No, not more than the company, but you are misinterpreting what's in front of you and what's been told to you throughout this thread. The P.94 was never built. The aircraft in the photograph IS a Defiant without a turret, the prototype in fact, K8310.
No Spitfire?
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No, not more than the company, but you are misinterpreting what's in front of you and what's been told to you throughout this thread. The P.94 was never built. The aircraft in the photograph IS a Defiant without a turret, the prototype in fact, K8310.
Thick wings, are a relative concept, the P-51 had wings thick enough to hold a lot of fuel in the roots and 0.5" guns side by side in the middle, the issue isn't the thickness but where they are thick.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
This entire scenario is "what if no Spitfire?"
Therefore, the BP P.94 would be the closest thing Britain had on hand to fill the gap.
The fact that the turretless Defiant (not the P.94) SHOWED that it was a sound performer, being close to that of the Spitfire (which doesn't exist now, remember) means that the P.94 would be a logical path to follow - at a time when Britain really needed it.
The thick wing is a non-issue.
The Tiffy & Tempest had a thick wing.
The He112 had a thick wing.
Other types had a thick wing.
Therefore, the BP P.94 would be the closest thing Britain had on hand to fill the gap.
The fact that the turretless Defiant (not the P.94) SHOWED that it was a sound performer, being close to that of the Spitfire (which doesn't exist now, remember) means that the P.94 would be a logical path to follow - at a time when Britain really needed it.
The thick wing is a non-issue.
The Tiffy & Tempest had a thick wing.
The He112 had a thick wing.
Other types had a thick wing.
Agree entirely, the whole 'thick wing is bad' debate doesn't pass the smell test for the time period and it's presuming a whole lot about what was not generally known at the time that we know now. The Hurricane was designed in 1934/35, the Defiant in 1935/36. The Tornado/Typhoon was also designed before WW2. Things changed pretty dramatically and developments were being discovered frequently that had a big impact on aircraft design. Yes, there was information available, but there was no internet; aircraft manufacturers did not always become aware of every new development that was being made at the time, so while the benefits of thin wings might have been available, some companies still believed that having a thicker wing root served a useful design role, for example, lower stall speed, shorter take-off run on grass strips, which populated the RAF airfields around the country, etc.
The Spitfire had a thin wing, but it had washout toward the tips to counter stalling, the Bf 109 had leading edge slats. The Hurricane? None of those things, yet, despite its so-called 'inferiority', the Hurricane was more manoeuvrable than the Spitfire and the Bf 109 and in low-speed manoeuvres had few equals in 1940 in monoplanes, despite its relative size.
Another point that hasn't yet been acknowledged is that the Hurricane had finely balanced flight controls, which made manoeuvring a cinch, both the British fighters were regarded by German pilots as very easy to fly, having captured examples and test flown them. The Bf 109, not so much. combat flying is tiresome, any combat pilot will tell you that (ask one, there's one on this forum). If you carry out constant hard manoeuvring its gonna wear you out. You don't wanna be landing a dog of an aeroplane when you are constantly physically exhausted, like the Bf 109, which had a well-deserved reputation for being tricky to land, especially when you are flying multiple sorties in a day.
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Well where BP Hawker put the thick bit was in the wrong place, you know what I was saying haha
The Tempest was the Tiffy with a thin wing.
Because it was slower, all the Hurri could do was turn, you don't win a fight by just turning, the Spit and 109 made everything else in the world in 1940 obsolete, it's that simple.
Again with the unjustified sweeping statements. That's simply not true. It's not just about what you've got, but how you use it. Put a seasoned RAF ace in a Hurricane I and a complete tyro in an Fw 190D and watch what happens.
Same with the A6M, it could out turn everything at slow speed, but how it did fair when bigger faster armored fighters came online that could dictate the fight?, it was slaughtered.
Yup, and the P-51 owes its history to putting the thick bit in the right place, this where I conclude my very limited expertise on turbulent and plastic aerodynamic flow on aerofoils.
Not sweeping statements fact, stacking the deck in your favor by putting an ace in an outdated aircraft and a novice in the newer better version does nothing for your argument, the ace in the Hurri couldn't catch the Dora under any situation short off parking it on the runway
And being fitted with the right engine.
In his book Sea Harrier over the Falklands, Sharkey Ward recounted an episode he was involved in when the RN first received the Sea Harrier. At the time, the USAF had F-15s based in the UK and used to invite foreign squadrons to do battle in combat exercises. The F-15s just about won against the other NATO units they encountered, that is, until 801 Sqn and its Sea Harriers arrived. In almost every encounter the F-15s were beaten and after awhile the Royal Navy stopped getting invitations.
How, you might ask? The Sea Harrier was much slower than the F-15, but it's smaller and much more manoeuvrable at low speed, not only that, but the RN pilots were all ex-Phantom drivers, which were armed with the same Sparrow medium-range air-to-air missile the Eagles, but not the Sea Harriers, carried. The Sea Harrier had only the AIM-9, yet they consistently trounced the Americans. Primarily because they knew the strengths and weaknesses of the Sparrow and used that and their superior low-speed manoeuvrabiliy to their advantage.
How, you might ask? The Sea Harrier was much slower than the F-15, but it's smaller and much more manoeuvrable at low speed, not only that, but the RN pilots were all ex-Phantom drivers, which were armed with the same Sparrow medium-range air-to-air missile the Eagles, but not the Sea Harriers, carried. The Sea Harrier had only the AIM-9, yet they consistently trounced the Americans. Primarily because they knew the strengths and weaknesses of the Sparrow and used that and their superior low-speed manoeuvrabiliy to their advantage.
I think it's time you read some books about real-time combat encounters rather than looking at speed figures on wikipedia.
Yet, the facts were that inferior performing Hurricanes and Defiants and Gladiator biplanes shot down plenty of superior Bf 109s. I've said it to you before, life is full of paradoxes.
A laminar type aerofoil isn't necessarily thinner, it just has the thickest part further back in the wing chord. The Tempest also has the chin radiator set up changed.
See how the wing and chin radiator are with respect to each other, the compressibility problem wasnt just about the wing thickness on a Typhoon.
Regardless of engine, Mustang MkIs had no problem operating over Europe from first introduction to the end of the war, the only question was the altitude they worked at.
That's called the Japanese not getting the Zero's replacement into service in a timely fashion, which is a different story entirely. The fact still remained that even at the very end of the war, Allied pilots were told not to dogfight a Zero, an aircraft that their own was far superior to and whose design dated back before their own.
Shortround6
Major General
A number of months after they enlarged every single fighter field in the UK???
or perhaps just a fair number of them.
All those British mid 30s fighters had to operate from small airfields using crap propellers and primitive flaps.
fastest fighter in the world doesn't do much good if it can't take off and land from most of the air bases in country.
Speed is an easy to measure metric. Take the Hurricane (say 320mph) and the Spitfire (say 360mph) and now put the Hurricane into a turn where it is doing 290 mph (gentile turn) and can just maintain altitude. Now have the Spitfire do the same radius, speed and bank angle. The Spitfire has the option of climbing while turning, the Hurricane does not. The extra 40mph represents surplus power that can be used for maneuver if the planes are flying at near the same speed, even if it is not near top speed.
Yup, 16 RAF squadrons operated Allison engined Mustangs, right until the very end of the war. I've said this before, those pretty piccies of the Atlantic Wall defences on what would become the invasion beaches on 6 June 1944, and those 8th Air Force pre-and post-raid pictures of targets over Europe were largely taken by RAF Allison engined Mustangs.
For single-engine yeah ... as has been said the Whirlwind was demonstrably right up there.
