P-40 vs. Yak-1 vs. Hurricane (1 Viewer)

[Schweik]

This may be fact or it just might be a good story. I don't know.

well they were definitely different, whether that means better or not I can't say for certain but it sounds better - namely silver vs. copper based bearings and with some kind of special patented anti-corrosion coating made of indium.

The British took a while to approve higher than 9lbs boost for the Merlin XX although they did eventually get to to the 14lb and 16lb limits mentioned earlier. They were keeping the Merlin XX at 9lbs even though they were using 12lbs in the Melrn III.
The Americans stayed at 9lbs boost for quite some time although using 12lbs boost for take-off. It took until late 1942 and into early 1943 for the US to rate it's engines for WEP so many early manuals make no mention of it. I don't when or if the US "officially" raised the boost limits on the Merlin V-1650-1.

The official boost rating for P-40 F and L was 60" Hg in October of 1942. I'd be very surprised if the Spitfires or Hurricanes were staying below that. It seems likely that they boosted beyond that especially since we have pilot anecdotes of them outrunning Bf 109s at low altitude on more than one occasion.

There are also sometimes differences between what the factory says is OK and what the Government says is OK, P & W for instance rarely lists WEP power levels in company charts or tables even though we know both the navy and army used them.

yes we have the famous Allison memo on that.

 

[Shortround6]

The official boost rating for P-40 F and L was 60" Hg in October of 1942. I'd be very surprised if the Spitfires or Hurricanes were staying below that. It seems likely that they boosted beyond that especially since we have pilot anecdotes of them outrunning Bf 109s at low altitude on more than one occasion.

Thank you. 60in is roughly 15lbs of boost so that splits the difference on the Merlin XX 14/16lbs in low/hi gear. As noted before the Merlin 24 used in the Hurricane IV was allowed 18lbs (66in) but used stronger connecting rods and a stronger supercharger drive/clutch. There was more to high boost that just tightening up the boost limit screw

The power to drive the supercharger goes up substantially and the supercharger drive train must be able to take it (like the early Allison with 9.60 gears breaking the gears)

 

[wuzak]

well they were definitely different, whether that means better or not I can't say for certain but it sounds better - namely silver vs. copper based bearings and with some kind of special patented anti-corrosion coating made of indium.

Rolls-Royce produced bearings of Allison design under licence. That is steel backed bearings.

Not sure if there was any difference between the materials.

The V-1650-1 was also the first Merlin to go into production with the two piece cylinder blocks. Some take that as meaning that Packard designed the 2 piece block, but that is not the case.

Rolls-Royce were rather busy fighting a war, so they delayed changing to the two piece design until the 60-series Merlin went into production.

Packard developed their own system of connecting the cylinder block to the head (water passages), but changed to the Rolls-Royce design later.

I believe the V-1650-1 used the Farman type supercharger drive (ie same as Rolls-Royce), but the V-1650-3 onwards used an epicyclic drive developed by Wright.

 

[Schweik]

Makes sense. Do you think 15 lbs of boost is enough for a P-40 to outrun a Bf 109 G-2? maybe with low fuel I suppose? There are a couple of detailed anecdotes from spring of 1943 of pilots fleeing from the battle area and being chased by multiple messerschmits all the way back to a forward base at treetop level. One of the guys was positively gleeful about it.

It's possible he had a P-40K though I'm not sure, I'd have to double check the squadron.

 

[wuzak]

+15psi boost ~ 61inHg MAP
+18psi boost ~ 67inHg MAp

 

[Shortround6]

Thank you.

