P-40 vs. Hurricane

oldcrowcv63 · May 26, 2013

Procrastintor said:
Oldcrow, the real question is how many pilots ADDED guns to their planes, imagine it, a P-40 with all 6 .50's in the wings plus two more over the engine, and some 20mms in under-wing pods. Or a Hurc with a 37mm AT gun under the fuselage.

Max Ceiling 10,000' ? Climb rate 600 ft/min? I kid. The Hurricane apparently could accommodate a 40 mm AT cannon without a serious performance penalty and at some point both aircraft were hauling bomb loads equal to the weight of such gun suites. But I suspect such modifications work better when air superiority is achieved and sustainable.

drgondog · May 26, 2013

Procrastintor said:
Oldcrow, the real question is how many pilots ADDED guns to their planes, imagine it, a P-40 with all 6 .50's in the wings plus two more over the engine, and some 20mms in under-wing pods. Or a Hurc with a 37mm AT gun under the fuselage.

That would be zero unless Pappy Gunn did something unpublished..

oldcrowcv63 · May 26, 2013

drgondog said:
That would be zero unless Pappy Gunn did something unpublished..

Glad you mentioned Pappy's name Drgon, I was just reading that his biography was written by no less an authority than General George Kenney. That alone tells you something about the importance of his contributions to the Pacific Theater air war. It's a miracle Gunn survived the first three months of the war! He was a legend in his own time.

tyrodtom · May 26, 2013

Procrastintor said:
Oldcrow, the real question is how many pilots ADDED guns to their planes, imagine it, a P-40 with all 6 .50's in the wings plus two more over the engine, and some 20mms in under-wing pods. Or a Hurc with a 37mm AT gun under the fuselage.

It would be pretty hard to put fuselage guns in a fighter that wasn't designed with that in mind. Too much in the way that has to be moved elsewhere, and of course, sychro gear installed to keep your propeller.
I don't think anyone ever adapted a 37mm to sychronized fire.
Plus you've got to be able to bring all that firepower into range of a enemy aircraft to put it to use.
Early allied aircraft main problem was getting what armament they had close enough to a enemy to use it. Adding more weight to the aircraft by increasing armament would make that even worse.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · May 27, 2013

Procrastintor said:
Oldcrow, the real question is how many pilots ADDED guns to their planes, imagine it, a P-40 with all 6 .50's in the wings plus two more over the engine, and some 20mms in under-wing pods. Or a Hurc with a 37mm AT gun under the fuselage.

Zero

1. They would not have the authorization to do so.
2. Hard to just add guns to a plane in places it was not designed to have them.
3. The kind of weight they would add, would affect performance and CG.

Greyman · May 27, 2013

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
Zero

I'll have you know the RAF had a common field modification that involved a boot-mounted Webley.

FLYBOYJ · May 28, 2013

Greyman said:
I'll have you know the RAF had a common field modification that involved a boot-mounted Webley.

That field modification was approved by someone in the MOD before it was done, I think that's the point here.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · May 28, 2013

FLYBOYJ said:
That field modification was approved by someone in the MOD before it was done, I think that's the point here.

I think he was making a joke. The Webley is a revolver. Boot mounted...

FLYBOYJ · May 28, 2013

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
I think he was making a joke. The Webley is a revolver. Boot mounted...

pattle · May 28, 2013

According to The Air War for Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete an RAF pilot once shot down his Italian opponent using his revolver!

altsym · May 28, 2013

If I was flying a Gloster Gladiator I'd be better off firing my Revolver too! I kid.. I kid..

CORSNING · May 28, 2013

Procrastintor,

That is an absolutely beautiful painting of a P-40N and A6M5 at the bottom of your posts. I particularly like the overall colors. But I have one question sir. Why is the centerline gas tank installed backwards? I saw that once before on the same exact aircraft on the cover of Squadron/Signal Publications AIRCRAFT NO. 26 (CURTISS P-40 in action). It was a painting also. Is there some significance to the reverse positioning of this tank?

Extremely curious, Jeff.

pattle · May 29, 2013

Interesting question Corsning and well spotted, but I have no idea. Perhaps the fat end of the tank weighed more when full and it helped to have the weight further back?

Shortround6 · May 29, 2013

It looks kool?

Does anybody have PHOTO with it being backwards?

It may have more drag if mounted backwards.

Procrastintor · May 29, 2013

Ask Wurger, he made it for me. I'll try to find some info though.

Procrastintor · May 29, 2013

As far as I can tell, it was a semi-regular occurrence in the 80th FG in the CBI.I have only found one photo so far, and the URL won't work.

Procrastintor · May 29, 2013

Also, the human skull on the front looks pretty awesome.

CORSNING · May 29, 2013

Wurger did an excellent job of setting you up with that one. I see an interesting topic like this one and it throws me into a couple of weeks of research. Over on Mike's sight there is a graph on the Hurricane I with a boost of +12 lbs. Initial climb rate of 3445 fpm. and 3,515 fpm at 6,560 ft. Now that was moving for 1940. The heading states, " The following performance estimate for the Hurricane I is a consolidation of various aircraft and engine performance data sets and was kindly provided by Henning Ruch." I really do not have anything to add other than that graph projects the fastest climb of any Hurricane that I have seen in print. With the high lift wings of that bird I wouldn't begin to doubt the graph.
I did a workup of the graph on the P-40N-1 with the help of focus points on that graph. While it is absolutely true that by March of 1943 the P-40 could not be considered a first rate world class air superiority fighter, it was still in the lethal category if taken for granted by an advisory. The following figures are from the graph/chart at wwiiaircraftperformance sight.

P-40N-1
V-1710-81 / 1,480 hp. / 57"Hg
Height (meters), Speed (mph), Climb (fpm), Time to height (minutes)

Sea Level. 332 / 3520 / -----
1,000.......346 / 3600 / --.91
2,000.......360 / 3680 / -1.82
3,000.......374 / 3465 / -2.72
4,000.......376 / 2965 / -3.79
5,000.......373 / 2480 / -5.01
6,000.......367 / 2025 / -6.44
7,000.......363 / 1635 / -8.35
8,000.......354 / 1265 / 10.76
9,000.......350 / 940 / 13.59

Maximum velocity: 378 mph / 10,550 ft.
Maximum climb: 3,720 fpm / 8,000 ft.
Armament: 4 x 0.05 in.
Combat Weight: 7,413 lbs.
Wing Load: 41.42 lbs. / sq.ft.
Power Load: 5.009 lbs. / hp.

Note: Like the FM-2 able to outturn the Ki-61.

I have seen the speeds of later P-40Ns published at 350 mph and 343 mph. I did not have to do much digging to find out that these were the true speeds of much heavier aircraft with bomb pylons and gas tank shackles in place at military rating (not combat). There, and that's how I see that.

bobbysocks · May 29, 2013

Shortround6 said:
It looks kool?

Does anybody have PHOTO with it being backwards?

It may have more drag if mounted backwards.

i imagine it would be the same as reversing an air foil so it would have 2 to 2 1/2 times more drag as if mounted the correct way.

DVH · Jun 2, 2013

P40 or hurricane?
Well I'll go by looks, and that will be the the p40.
One of the best looking piston fighters ever. A perfect canvas for nose art. I even like the shape of the tail fins.

P-40 vs. Hurricane

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