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

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"bitching'" (complaining)

You are trying to nit pick, Curtiss was making Allison engines under the direction of Allison, or are you suggesting it was some new Curtiss engine? Did Curtiss set up the factory on their own? Did they create the tools and jigs?

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?

Again, it's pretty simple - we both know those were Allison engines being made in that factory.

S
 
The Wright factory in Ohio was Making R-2600 air cooled radial engines. Not Allison V-1710s

Wright was 100% responsible for the The Plant in Ohio as Wright was reluctant to licence it engines to other companies.

Wright and Allison had nothing to do with each other.

I have no knowledge of Wright ever building an Allison piston engine during during WW II.
 
You are right, I owe you an apology. I had read about this several times and always assumed it was Allison engines. I stand corrected.

Found this link explaining details of the investigation of the scandal for anyone interested.
 
Allison had all it's subcontracting done in in General motors plants but Allison was the ONLY assembly plant for the V=1710 engine.
Unless you can show proof otherwise.





Italic: I never implied that, that is you interpretation. Stop putting words in peoples mouths.
You do know that the P-35 predated even the P-36 was out of production and never going to be reinstated by the time the first P-40s came off the line.?




Bombs under a fighter, what a novel idea, why didn't somebody think of that before?????


P-26 Peashooter bomb rack.

Bombs under fighters goes back to WW I. One reason the P-40 was so easy to hang bombs under was that Curtiss had offered export Hawk 75s with not only the under fuselage bomb rack (up to 500lbs) but a light bomb rack in each wing.

see. http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/P-36/Curtiss_Hawk_75-A_Detail_Specifications.pdf
The P-35 was rated at a 350lb bomb load.
why the bomb load went away on the early P-40s is an unexplained mystery but sorry, men in the field did NOT invent the concept.
 
Ok, are you seriously denying that they didn't implement new and more bomb racks on multiple different aircraft in the field? I never said it hadn't ever been done before.

Pre-war bomb loads - especially for fighters- were usually insufficient for real combat needs.

In order to be effective, more effective than the available light or medium bombers on hand, they had to get them to carry quite heavy bomb loads which they did largely as a matter of improvisation, on more than one aircraft and in more than one Theater. They also added other weapons like rockets a bit later on.
 
The thing with the bomb racks is actually very similar to the issue with overboosting. There was some capacity there for some planes (oddly not the original P-40) but it was inadequate to actual needs. Somebody in the field had to figure out how to put heavier and larger bombs on the planes, how to put in more and stronger bomb shackles and so on, and then somebody had to test the plane, see if it could take off and then later work out the safe margins for (shallow) dive bombing etc.
 
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.

Rolls Royce didn't luck into Stanley Hooker, they were more interested in basic research than any other engine company at the time and hired him specifically to look at things without preconceived notions. They also hired AA Griffith at about the same time to do research on axial flow gas turbines. Rolls Royce was a very technically advanced company that did a lot of basic research leading to things such a ram intakes, ejector exhaust and extended surface radiators. They also experimented with turbo charging, diesels, sleeve valves, air cooling, steam cooling and two strokes.
In any event Hooker takes way too much credit for the success of the Merlin. Yes he designed an excellent supercharger (building on the work of Ellor) but without the well designed induction system the effect would have been lost. Hooker was responsible for an accessory for Merlin not the engine itself, which was the responsibly of Cyril Lovesey. Lovesey was a much more modest man than Hooker so he never got the credit he deserved. The difference between Hooker and Lovesey's personalities is perfectly illustrated by the following clip. Start watching at the 4.00 minute mark. Poor Lovesey can't get a word in edge wise.

 
I think both points of view may be correct.

RR certainly seemed interested in hiring academics to further research. On the other hand when first hired Hooker wasn't assigned any duties and was told to look around and see what interested him (according to his autobiography). Had some other aspect of the Merlin (or other engines being worked on ) struck his fancy first would RR supercharger development moved along as it did?

Hooker certainly had little to do with the main part of the Merlin engine and anything that had to do with the Merlin being able to stand up to the power the superchargers could provide.

On the other hand many companies could build a good, sturdy engine that performed well at low altitude (some couldn't-Armstrong Siddeley Tiger) but that is not what set the Merlin apart. From the Merlin XX on it was the Merlin's ability to operate at high altitudes that was it's main claim to fame.