The thing about a lot of these North Africa Anecdotes is that the power at altitude really varied and due to the usual weather/temperature trying to figure the power gets real iffy. The Merlin XX or V-1650-1 was good for about 1240hp in low gear at 9lbs boost up to about 11500ft, this does not include RAM which can raise that altitude by several thousand ft. However the 14lb limit was 1460hp at 6500ft also without RAM so it was available for level flight several thousand feet higher. If you go lower you can get more, the Merlin 24 being rated at 1640hp at 2250ft at 18lbs boost and no RAM again straight and level flight can raise that altitude by several thousand feet. But you can see that a difference of about 4000ft can cost around 200hp so vague descriptions of altitude don't help figureing the power used.
Then you run into the temperature problem. If the air is at 38 degrees C (100.4 F) the air is about 91% of the density that it is at 15 degrees C (59 F) and so the engine will only make 91% of the power (or to put it somewhat different) by showing 66in on the gauge you are making the same power at the high temperature as about 60 in at the low temperature. This may help explain why some of these over boosted engines weren't wrecking themselves. You also have less drag on the airframe due to the thinner air. Of course the airspeed indicator also doesn't read quite correctly either.
However this takes no account of the higher temperatures that would push the engine closer to detonation limits.
Trying to use the same over boosting in Europe in winter gives you a lower intake mixture temperature but gives you even more air (lbs per cubic ft) for more power/strain on parts.

 

[Schweik]

Presumably these various factors would affect both sides equally? So it really boiled down to their having to figure out how far they could push the engines in general and specifically in their particular area (and perhaps, during a particular season, as I believe it does get cooler in Winter in Tunisia, and conversely I think it does get hot in Russia in the Summer). Maybe we'll never know how fast they were going but what really mattered was relative speed.

Since neither the militaries nor the manufacturers were really doing this kind of testing, it was up to the pilots and their mechanics to figure it out, and ultimately rewire the throttles and so on.

 

[Kevin J]

Once the decision was made to put Merlins in P-51s, Merlin engine P-40s were stripped and converted back to Allisons (P-40R).

There were lots of Packard Merlins available which could have been put into the Warhawk, instead they went to Britain and were put into the Avro Lancaster bomber.

 

[wuzak]

There were lots of Packard Merlins available which could have been put into the Warhawk, instead they went to Britain and were put into the Avro Lancaster bomber.

The contract for Packard was to supply Merlin engines to the British.

In allowing the contract, the US government stipulated that 1/3 of production was to be reserved for US use. That's why there were P-40Fs and Ls - no other suitable airframe at the time.

 

[Shortround6]

Presumably these various factors would affect both sides equally? So it really boiled down to their having to figure out how far they could push the engines in general and specifically in their particular area (and perhaps, during a particular season, as I believe it does get cooler in Winter in Tunisia, and conversely I think it does get hot in Russia in the Summer). Maybe we'll never know how fast they were going but what really mattered was relative speed.

Since neither the militaries nor the manufacturers were really doing this kind of testing, it was up to the pilots and their mechanics to figure it out, and ultimately rewire the throttles and so on.

And here lies a big problem. And the reason for famous Allison letter. and by the way, the factories were doing this sort of testing. It is called R&D. Factories ran engines at higher than normal boost and/or higher than normal rpm on test stands so they could find out what broke quicker than running at normal levels and beef up the parts so they could A, offer an engine with longer life and B, offer a new model engine with more power to their customers. Factories were sometimes constrained because their goal of higher power was limited by meeting the same service life as the lower powered engine. A more powerful engine that broke in service and/or required more frequent overhaul wasn't likely to find many customers.

The majority of the mechanics were just out of high school, Some of the pilots weren't much better and while the Americans especially had more experience with engines than other nations changing the spark plugs or adjusting the carburetor on a V-8 Ford doesn't give them the experience/knowledge to figure out allowable boost settings on highly supercharged engines.
The Factories had test cells with a lot more instrumentation that the gauges in the instrument panel of the airplane. They had records of what worked and what didn't. They had examples of failed engines to tear down and examine. If a squadron "tweaked" engine failed in flight what does that tell the squadron mechanics?
Don't do that again if the pilot makes it home?
In the absence of any official recommendations/approvals for increasing boost the squadrons are left on their own with only "hanger talk" to guide them "Jim Bob over in 97 squadron says we can increase the boost to 55in (or pick a number) and it won't wreck the engine". Allison had a pretty good idea what you could get away with and what you couldn't with the engines using the 8.80 supercharger gears. When they introduced the engines with the 9.60 gears they KNEW you could NOT get away with the same boost levels. The 9.60 gears used nearly 20% more power than the 8.80 gears (power required goes up the square of the impeller speed) and even in good supercharger operating in it's efficiency zone about 30% of the power going into the supercharger goes directly to heating the intake mixture (the other 70% compresses the air and that has a seperate heat rise) they KNEW the intake mixture was going to be hotter and closer to detonation than the older engine using the same manifold pressure. with the new gears and the faster turning impeller it would be easier to get the pressure/temperature combination that would cause detonation.

