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I can't tell if you are agreeing with me or not.There is a small thing on the P-47, called the R-2800. As conceived, it was to offer an extra 3/4s of power vs. V-1710. Price being weight and size, not just of the engine, but of necessary plumbing, turbo and intercooler. Big fuel tank is needed, since big power needs a lot of fuel. Now that we're to install a 2000 HP engine on a fighter, a suitable armament s needed - 8 HMGs. As before you know it, the fighter gets big & heavy.
We can recall that P-43 was smaller than Hawker Hurricane or F4F, neither of the 3 being slim. On the other hand, Hellcat didn't needed a turbo to be as big as P-47.
I can't tell if you are agreeing with me or not.The turbo itself, all the internal ducting to and from the turbo, the intercooler and it's ducting all make for a much larger single engined plane. Compare the photo of the P-60 with a P-40. Multiengined planes (P-38, B-17 etc) have more internal room for the turbos.
I can't tell if you are agreeing with me or not.The turbo itself, all the internal ducting to and from the turbo, the intercooler and it's ducting all make for a much larger single engined plane. Compare the photo of the P-60 with a P-40. Multiengined planes (P-38, B-17 etc) have more internal room for the turbos.
Well, there is mounting a turbo in a P-40 fuselage and there is mounting a turbo in a P-40 fuselage.
View attachment 519757
This is the P-60A with the turbo Allison. Please note this aircraft has a 275sq ft wing.
View attachment 519758
It may have started as a P-40 fuselage but apparently a lot extra fairing was needed to hide all the turbo bits and pieces. Wingspan was 41 feet and it used a 11ft 8in prop. for it's 1425hp engine.
View attachment 519999
While these drawings may not be 100% accurate we can see that the turbo P-60A was significantly fatter than the Merlin powered XP-60 and P-60D.
Vents/ louvers are behind the cockpit showing that some part of the turbo system was back there.
Trying to add everything necessary for a turbo system forward of the CG on a P-40 is not going to work well.
True but the R-2800s used did have a two stage supercharger and indeed one of the engines used was the same one as the F6F used.Yes, it does look fatter. It looks more like the R-2800 powered P-60s than the Merlin powered ones.
The P-60C and P-60E show vents in a similar area to the P-60A, but neither the C or E had a turbo.
What I see is the last gasp attempts of a failing company. Despite Curtiss having the advantage of a large factory ready for production and being given the opportunity to develop several different designs, they were unable to win any orders. In fact the USAAF cancelled an order for 1900 P-60s as it was not performing anyway near expectations. With the end of P-40 production they were out of the fighter business. Meanwhile they were destroying their reputation in other categories with the SB2C, C-46, C-76 and SO3C. Curtiss was finished long before 1945.... when I see all of the design variants ... from P-40 lookalikes to a sleek Jug-like P-60 ... I have renewed respect for Curtis Corp. .... they remained strong ... and by this time the P-40 designer Don Berlin had abandoned Curtis and jumped ship to Fisher, IIRC ... the company was among America's largest ... was strong going into war ... clearly strong, but with problems (P-47 build), during the war, yet, the company as it was in 1945 just tumbled into pieces ... North American Aviation, Republic and Grumman were the new top dogs.
P-38Es (54th FS) arrived in Alaska in June 1942 and were immediately put to use flying long-range escort and sweeps from Unmak Island to Kiska, 617 miles one way. The first P-38Fs (1st and 14th FGs) arrived in England in the Fall of 1942 and flew a few ops before transferring to NW Africa following the Torch landings. 82nd FG soon followed with P-38Gs. the 78th FG was supposed to operate P-38s from England, but had to give up all their planes and most of their pilots in Feb 1943 to the NW African based groups to replace the heavy losses incurred by these units. The 78th re-equipped with P-47s before becoming operational in April 1943. P-38s did not return to European skies until October 1943, with the arrival of the 20th and 55th FGs.Issue with the P38 is that it got to the party so late. It missed 1942 in the Pacific and Nort Africa and the Russian front. The battles where the Allies won the war. P38, Vought Corsair, Hellcat, P51, P47 were still in development re-development, flight testing etc. Theier tardy designs got alot of Kamikazes and novice German pilots who never even got a shot off if they had machine guns at all. In 1942 the US and Australian and New Zealand pilots had almost no combat experience and less than oe equal to 40 hours of flight time.
I'm inclined to agree with you that the AAF probably preferred the P-40 although I can't see why. Chuck Yeager always said the P-39 was his favorite plane (until he got a P-51B) and he also said he didn't know anyone who didn't like the P-39. He was flying later models of the P-39 in training. Big difference in performance with the P-39N over the earlier models.By paper statistics the P-39 seems to be superiour to the P-40 yet the USAAF clearly preferred the P-40, i can't ever recall reading a US pilot praising or liking the P-39. It would be nice to see US pilots opinions of those who flew both P-39 and P-40. I wonder if the P-39 mid-engine effected common combat aerobatics? ie. the P-40 was meant to be good at high speed Split-S the engine in nose probably helped that? In reverse the P-39 was meant to have some dangerous spin characteristics due to the weight been in the centre of the plane.
Here's a chart of the P-39K vs the P-40E in red and P-40F (Merlin) in black. These are representative of the early models with the 8.8 supercharger gears in the Allison.
As you can see the Merlin provided the P-40F with substantially improved performance both in speed and climb over the P-40E. The P-40E clean without drop tank climbed at about the same rate as the P-39K WITH a drop tank. Climb was the major problem for both these planes. Combat ceiling was generally described as the altitude at which a plane could no longer climb at over 1000ft/min. A clean P-40E (virtually all AAf fighters carried drop tanks on combat missions) could barely climb to 19000' which is too low for almost any combat theater. Add the ubiquitous drop tank and combat ceiling was even lower.
Even after the significant performance increase provided by the Merlin the P-40F was still slower than the P-39K up to 20000'. Climb would have been about the same for both planes at 3000rpm (combat power). Climb on the chart was at 2850rpm for the P-40F and 2600rpm for the P-39K above 12500'.
Weight was the major problem for both these planes. The P-40E weighed 8260# clean and the P-39 weighed 7650# while a comparable SpitfireV weighed 6600#, a 109G weighed 6900# and an early Zero weighed 5500#.
In summary the P-39K performed substantially better than the P-40E and a little better then the P-40F. Later (Nov. '42) Allison models with the 9.6 supercharger gears provided substantial performance improvements for the P-39N and the P-40N but the P-39N was still substantially faster and climbed a lot faster than the P-40N. Any perceived superiority of the P-40 was due to pilot quality of both the AAF and their opposition.