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I found that odd as well^Maybe partly, based on the description of the pilots, one with 17 months of combat experience, surprisingly flying the P-47, the other with none flying combat simulations. Without more background info IMHO it seems that the P-47 pilot had some advantages,
That incident was recreated by the same folks who made the Swede Vejtasa vid. I have it on vhs. Don't have a vcr anymore though. BTW The FW-190's engaged him, not the other way around.The date of the tests was not provided. But since the P-47 had water injection I assume it was late 1943 at earliest.
In the same book I read of where a P-47 engaged a bunch of FW-190's all by himself. He used water injection and although hit a number of times did finally succeed in escaping into the clouds and making it home.
I can see a valid reason for those tests. Take the Spitfire as a "stand in" for a German fighter of the time, it could determine how competitive the P-51 was without using full boost in order not to waste fuel.Another "trick" often used is to restrict one airplane's power to some arbitrary low level. I've seen Spitfire versus P-51 tests that allowed the Spit to use full power and restricted the P-51 to some level below authorized levels in the flight manual. That is especially funny when using a P-51 with a Merlin engine and Spitfire also with a Merlin engine.
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But no one is interested in saving fuel consumption in a Spitfire, its could be the difference between getting home or not. I am not saying that's the reason, just speculation on there being a sound reason for such tests.Hi pbehn,
I'd agree except all the British tests I have seen restricted the P-51, not the Spitfire. In fact, most of the British test I've seen restrict the engine in non-British aircraft. Ditto US tests restrict the captured aircraft. It well might be that the captured aircraft is the ONLY one they have, and they don't want to do any damage before getting more than just a handful of assessment flights in.
Or, perhaps that's like when Chuck Yeager flew the captured MiG-15 and said," I'd take a Sabre any day!" What was he going to say and release to the USAF, "O shit, we're in trouble!" ?
That doesn't make for reassuring good copy for the troops to read, does it?
Can one assume it was this aircraft?...
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/fw190/Fw_190_Eng-47-1658-D.pdf