 

[Shortround6]

The contract for Packard was to supply Merlin engines to the British.

In allowing the contract, the US government stipulated that 1/3 of production was to be reserved for US use. That's why there were P-40Fs and Ls - no other suitable airframe at the time.

The 1/3 of production was just for the initial contract of 9000 engines. And it is doubtful the US took the full the 3000 engines. Packard would wind up building over 26,000 single stage Merlins of 11 (?) different models.

 

[wuzak]

The 1/3 of production was just for the initial contract of 9000 engines.

Sorry that I didn't make that clear.

 

[Shortround6]

Sorry that I didn't make that clear.

No worries.
I figured you knew.

 

[Schweik]

And here lies a big problem. And the reason for famous Allison letter. and by the way, the factories were doing this sort of testing. It is called R&D. Factories ran engines at higher than normal boost and/or higher than normal rpm on test stands so they could find out what broke quicker than running at normal levels and beef up the parts so they could A, offer an engine with longer life and B, offer a new model engine with more power to their customers. Factories were sometimes constrained because their goal of higher power was limited by meeting the same service life as the lower powered engine. A more powerful engine that broke in service and/or required more frequent overhaul wasn't likely to find many customers

I should have equivocated on that a bit - yes obviously the aircraft engine companies did their R&D but not always at - or even remotely near a pace that was in sync with the needs of the pilots using these aircraft. Allison in particular was (I wold say) literally criminally negligent in this regard, in fact later in the war they were caught selling defective engine in some kind of bribery scandal. EDIT: Correction - sorry that was Curtiss.

Allisons failure to deal with the higher altitude performance of their engines was a major problem that was never addressed in the war except by marginal half-measures, as you have pointed out the integral supercharger in the engine was part of the problem. But it boiled down to a company that had been purchased by another and wasn't responsive to the needs of it's customers.

Out in the field, in the remote dusty deserts of Libya or on some forlorn island in the Solomons, the high school level mechanics who barely knew how to hot rod a Model A, had to figure out how to not only maintain and repair badly abused and battle damaged engines with inadequate supplies and usually not even so much as a hangar to keep the elements off of them while they worked, but also how to get better performance from the engines as they were not delivering enough horsepower.

With the lives of the pilots and the success of the mission on the line they ultimately did. I guess between them, a few hundred US and Australian mechanics and pilots had enough ingenuity to figure this all out in a few months.

Nor did engine failure necessarily mean a mysterious and instant doom for a pilot. Engine failure was a routine problem with high performance "race cars on steroids" type context of a WW2 battlefield, and was a known quantity. Engines failed on their own or because of weather or maintenance problems, due to over-use / abuse and due to battle damage. Pilots often had to crash-land their aircraft as a result and they did live to tell the tale. Often the planes themselves were recovered and examined and the reason for the problem was eventually figured out, even when it was as complex and counter-intuitive as the sort of issues they had with Spit Vs at Darwin (like coolant lines that had become corroded during shipping and gun heaters that had been inadvertently disconnected or never installed to begin with)

A fighter squadron in a remote and incredibly dangerous place like Tunisia in 1942 became a very special and very harsh type of meritocracy, one from within which fortunately these barely educated youngsters did rise to the occasion and found among their number sufficient knowledge and ingenuity to figure out a lot of these problems. That is a major part of the story of air combat in WW2.

