OK, only you do understand ALL FC airfields had switched over to 100 octane, don't you?
Where is the evidence?
From the 7th December 1939 memo:
It goes on to list operational stations.
No, it doesn't list 'operational stations', it mentions
18 operational stations that are
proposed to be supplied with 100 octane. Not all. Just 18 (later they appear to have added 2-3 stations to that list though).
Hmmm... weren't the plan was to equip 16+2 Squadrons with 100 octane fuel. Of course it was. Coincidence? No.
It is a proposal in December 1939, and we do not know how much of it was actually materialized, yet you state it as a fact that not only these stations were supplied with 100 octane fuel, but in fact all the others.
Pure fantasy, without evidence. Of course you have been stating the same for the last 8 years, without evidence, just as you keep repeating it now.
So all lower grades of fuel were to be removed from operational stations, and replaced with 100 octane.
No, it was only proposed to be removed from
eighteen selected fighter stations.
How much clearer can it be?
Its quite clear actually. The RAF wanted to equip 16 single engined fighter Squadrons and 2 Blenheim Squadrons with 100 octane fuel.
There is no mention in any document that on the subject this quantity was revised.
You claim it was revised, and all Fighter Squadrons were supplied with it, but you cannot produce ANY evidence to that.
Yeah?
Why are his facts so badly out, then?
They are not. Yours are, OTOH, and are without evidence.
Why, after more than 4 years, has he yet to post anything to back his claims up?
Probably because in the last four years you have never actually asked him to do so, you only keep spreading your accusations behind his back..
And, as he is generally considered to be credible person without a personal agenda in the matter, nobody actually to doubted his word.
He has given his references, and that satisfies everyone, well, everyone except Neil, Mikey, and Hoppie. But I guess the reason for that is obvious, isn't it?
Let's look at some of the "facts":
We know the stocks as at 3rd September were 153,000 tons from Gavin Bailey. So we are expected to believe 150,000 tons arrived in the 3 months before war broke out? An average of 50,000 tons a month
I think you don't actually understand the difference between
facts and
speculation. Yours above is just specualtion, and even for that, its a poor one, as it leads to nowhere.
It proves nothing, except that you have doubts. Feel free to have them.
We know for a fact that 100 octane allowed boost pressure to increase from 6.25 to 12 lbs, not 9.
We know for a fact that you are making this up and in fact documentation shows that at some time, +9 lbs was the limit for the Combat regime, even with 100 octane fuel. Take a look at the Spitfire II manual below. It says all out level, 5 mins limit, +9lbs, 3000 rpm. Not +12, that was only cleared
for takeoff up to 1000 feet or 3 mins).
Of course that's the initial rating - later on the 'Combat' limit was raised to +12. That's exactly what our Australian source noted, despite your pathethic attempt to misconstruct his words:
'This initial increase in maximum boost from 6 lb to 9 lb delivered a useful power growth of around 130hp at the rated altitude.'
Of course you were shown that document many times already, and you are already fully aware of this, yet you repeat the same.. for many times now.
BTW, care to comment why all Spitfire manuals produced in the period (summer 1940) are always mentioning two seperate maximum boosts - one when using 87 octane fuel, and one when using 100 octane fuel? If the latter was soooooooooo standard at the time?
Right. Only look at the documents we've seen from the second quarter.
Stock at 31st March 1940 - 220,000 tons
Due in by the end of the year - 383,000 tons
With a Spitfire using at most a quarter of a ton per sortie, and the RAF's peak fighter sortie rate of 5,000 a week, that's a maximum of about 1,250 tons a week, or about 63,000 tons in an entire year. That means stock was enough for over 3 years, and the next 9 months were expected to see another 5+ years supply come in.
Well, at least in your opinion, which is based on an extremely amatourish estimation that takes into account on combat sorties and ignores everything else, including the fuel requirements of the two Blenheim Squdrons using 100 octane fuel, training flights, servicing flights, running in the engine and so on.
Curiously, when the RAF decided to convert the 2nd TAF Spitfires to 150 grade fuel - with about 1000 aircraft (but it appears that it only effected about 500 Spitfires in it, ie. much fighters less than what FC had in 1940 - they estimated the avarage monthly consumption as
20 000 tons. Per month.
Now, you are telling us that some 1000+ fighters could do with 20 000 tons for 3 months in 1940, but oddly enough, in 1945, 500 fighters required the same amount for a single month...?
And we are expected to believe they were worried about lack of supply?
They certainly were, after all, it is well documented. After all, they wanted to convert all operational aircraft in August, and consumption shows nothing of that actually materialized. All the documentations are clearly tie proposed changed in consumption to the expected shipments.
Right, so in May the position is so bad they have to halt the conversion of Fighter Command, and yet at the beginning of August the position is so good they can convert the whole of the RAF?
Apparently. Lets not forget, the Australian source is apparently from the same one as the in the PRO. But I do wonder, why is only tidbits of it are present on Mike's site, hmm?
Is it the same thing than when he waved about a graph showing the performance of the Spit XIV at +25, claiming, as well as you did, that it was in service with that boost?
Years after that, the complete document containing that graph turned up, and its text said they couldn't even finish the trials with the aircraft, because at +25 lbs boost the engine failed almost immidiately, and other papers repeatedly noted bearing troubles at the said boost?
Especially when you see they didn't have to "discover" new supplies, they had them on order.
Certainly. The only trouble was that it was on the far side of the world, and had to be taken in by tankers, under the eyes of U boots and the Luftwaffe's bombers.
And the other reason I don't believe what he posted was a quote of an official document? The language isn't right. There is no way an official report from 1940 has language like "Two actions were immediately undertaken by the British War Cabinet in May to resolve the looming crisis."
Well he never actually stated it was a direct quote, I think it was pretty clear for everyone at the time that he was summerizing the contents of the documents he found.
But, why don't you just go to the National Archieves, dig up AVIA 10/282, take shots of it and post the whole thing in its entirety, if it would prove your point?
Why doesn't Mike or Neil? Because it would say the same as the summary by our Australian source?
Perhaps for the same reason Mike quotes Gavin Bailey's article in tidbits, though,
but not the part when Bailey's actually noting that the 100 octane conversion programme effected 16 fighter squadrons only - thats not relevant eh..?
Bailey:
"RAF tests with 100-octane had begun in 1937, but clearance for operational use was withheld as stocks were built up. In March 1939, the Air Ministry decided to introduce 100-octane fuel into use with sixteen fighter and two twin-engined bomber squadrons by September 1940, when it was believed that the requirement to complete the war reserve stock would have been met, with the conversion of squadrons beginning at the end of 1939.34
By the time war broke out, the available stocks of aviation fuel had risen to 153,000 tons of 100-octane and 323,000 tons of other grades (mostly 87-octane).35 The actual authorisation to change over to 100-octane came at the end of February 1940 and was made on the basis of the existing reserve and the estimated continuing rate of importation in the rest of the year.36 The available stock of 100-octane fuel at this point was about 220,000 tons. Actual use of the fuel began after 18 May 1940, when the fighter stations selected for the changeover had completed their deliveries of 100-octane and had consumed their existing stocks of 87-octane. While this was immediately before the intensive air combat associated with the Dunkirk evacuation, where Fighter Command units first directly engaged the Luftwaffe, this can only be regarded as a fortunate coincidence which was contingent upon much earlier decisions to establish, store and distribute sufficient supplies of 100-octane fuel.37"
So, sixteen squadrons it is. Wait, that's about 1/4 of Fighter Command, isn't it?