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I dont think anything in the engine was substantially changed, the Spinner on a Hornet looks bigger in diameter, making the whole thing look smoother, there isnt a real transition between Spinner and engine.It's been said that the Merlin 130 (used primarily in the DH Hornet) was designed for the Hornet to have as little frontal area as possible. Other than ancillaries being moved around, what else was done to reduce frontal area on the 130? I do assume that they do share the same block and head design as the other two-stage Merlins, or did those differ even?
There was around 5 years between the Spitfire and Mustang Mk ! and another 5 for the Hornet. Producing such cleaner designs starts at the drawing board, on a Spitfire, there is an oil tank in the fuselage under the engine for example.Good find and very interesting
The spinners on Spitfires have a history all to themselves, there were very round ones and pointed ones, but generally they got bigger because it went from two to three to four to five and finally to six blade contra rotating props.I do wonder what the frontal area between a Hornet nacelle and a Mustang nose was as far as if there was some similarities. It seems that the spinner size was similar, though the Mustang probably had a bit more frontal area ultimately due to having to accomodate a pilot behind it.
Also a case of what-if here, but what if the Spitfire was designed or redesigned to use a cowling with a larger spinner and was even more streamlined? The P-38K Lightning did something similar, though it never entered mass production (USAAF didn't really want it, were happy with the P-38J/L, as well as the P-47D and P-51B/C/D/K models, and worried about disrupting P-38 production).
And, what if the Hornet used updraft intakes instead of the downdraught ones? There's tradeoffs for both. The downdraft ones reduced frontal area (supercharger intakes were wing mounted), but the updraft ones probably could've made more power (straight shot into the carb/supercharger).
The 66 has a bendix pressure carburettor (actually primitive single point injection) and the 130 has a proper single point fuel injection system. Just to get the semantics correctI believe the main difference in frontal area was using the downdraft carburetor rather than the updraft carby.
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View attachment 693122
From http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/Aircraft_Engines_of_the_World_Rolls-Royce_Merlin.pdf
The 66 has a bendix pressure carburettor (actually primitive single point injection) and the 130 has a proper single point fuel injection system. Just to get the semantics correct
It's been said that the Merlin 130 (used primarily in the DH Hornet) was designed for the Hornet to have as little frontal area as possible. Other than ancillaries being moved around, what else was done to reduce frontal area on the 130? I do assume that they do share the same block and head design as the other two-stage Merlins, or did those differ even?