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Amen just read an anecdote of guy hurrying home from another base in a P47 and he was quite impressed at cruising at 300 knots . The Mosquito cruised at 240 and the Hurricane at about 160. Even the C47s I flight planned cruised at 140 no where near top speeds. But I still think that us arm chair experts have a false impression of ww2 ACM in that we think it was all about high speed and high altitudes. Combat power was only good for a few minutes. If one flew around very long with the throttle firewalled one probably did not have an engine to go home. At 30000 ft or more the pilot was doing his best just not to stall and fall out of the sky and was not worried overmuch about tight turns or rolls not to mention freezing to death especially in winter over Europe. .
As you know there are all kinds of performance figures floating around on all a/c from ww2. My numbers I quoted were from a graph based on the MFR and the USAAF. I doubt very much that the P51D on average could touch 375 mph at sea level or 430 mph at 30000 ft.
My graph shows it at about 417 mph at 30000ft.
That is the reason I have always and still do maintain the US should have given Republic a contract to build F4U1s with that 361 gallons of internal fuel, 1500 miles of yardstick range, no tail hook, no folding wings, instead of P47s, and a lot of 8th air force crew would have been saved in 1943, before the P51B got into the fight.
As I said before my numbers are based on graphs coming from the Mfr and the the Air Force.
Everything I have ever read about the P51D says that it's Vmax at it's critical alt( slightly less than 25000 ft) was 435 mph. At that point the superchargers ability to maintain power begins to drop off significantly and if you could see the graph you would could readily see that at 30000 ft it could not do 430 mph.
This data is from "America"s One Hundred Thousand" an exhaustively researched and footnoted book by an aeronautical engineer which goes into the design, development and manufacture and deployment of all US fighters in WW2. I recommend it to you
All I am saying as far as the F4U is concerned is that because of it's superior range in the 1 version that had fuel tanks in the wings, it could have stayed with the bombers longer than the P47s could and saved some lives in 1943. Also think about a redesigned version meant strictly for the AAF. Surely there could have been weight saving measures other than fixed wings and no tail hook that would have allowed the performance of the F4U to be even better.
As it was the F4U1 in 1943 was already a better climbing and turning a/c than the P47 and it was a hands down better fighter until the fight got above 20000 feet or more.
Just it's ability to use a much shorter field would have been an asset in England.
Of course, I know why that idea was never tried as the AAF would never admit that an a/c designed to be a ship board fighter could never outperform a fighter designed for the AAF. The reason that the RN had no decent carrier fighters was that the RAF controlled design of the RNs a/c and they flat rejected the idea that a carrier fighter could compete with a conventional fighter.
That inline engine idea was in vogue in the US also in the 30s and the only thing that kept the radial engine of high enough power to give the fighter the performance needed to keep up with inline engined fighters was the US Navy, that was responsible for it's own procurement of a/c. Thus the PW R2800.
Back to the P51, I have no doubt that a specially prepared a/c with perhaps special fuel could exceed the figures I have quoted.
I do think the figures I have quoted are more representative of the average production a/c.
Just checked on combat radius for P47c-d and F4u1. P47 with internal fuel had a CR of roughly 225 miles. This with 370 gallons fuel and includes warmup, climb out, cruise, 5min at combat power, 15 min at military power, cruise back, fuel reserve of 30 min at min cruise power. F4U1 had CR of roughly 450 miles with 361 gal internal fuel with same profile. A significant difference. Which one would you rather have escorting you in your B17 or B24?