P-47 vs P-51 in a dive

CobberKane said:

I guess it all depends on how you define 'dogfight.' I don't think the the P-51 was ever renowned as a turn fighter, although it was considered to be somewhat better than contemporary 109s and 190s in this respect. Perhaps that what Hans Lerch meant. i recall an interview with Clayton Gross where he recalls engaging in a turning fight against a 109 for the better part of ten minutes before the other pilot bugged out - it's hard to imagine the German would have survived that kind of fight against a spitfire.
Eric Brown considered the Mustang to be the best 'American' dogfighter (assumedly compared to the P-38 and P-47). He preferred the Spit IX but noted that wherever the P-51 lost out (climb, turning circle) it made up in other areas (rate of roll, speed). For the record he considered the best dogfighters to be the Spitfire XIV, The Fw 190D and he P-51D, in that order, with the caveat that he could have thrown a postage stamp over the three of them.

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GregP said:

The P-51D/K has the same wing thickness, chord (except root chord), and area as a P-51A. We have one of each that is flyable, and they DO fly, and I can tell you that from personal knowledge. All that happened in the "D/K" model was the guns were mounted upright, the feed was modified, and the root chord was a bit longer. After the wing kink for the wheel well from the root chord, the wings are identical.

The Me 109 was almost unrollable at over 400 mph. The full defelction tat could be obtiained by a normal pilot could only generate maybe 15° per second or less. The REALLY scary thought is the pitch rate wasn't much better ... ask any Me 109 pilot.

I am hearing in here that:

1. The P-38 was never called "the fork tailed devil" by the Luftwaffe, and we had it confirmed as true for the upteenth time this last weekend by former Luftwaffe pilots at out P-38 event that they DID call it that name).

2. I hear that there are new data coming out stating the Fw 190D and Ta 152 were, in fact, better and faster than previously thought. That won't change their mediocre combat record and will not be believed unless it can be demonstrated ... good luck.

3. The Me 109 can out dive a P-51! Never hear that and we have had presentations by almost all the living P-51 pilots and not many less Luftwaffe pilots.

4. There is a thread in here where the speed of the P-51 at low level is questioned and people are debating it ... but we fly them almost every weekend and they are as fast as the specifications. Al sea level, the P-51 is VERY fast. There is a Google hit for a tactical trial of early P-51 performance and it is bogus. The report in the Google hit has no report number (not possible in WWII) and the people back then knew how to spell ... the report has too many mispellings, including some common words. The numbers in Wikipedia are ridiculous ... they don't match North American Aviaion, the US Army Air Corps tests, or the USAAC Fighter Group tests.

Gotta' say, I am a disbeliever in people trying to make the Mustang performance lower in the "popular press." If I didn't know the people flying them today, I might bite ... but the people flying them get book performance at book weights ... and BETTER performance at lighter weights. The Me 109's I know of are getting book performace at book weights and better performance at lighter weights ... and the Me 109, when going faster than 400 mph, was fleeing the combat scene, not attacking, because the Me 109 was traveling in more or less a straight line at anything above 400 mph.

You are free to rewrite whatever performance specs you want if you are authoring a PC flight sim game but, if you want historically accurate data, stick with the specifications as given by the manufacturers at the time. Sorry guys, I don't buy the performacne rewrites 70 years later because I know people who fly them now, and THEY don't buy it either. Even our A6M5 Model 52 meets specs, just like our Northrop N9MB Flying Wing does. The only reason most of the Hawker Sea Furies don't meet spec is they aren't flying with Bristol Centaurus engines anymore, mostly; they have Wright R-3350's mostly and are quite a bit faster and more powerful than stock hawker specs ... not slower.

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Juha said:

Hello Siegfried
First of all, like all its contemporaries. or at least most of them, 109 suffered wing twist at very high speed, 109F theoretical aileron reversal speed was appr. 980km/h TAS at 3000m according to DVL test. If one put DVL test results on to NACA 868 results one sees that 109F rolled better up to 190mph IAS at 10000ft than USAAF fighters but P-40F and P-63A. It also rolled better than Hurricane and Typhoon but normal wing Spitfire rolled better through entire speed range and at high speeds Spit rolled clearly better than 109F at 10000ft, at least up to 390 mph IAS where NACA graph ended, and at low speeds too. But between 280 and 310mph IAS there was not much difference between Spit and 109F. And Spit achieved its peak roll rate at 200mph IAS 109F around 280mph IAS. Fw 190 was in class of its own up to 370mph IAS where first P-51B and then Tempest get better in rolling. And Spits elevators were very light but its ailerons got heavy at high speeds.

Juha

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CobberKane said:

I think the 109 always had a reputation as a nasty staller in tight turns. Posibly only the best pilots were game to approach its best turn performance for fear of spinning out without warning. I've also read that the spitfires great sturn performance was enhanced by the elliptical wings tendacy to stall progressively from the wingroots out, shuderrring and giving the pilot plenty of warning. Is this correct?

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GregP said:

2. I hear that there are new data coming out stating the Fw 190D and Ta 152 were, in fact, better and faster than previously thought. That won't change their mediocre combat record and will not be believed unless it can be demonstrated ... good luck.

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Juha said:

I'd say no, rather other way around. Because of heavy elevators it was difficult to stall 109 and slats made it even more difficult and the deployment of slats gave clear warning that the plane was near stall. The deployment of slats also lightened elevator. If one still pull harder while speed decreased 109 began shake if one still kept pulling left wing and nose dropped if one easy off the pull the turn continued. Of course some inexperienced pilots lightened the pull when slats came out and so didn't fly the plane to the its limits. Spinning was forbidden but 109 didn't went into spin easily, in fact that was one of demands in the original specifications.

On the other hand Spit had very light elevators and it was easy to stall the plane by tightening the turn too much. So British found out in 1940 while testing a captured 109E that even if Spit could turn tighter many pilots were afraid to turn as tightly as possible because it was so easy to pull too much and the captured 109E could out-turn them. Someone else surely can tell more on Spit turning behaviour. I have somewhere pilots' descriptions on that, but not time to dig them out.

So IMHO 109 was easier plane to fly to its limits than Spitfire.

Juha

ADDUM: Michael Potter on Spit Mk IX: "Surprisingly the controls are not harmonized. Stick forces for aileron are closer to being normal, but the elevator forces are extraordinarily light and demand the gentlest touch… the stall characteristics are benign. With flaps and gear down and the weights we fly at today, stall speed is less than 60 knots. There is lots of warning, little tendency for a wing drop, and recovery is routine and immediate."

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wuzak said:

So, by adding that addendum you have contradicted yourself?

If in 1940 RAF pilots were reluctant to turn tighter and risk a stall does it not speak to their relative inexperience more than the on-the-limit handling of the Spitfire? After all, up to 1940 LW pilots had more training and, generally, had a lot more experience.

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Juha said:

Hello Riacrato
IIRC 4 Ta 152s were lost in air combat and they claimed 10 air victories.

Juha

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