S

 

[Schweik]

EDIT: For some reason I had trouble with embedding all the attached images. Check out this site for images of numerous captured aircraft, including an He 111 captured and restored by 260 Sqn RAF after El Alamein and a Bf 109, Fw 190 and Ju 88 all captured and restored by the 79th FG (P-40F/L)

WTF? > Vintage Wings of Canada

I would also add that as testeament to the expertise achieved by the mechanics and pilot-mechanics in some of these forward operating squadrons, they were able to get multiple Axis aircraft running in spite of the missing parts, special lubricants and so forth that they had to figure out. Several ofthese became 'pet' aircraft for the squadron, used to evaluate enemy aircraft performance like the Bf 109 and Fw, and as squadron hacks or transport planes for a while. Sadly many of these carefully restored treasures had to be abandoned when they left the Theater, while a few were confiscated by the military and sent somewhere for more official testing.

Many of these foreign aircraft would have been at least somewhat challenging to restore to flying conditions even back home in the US, Australia or England, but these mechanics in the field had become so good they practically made a hobby out of it on top of their normal maintenance duties. Of course they did have the advantage of being on the front line and able to acquire lots of enemy materiel via the wartime black market and other formal and informal channel. Box of German carb filters and a couple of tyres in exchange for a bottle of scotch?


S

 

[Shortround6]

I should have equivocated on that a bit - yes obviously the aircraft engine companies did their R&D but not always at - or even remotely near a pace that was in sync with the needs of the pilots using these aircraft. Allison in particular was (I wold say) literally criminally negligent in this regard, in fact later in the war they were caught selling defective engine in some kind of bribery scandal.

A bit melodramatic. I would certainly like to hear more about Allisons sale of defective engines. The Play "All My Sons" by Arthur Miller uses the plot device of defective cylinder heads for P-40s but it was actually inspired by Curtiss Wright delivering defective R-2600s.

Allison was in a strange situation, a lot of people nowadays bitch and moan about how Allison should have done this or that or some other thing to improve the Allison engine (meaning make it more com[ative with the Merlin). They ignore that Allison was a very small engine company for most of the 1930s. They ended 1938 with 530 employees and orders for 43 engines on the books, they had completed 13 engines that year (one was a V-3420 and should count twice?) which roughly doubled any previous years production. The situation in the Spring of 1939 was critical, the company was virtually bankrupt. The USAAC owed Allison over 900,000 dollars for work already done, General Motors which owned Allison, had given the company over 500,000 dollars to keep it afloat and was ready to pull the plug. The Allison bearing division was pulling it's own weight but could not keep the engine division going. And yet today people post about how Allison should have done this or that to make higher performing engines in 1940 or 41? which would have meant research starting in 1938 or 39.
The Big contract in April of 1939 to provide engines for the P-40 saved the company from closing. But since Allison actually had no production facilities (a shop that can make 1-2 engines a month cannot build 100 engines a month) They had to build a new building, equipe it with machine tools, find subcontractor and hire and train a work force. Now at this time the Allison engine division had 25 employees in the "engineering department" and that included two guys who ran the blueprint machine. Some of these engineers were tasked with figuring out how to build the engine in quantity, production engineering, not developing the engine itself.
At the end of 1939 Allison had 786 employees and had delivered about 48 engines. At the end of 1940 they had 4,303 employees and had delivered over 1140 engines. Modern day critics make no allowance for the effort needed to accomplish this and how it may have impacted R&D. They also ignore the lack of actual supercharger knowledge in the US (and in fact the world) at this time. RR sort of stumbled into hiring Stanley Hooker and in fact didn't really know what they wanted him to do when they hired him. Allison was not so lucky. Wright and P & W had only started designing and building their own superchargers in the one to two years before 1939 so there is no pool of supercharger designers to hire from.
While Allisons cash flow problems were "solved" it wasn't an easy thing. Of those 1140 engines delivered in 1940 only 342 went to the USAAC, the rest were French and British Orders. Remember that 900,000 dollars the Army owed Allison? Allison had to forgive the Army that debt in order to get permission to export the engine to Britain and France. Now where was the money to come from to pay for this expanded R&D early program that modern writers seem to want.