The supercharger may have been an "accessory" in the mid to late 1930s but by mid-way through the war the supercharger design had come to dominate (or at least strongly influence)
aircraft design. Once you get to two stage superchargers (turbo or mechanical) and their antendent intercooler system/s the weight and volume of the supercharger installation becomes more than a mere accessory.
 
Adding to this conversation ! Tossing this out here.

Initially the British had the better Fighters and Engines.
Ironically I think the Allison was a better engine than the Watch Maker Merlin.
Just the British developed what they had into a great performer.

British had to survive creating urgency and different decisions.
The US was a 2 years late bit player in WW2 compared to all the other Combatants.
Think we horribly lost about 500000 soldiers in WW2.
Britain about three times that, Russians and Chinese each ten times that.

US did contribute a lot but never seemed to be as urgent.
Such as neglecting our own jet engine and rocket technology.
The Atom Bomb did take precedence.

The US continent was not attacked had did not have to defend a large land battle.
IMHO the Navy seemed to have a different attitude than the Army.

Never understood the number of failed Curtis designs.
Yet the P40 Q model would have been a vast improvement and could be fielded by 1943

I am of the mind that it was the British that gave NAA the plans for the P51 to build.
NAA made their design changes for manufacturing.
Yet our Military had nothing close to this plane.
Because of NIH it had a moderate start.
Once US desperation set in it got integrated as a world class fighter.

Then there is the US Sherman tank not upgrading to a better Cannon...!
Despite the British installing theirs and able to give the US them.

I guess hindsight is 20/20
Hope I did not steal this post.

Dan
 
Jeff
 
Initially the British had the better Fighters and Engines.
Ironically I think the Allison was a better engine than the Watch Maker Merlin.
Just the British developed what they had into a great performer.

Dan
I've said it before, 200-300 lb. weight difference between the Allison and the Merlin means the British one was a heavier built engine.
You can put more stress (i.e., power) on either engine but the Merlin will stand up to it better.
Hydroplane crews in the 50's-70's found the same thing.

Elvis
 

That extra 300lbs includes a 2nd stage supercharger, an intercooler and 2 speed supercharger drive.

Equivalent single stage Merlins were 25-50lbs heavier than the V-1710.

And the 2 speed, single stage, Merlin XX series was only about 100lbs heavier.
 
Ironically I think the Allison was a better engine than the Watch Maker Merlin.

Isn't it time we relegated this myth to the rubbish bin?
No less than Stanley Hooker relates a story about when the guys from Ford of England showed up to look things over when they were setting up a shadow factory.
After a number of days (or a few weeks) one the head Ford guys comes to the office that S. Hooker was sharing and complains to the other guy in the office that Ford can't make the engines using the drawings and tolerances that RR is using. S. Hooker pipes up and says something like they can't hold the tolerances that RR uses. The Ford guy answers and says no, the tolerances are too loose. You can't mass produce low price cars (or thousands of aircraft engines) unless the parts are completely interchangeable.
A more accurate account is in Stanley Hookers autobiography.
Now the Merlin may have been a pain in the butt to work on because RR never used 2 screws to hold a cover on when they could use 6-8 screws but the Merlin wasn't built to a finer tolerances than any other high powered aircraft engine of the time.
 
...ok, I stand corrected...

From the 456th Fighter Squadron website...

"The production Allison turned out to be the sturdy and reliable powerplant that its designers had striven for. The only thing that stood between the Allison and real greatness was its inability to deliver its power at sufficiently high altitudes. This was not the fault of its builders. It resulted from an early Army decision to rely on turbo supercharging to obtain adequate power at combat heights. Even this decision was not a technical error. A turbo supercharged Allison was as good a high-altitude engine as most. The trouble was that the wartime shortage of alloying materials, especially tungsten, made it impossible to make turbo superchargers for any but a small proportion of Allisons.
Bomber engines got the priority.
The few turbo-supercharged Allisons that were made were allocated to P-38s, making the high-altitude performance of that plane its best feature.
All 14,000 P-40s got gear-driven superchargers and, as a result, were never first-class fighter planes. Donaldson R. Berlin, the P-40 designer, has said that P-40s experimentally equipped with turbo-superchargers outperformed Spitfires and Messerschmitts and that if it had been given the engine it was designed for, the P-40 would have been the greatest fighter of its era.
This may be to some extent the bias of a proud parent, but there is no doubt that the deletion of the turbo supercharger ruined the P-39.
Had Allison's engineers been able to put the effort into gear-driven superchargers that Pratt and Whitney and Rolls-Royce did, it might have been a different story. As it was, there can be little doubt that the V-1710 had more potential than was actually exploited."


