wuzak
Captain
The R-2800 was ~66% wider than the Merlin and ~25% taller and maybe about 500lb heavier.
An R-2800 in a Mustang would look odd.
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The R-2800 was ~66% wider than the Merlin and ~25% taller and maybe about 500lb heavier.
An R-2800 in a Mustang would look odd.
wuzak
Captain
Why?
It looks to me they have both been designed to fit a big cannon firing through the propeller, when two cowl and two wing 0.50" HMGs would have enough for most tasks, and the cannon it did end up with wasn't that great anyway.
I believe the Model 3 was designed around a proposed or imaginary 25mm cannon.
If such a cannon existed, would not 2 in the wings plus the cowl MGs be more than enough firepower?
Well, having just read drgondog's book on the P51, the understanding I got was that the major drag negated was the radiator and oil cooler inside the scoop as well as the profile drag of the scoop itself. That means that nearly all the cooling drag of the entire powerplant was cancelled, which is HUGE. On most airplanes engine cooling represents 35-45% of total airframe drag. The only exception on the Mustang was the supercharger intercooler, which had it's own separate duct independent of the scoop. Forcing air through a heat exchanger matrix at high speed requires a lot of energy, which was recouped in the form of thrust generated by the heated air being ejected from the carefully shaped plenum. The temperature controlled variable orifice "nozzle" that maximized the thrust effect could be viewed as the great grandaddy of today's variable geometry afterburner "tailfeathers".
This gives the P51 a significant advantage over an R2800 or R3350 powered plane which still has to squirt the cooling air through the fins and baffles of 18 cylinders, then out under the cowl flaps, not to mention the oil cooler and intercooler.
wuzak
Captain
I though the intercooler radiator was with the engine radiator in the scoop, the oil cooler having its own duct.
wuzak
Captain
Why?
P-39 Expert
Non-Expert
Pilot visibility mainly.
That's not what my infallible
memory says, but I've got the book handy and will look it up tomorrow. According to the arrangement drawing, the intercooler is between the two stages of the supercharger, and it seems unlikely that they would duct it all the way down to the scoop plenum and back again. In any case, does it make a difference? Oil cooler and intercooler are both relatively minor compared to the glycol radiator which carries off the vast majority of the engine heat and will generate the most drag.special ed
2nd Lieutenant
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The radial in a P-51 would look and require the mods that changed the Ki-61 into the Ki-100. Result: A very different airframe.
wuzak
Captain
That's not what my infallible
The intercooler is a water-to-air system, with a separate radiator for the air stream.
In the Spitfire IX the intercooler radiator is in one of the under wing radiator ducts, along with one of the radiators.
Shortround6
Major General
Ok the answers are out there. Or in a number of threads in the forum.
short answers.
The 20mm gun weighs about twice as much as the .50 cal machine gun the US used. 20mm ammo weighs roughly, twice what a .50 cal ammo weighs per 100 rounds. You are proposing a substantial increase in armament weight.
Engine used in the Corsair was good for 1650hp at around 22,000ft. P-47 engine was good for 2000hp at 25-27,000ft depending on RAM. P-47 engine needed a much more capable (larger) inter cooler and ducts.
Engine in the F4U was two stage, not two speed, it already had one supercharger (two speed with a neutral) feeding the engine supercharger. And it had inter coolers.
Fitting either one into the P-51 would have resulted in a new airplane.
The F4U doesn't have the range, or the ability to fight at high altitude that the Mustang has, it can't perform the mission the Mustang did.
What have you got against the Mustang, anyway? By the time you trick out a Corsair to (almost) do the Mustang's job you have a larger, heavier, more expensive, more fuel hungry, P47 wannabe that can't quite do the job.
Sure, it has more rated horsepower, but that horsepower has to drag a larger, heavier airframe around which is less efficient than the Mustang's, and at escort altitudes (25-30,000 feet) its available power advantage has shrunk to near zero, but its airframe hasn't shrunk at all. What have you gained? The Corsair was a great machine in the type of war for which it was designed, but it wasn't the invincible super weapon you imagine.
i dont i like the mustang but i perfer the corsair
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
That's called a B-17...
im not talking about a b-17 im talking about buliding a supercharged dive bomber
Well I liked the F14, but that never changed the fact that when it came to an up close knife fight, the F15 would usually come out on top. My preferences couldn't change that.
On the other hand an element of F14s and an element of F15s out over the ocean searching for each other out of range from GCI or AWACS, and now it's a different ball game. In a real life combat situation the F15s would die of Phoenix venom before they got close enough to paint the Tomcats on their radar screens.
Different planes for different fights.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
The SBD could already deliver 2,250 pounds to it's target. Why try and turbosupercharge it?
Dive bombers had to limit their speed in a dive (the SBD's limit was 250mph) so they could recover from the dive. One of the fastest divers was the Stuka at a duve speed of a little over 300mph.
Stuffing a monster engine in it won't change that.
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