The Army was only paying for certain programs or proposals. And in fact during the late 30s and perhaps 1940 Allison at times had to ask the Army what they really wanted as the Army was coming up with all kinds of ideas (like fuel injection) while that staff of 25 was already working on 5-6 other army projects. If the Army isn't paying for projects already being worked on where is desire to hire more staff (who expect to be paid) to work on extra projects?

You are also not giving quite enough credit to manufactures field representatives, some of whom were on those Islands and desert air bases instructing those mechanics in field, and gathering information to send back to the factory for quicker changes. Even the Flying Tigers had at least one field representative.
One representative solved a engine control linkage problem in India on P-38s by squeezing in behind the pilot while several flights were made with cowling panels removed for observation. A new linkage set up was devised and manufactured locally and fitted to several squadrons in that theater and other kits were readied to send to squadrons in the Pacific. I don't know how many were fitted as Lockheed had either figured it out or used his initial reports to come up with a factory retrofit linkage kit.

By 1943 Allison had well over 20,000 employees and several General motors plants were acting as subcontractors for parts like crankshafts and connecting rods. All told there were around 1250 companies supplying parts/materials to Allison.
Allison (and other companies) also wound up with training schools to teach army personnel (instructors) how to train other army personnel to be aircraft engine mechanics. Allison ran their first 22 day course starting in April of 1942. A little late for troops leaving for the south Pacific.

I know it goes against American mythology to believe that men in the field didn't know more than the men you designed and built the aircraft and engines to begin with but let's be realistic.

 

[Schweik]

A bit melodramatic. I would certainly like to hear more about Allisons sale of defective engines.

It's hardly a big secret, and google is your friend.

Curtiss-Wright - Wikipedia

They were installing defective engines and then bribing Army inspectors to slip them through to the combat units. I would call this criminal negligence. It was a plague for the US, every country had it's own particular kind of cultural problems in meeting the challenges of aircraft production in WW2, but for the US it was corporate corruption.

from the wiki:

"From 1941 to 1943, the Curtiss Aeronautical plant in Lockland, Ohio produced aircraft engines under wartime contract destined for installation in U.S. Army Air Forces aircraft.[8][9] Wright officials at Lockland insisted on high engine production levels, resulting in a significant percentage of engines that did not meet Army Air Forces (AAF) inspection standards. These defective engines were nevertheless approved by inspectors for shipment and installation in U.S. military aircraft. After investigation, it was later revealed that Wright company officials at Lockland had conspired with civilian technical advisers and Army inspection officers to approve substandard or defective aircraft engines for military use.[8][9] Army Air Forces technical adviser Charles W. Bond was dismissed by the Army in 1943 for "gross irregularities in inspection procedure."[10] Bond would later testify that he had been "wined and dined" by Wright company officials; one of those occasions was the night before Bond fired four AAF engine inspectors another AAF inspector had described as "troublemakers."[10] In 1944, three Army officers, Lt. Col. Frank Constantine Greulich of Detroit, former chief inspection officer for the material command, Major Walter A. Ryan of Detroit, former central states inspection officer, and Major William Bruckmann, a former Cincinnati brewer and resident Army inspections officer at the Wright plant in Lockland were charged with neglect of duty, conspiracy, and giving false testimony in a general court martial.[11][12][13] All three men were later convicted of neglect of duty.[13] The story of defective engines had reached investigators working for Sen. Harry Truman's congressional investigative board, the Truman Commission, after several Wright aircraft assembly workers informed on the company; they would later testify under oath before Congress.[8][9][14] Arthur Miller's play All My Sons is based on this incident.[15]"

Allison was in a strange situation, a lot of people nowadays bitch and moan about how Allison should have done this or that or some other thing to

I'd like to point out, I'm not "bitching and moaning", I was referring to historical facts. I appreciate that it's useful to approach history from a variety of perspectives and have no problem, in fact appreciate your well informed perspective from the manufacturers point of view. But please don't get carried away. I'm not a bitch and don't appreciate being referred to as one implicitly or otherwise.

improve the Allison engine (meaning make it more com[ative with the Merlin). They ignore that Allison was a very small engine company for most of the 1930s. They ended 1938 with 530 employees and orders for 43 engines on the books, they had completed 13 engines that year (one was

I don't think there were many aircraft or engine manufacturers that didn't have to suddenly ramp up production from the tiny level of aircraft needed for civilian use in the 30's to the massive numbers demanded by the military forces in the 1940's. No doubt it was an immense challenge, but so was fighting for survival against a determined and well trained enemy in high performing fighters, in a not quite perfected aircraft that you only had 20 hours of flight time in. So was surviving El Alamein or the invasion of Guam or the Bataan Death March. World War II was an unprescedented screaming emergency that snuffed out the lives of 40-60+ million people depending on how you did the math. Everyone had a hard time.