Would be interesting to see a turbocharged P-40 go up against a Bf-109.



Elvis
 
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That is, in my opinion a myth.

The P-40 was never meant to have a turbocharger, though one was proposed, based on the E, but never built.

Some history:
The first Model 75 Hawk prototype was converted to use a turbocharged V-1710 and was designated the XP-37.

This featured the original style turbocharger, which had the compressor reversed so that it drew air in over the centre bearing. The turbocharger proved unreliable.

The installation of the radiator and intercooler behind the engine meant that the cockpit had to be moved aft, so that it was just forward of the fin.

The USAAC was impressed enough to order service test versions as the YP-37.

This featured a revised turbo, which was the first of the B-series turbos used through WW2. The turbo remained unreliable.

The YP-37 differed by having a longer rear fuselage, which solved some of the issues with stability that the XP-37 had.

Due to the reliability issues with the turbocharger, Berlin and Curtiss requested an altitude rated V-1710 to fit into the P-36 airframe. The 10th production P-36 was converted to the V-1710 and was designated XP-40.

The XP-40 flew about a year after the XP-37 and a year before the YP-37.

A later development was the XP-53, which was based on the P-40 fuselage, but with the Continental IV-1430 engine and laminar flow wings. Because of the delay in getting flight approved IV-1430s, the decision was made to fit the V-1650-1, which was starting licence production at Packard, instead. The aircraft was redesignated XP-60.

Several other P-60 variants were devised:
XP-60 with V-1650-1 Merlin, started as XP-53
XP-60A with V-1710 and GE turbo
YP-60A with V-1710 and GE turbo, completed as YP-60E
XP-60B with V-1710 and Wright turbo, completed as XP-60E
XP-60C with R-2800 and contra-rotating propellers (was originally supposed to get the Chrysler IV-2220)
XP-60D with V-1650-3 2 stage Merlin - converted from XP-60
XP-60E with R2800 and single rotation propeller
YP-60E with R2800 and single rotation propeller

The XP-60, XP-60A, XP-60C, XP-60D, XP-60E and YP-60E all flew.

The XP-60's first flight was in September 1941.

The XP-60A had an engine fire during taxiing tests in late 1942, so modifications were made prior to the first flight.

The XP-60A was the closest to a turbocharged P-40, though it used a different fuselage to the XP-60/XP-60D, which was based on the P-40.

And by the time it flew, Berlin was gone from Curtiss.
 
Unfortunately the whole Curtiss P-36 through P-60 story is a convoluted mess.
No P-40 ever flew with a turbo.
A P-36/Hawk 75 may have. there seems to be some confusion as to whether it flew with a two stage mechanical or a turbo or with both at different times. The Company demonstrator was rebuilt a number of times.
You have the XP-37 and YP-37s as already mentioned.
You have the XP-60A which was fitted with a turbo but caught fire during ground running and the turbo was removed when the plane was repaired and most (or all) of the flights were done without the turbo.

There are no published photos of a P-40 with a turbo, there are no published drawings of a P-40 with a turbo. There are references to a turbo being shipped to the Curtiss factory but no evidence of metal actual being cut for a P-40. I have no Idea if that turbo wound up in the XP-60A
 


Last 3-4 sentences are myths abound.
USA was not short of war materials, tungsten included. About 20000 (20 thousand) of V-1710s + spares that were installed on P-38s were turbocharged. 20000 turbocharged engines is probably more engines than what Japan produced in 1940+1941+1942, including engines for trainers and transports.
USA also installed more than 15600 tubochargers on P-47s, of the type that was bigger, heavier and more expensive than turbos used on bombers or on P-38s.



1st sentence is moot - plenty of fighters were good/great even if their S/C was gear-driven. 2nd sentence has zero proof, ergo it's a myth. 3rd sentence - installation of turbo almost runied P-39 program, and, with it, Bell aircraft company.
Allison was a small company when compared with RR and P&W, so yes, their resources were too small to make, all in the same time, a V-1710 in several flavors (turbo or not, pusher or pull, with or without remote gearbox etc.).
Latest quoted sentence is probably true - with a good S/C and some nip & tuck, V-1710 was in the league of Merlin or DB 601/605.

BTW - nobody seems to blame USAAC/AAF for requiring from the P-39 and P-40 to carry about same weight of guns & ammo as it was the case with P-38 with much more altitude power.
 
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