitrous would have given a nice kick. I know very little about the Hellcats engines but I believe some versions got water boost.
 
I love both the V-12's and the radial sounds. So. I'm with you on both accounts. My favorite fighters were radials ... unless I happen to be next to a V-12 at the time, then I'm not so sure.

So, I'm one of those guys who never met a high-performance aircraft he didn't like.

As to which turns best or which WAS the best at some mission, it will NEVER be settled, but we ALL want to see them fly anytime was can see it and, better yet, hitch a ride.

I wasn't the biggest P-40 fan unit I got a ride in one. Now I love them! ... and can't wait for the next one.

Call me names.

- Greg
 
GregP said:
I love both the V-12's and the radial sounds. So. I'm with you on both accounts. My favorite fighters were radials ... unless I happen to be next to a V-12 at the time, then I'm not so sure.

So, I'm one of those guys who never met a high-performance aircraft he didn't like.

As to which turns best or which WAS the best at some mission, it will NEVER be settled, but we ALL want to see them fly anytime was can see it and, better yet, hitch a ride.

I wasn't the biggest P-40 fan unit I got a ride in one. Now I love them! ... and can't wait for the next one.

Call me names.

- Greg
Click to expand...

The only name I think that you could be called is "true believer"
 
Don't get me wrong, I certainly appreciate the sound (performance) of a V-12

I had heard many V-12 types, but the one that impressed me most was a Jumo211 on a stand in the back of a machine shop in Santa Ana (Orange County, California), back in 1980. The gentleman that owned it had been a teenager in Czechloslovakia when the Luftwaffe established a base nearby. His love for aircraft and entheusiasm landed him a job as a helper there and over the years learned to be a mechanic and machinist's assistant. So years later, he located and rebuilt a Jumo211 and kept it on a test-stand specially built for the engine.

He fired it up for me one afternoon, and I had never heard anything so raw and powerful sounding before...it was certainly a memorable moment.
 
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