And yet the war lasted four years for the US, and Curtiss and Allison certainly saw it coming. They had time to make certain decisions (as other aircraft and engine manufactuers did) and they didn't. In fact they cut corners, instigated corruption and got caught doing it. Cutiss also failed to make almost any useful major designs after the P-40 (one transport plane and one float plane, the rest basically all failed), which is why Curtiss aircraft folded shortly after WW2.

The P-40 was a good fighter, and the Allison was a good engine, there were many good people and obviously some excellent engineers involved in their production, but there were also clearly issues with the management of both Curtiss and Allison or it's parent company or both which prevented it from becoming a great engine - and that cost many lives. The rest is just excuses.

I know it goes against American mythology to believe that men in the field didn't know more than the men you designed and built the aircraft and engines to begin with but let's be realistic.

I'm not sure what mythological context you are coming from, but don't be confused, I never said that mechanics in the field knew more about engine design than Allison or Rolls Royce did, I'm saying they successfully rose to the challenge of getting the problems solved before the manufacturer did, certainly in the case of Allison. That again is an historical fact.

S

 

[tomo pauk]

I should have equivocated on that a bit - yes obviously the aircraft engine companies did their R&D but not always at - or even remotely near a pace that was in sync with the needs of the pilots using these aircraft. Allison in particular was (I wold say) literally criminally negligent in this regard, in fact later in the war they were caught selling defective engine in some kind of bribery scandal.

It's hardly a big secret, and google is your friend.

Curtiss-Wright - Wikipedia

They were installing defective engines and then bribing Army inspectors to slip them through to the combat units. I would call this criminal negligence. It was a plague for the US, every country had it's own particular kind of cultural problems in meeting the challenges of aircraft production in WW2, but for the US it was corporate corruption.

from the wiki:

"From 1941 to 1943, the Curtiss Aeronautical plant in Lockland, Ohio produced aircraft engines under wartime contract destined for installation in U.S. Army Air Forces aircraft.[8][9] Wright officials at Lockland insisted on high engine production levels, resulting in a significant percentage of engines that did not meet Army Air Forces (AAF) inspection standards.
...."

Do you actually know that Allison was one company, owned by GM, while Lockland factory was owned by Curtiss Wright? One making V-1710s, other making R-2600s?

The P-40 was a good fighter, and the Allison was a good engine, there were many good people and obviously some excellent engineers involved in their production, but there were also clearly issues with the management of both Curtiss and Allison or it's parent company or both which prevented it from becoming a great engine - and that cost many lives. The rest is just excuses.

Or it is the USAAC, that squandered time an money on hi-per engines, that were pushed down the throat of Continental and Lycoming, while opting not to materially support the V-1710 project? How guilty is the USAAC for wanting turbochargers by all cost, not wanting to hear about 2-stage engines until shooting started? Not supporting the XP-40H project - yes, the P-40 with turbo? Specifying too heavy armament suite on just one V12 engine?

I'm not sure what mythological context you are coming from, but don't be confused, I never said that mechanics in the field knew more about engine design than Allison or Rolls Royce did, I'm saying they successfully rose to the challenge of getting the problems solved before the manufacturer did, certainly in the case of Allison. That again is an historical fact.

Pray tell, how did the field mechanics solved the problem of V-1710 being not that good at altitude?

 

[Shortround6]

Allison in particular was (I wold say) literally criminally negligent in this regard, in fact later in the war they were caught selling defective engine in some kind of bribery scandal.

from your post #334, I Inquired about further details and suggested that perhaps it was the Arthur Miller play (fiction) that was the source.

Then I am told that google is my friend after I told you it was Curtiss Wright.

Your pretty handy at handing out the red Xs even when your version doesn't stand up well.

I don't know if you are American or English or some other nationatialy but there is a big difference between calling somebody "a bitch" and saying somebody
is "bitching'" (complaining)

as in Bitch.
verb
INFORMAL

1. 1.
   express displeasure; grumble.
   "they bitch about everything"
   synonyms: complain, whine, grumble, grouse; More

If you want to take what I wrote as an insult go ahead, it wasn't intended that way.

I don't think there were many aircraft or engine manufacturers that didn't have to suddenly ramp up production from the tiny level of aircraft needed for civilian use in the 30's to the massive numbers demanded by the military forces in the 1940's.

Pratt & Whitney made about 13,500 engines from the start of the company until 1938. Small compared to what would be needed (Plant expanded four times in size from 1938 to 1940 let alone after) and Wright had built 8000 Cyclones (not counting Whirlwinds with 1300 Cyclones delivered in 1937 and 1000 in the first 7 months of of 1938.) so both did expand tremendously from where they were in 1938 but then they were several orders of magnitude ahead of where Allison was at the time.

I am not sure why you are dragging Curtiss Wright into the discussion as to what Allison did or didn't do to develop their engine better. Any evidence that Allison was guilty of what Wright was?

but there were also clearly issues with the management of both Curtiss and Allison or it's parent company or both which prevented it from becoming a great engine - and that cost many lives. The rest is just excuses.

Ok what were the issues with Allison or it's parent company (General Motors) that prevented the the V-1710 from becoming a great engine?
As far as I know Wright had nothing to do with it.

 

[Schweik]

Do you actually know that Allison was one company, owned by GM, while Lockland factory was owned by Curtiss Wright? One making V-1710s, other making R-2600s?

And what type of engine is the V-1710? Are you suggesting Allison wasn't part of that? I should have guessed this was the angle certain people would take, but I don't think Allison can wash their hands of their own engines being built in another companies factory - as far as I know nearly every major aircraft or aircraft engine company had manufacturing done in other companies factories, right?

EDIT : Correction, the scandal was at Curtiss and with a different engine, mea culpa

Or it is the USAAC, that squandered time an money on hi-per engines, that were pushed down the throat of Continental and Lycoming, while opting not to materially support the V-1710 project? How guilty is the USAAC for wanting turbochargers by all cost, not wanting to hear about 2-stage engines until shooting started? Not supporting the XP-40H project - yes, the P-40 with turbo? Specifying too heavy armament suite on just one V12 engine?

I would certainly not hide the USAAC from blame by any means, I'm well aware of the antics of the "bomber mafia" etc., but I still say many companies, not just Curtiss and Allison but also Lockheed by the way, were complicit in numerous scandals that plagued the US war machine.

Pray tell, how did the field mechanics solved the problem of V-1710 being not that good at altitude?

They solved the survivability problem for P-40s by increasing (low altitude) horsepower from 1150 to ~1550 and that is pretty good for what has been implied were uneducated teenagers who barely knew how to count. Saved a lot of lives and basically made the aircraft viable again which was needed due to the failure of so many other designs like the P-39, P-35*, P-43*, P-46, P-60, and the (at that time still struggling) P-38.

The institutions, corporate and government, did enough of their part to get the country in position to survive, but it's also hyperbole to ignore the innovations in the field. It was from the field that the idea of putting bombs on several of the available fighters originated, when the bombers on hand were inadequate to do the job (and putting fighter escorts at risk because they were so slow). It was in the field that successful efforts were taken to lighten fighters (which were later copied by Curtiss), where the new boost settings got established which were later accepted by Allison, and so on. It was in the field that skip bombing was invented. Or the defensive gun added to the Il-2. The adoption of the finger-four and flying in pairs. And so on.

S

* before somebody nit-picks this I am well aware that these designs paved the way for the excellent P-47 but it took quite a while to get there and meanwhile the war was still on.