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hard maneuvers result in loss of altitude, even today where the thrust to weight ratios are somewhat better than in 1944 ...
everyone seems to agree these planes are closely matched i see no reason to assume a swift conclusion in any well flown dogfight.
thank God now lets talk about first person accts, of Dora/Mustang combat instead of silly graphs which mean nothing in the long run
yeah it's my humble opinion
i guess i was not clear ...
i think it is close and could go either way however i still give an edge to the 190-D because of the roll rate advantage.
Caldwell's book is very suspicious, his opinion on th D-9 goes completely against that of the pilots who actually flew the a/c, including the results of a direct comparison done at Rechlin.
The conclusion at Rechlin was that the Dora-9 was found to turn climb much better than the Anton, and straight line speed was higher as-well. Roll rate was the same. And this is supported by veteran accounts as-well as basic physics.
Caldwell is the ONLY person to claim that the Dora turned worse than the Anton, real life pilots vets plus aerodynamic evidence all make it abundantly clear that the Dora turned better than the Anton.
Also let us please not use Mike Williams site as reference for performance on German a/c, he is a very selective person. I've got plenty of documents which prove a top SL speed of 615 km/h and high alt speed of 702 km/h with use of MW50. His translations of the some of the documents are also dubious.
So back to our eternal battleground.
whatever floats your boat is fine.
FW 190 D-9 Flight Trials
Excellent performance testing results with full range of weight, boost and rpm settings, with and without ETC racks, etc. Translation of German tests, and links posted to German language 'originals' at bottom.
If you don't like these or believe they are 'same old thing with worn out birds' - post your own.
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/fw190/wright-field-fw190d-9.pdf
Possibly a worn out bird and definitely rigging problems. Pay attention to e. Handling and Control at Various Speeds and h. Manueverability and Aerobatics. This report was written after 6 hours of at best casual testing but interestingly it dovetails to my fathers own (anecdotal) experience with the Fw190D-9 he flew at Gablingen with several other P-51 aces of the 355th FG post war. IIRC he 25 hours in the D-9 between July and October
Next
anecdotal impressions of III/JG54 during December. I repeat - Anecdotal - not proof points!
"Donald Caldwell wrote of the FW 190 D-9's operational debut in his The JG 26 War Diary Volume Two 1943-1945 (pages 388 – 399):
17 December: The Second Gruppe pilots returned to the front and their new base at Nördhorn-Clausheide in seventy-four Fw 190D-9s, their numbers bolstered by twenty brand-new pilots. The pilot's opinions of the "long-nosed Dora", or Dora-9, as it was variously nicknamed, were mixed. The new model was intended to correct the Fw 190's most glaring weakness, its poor high altitude performance. What came out of Kurt Tank's shop was a compromise. Tank did not like the liquid-cooled Jumo 213A engine, but it was the best choice available. The long in-line engine had to be balanced by a lengthened rear fuselage to maintain the proper center of gravity, making the Fw 190D four feet longer than the Fw 190A. The new airplane lacked the high turn rate and incredible rate of roll of its close-coupled radial-engined predecessor. It was a bit faster, however, with a maximum speed of 680 km/h (422 mph) at 6600 meters (21,650 feet).Its 2240 horespower with methanol-water injection (MW 50) gave it an excellent acceleration in combat situations. It also climbed and dived more rapidly than the Fw 190A, and so proved well suited to the dive-and-zoom ambush tactics favored by the Schlageter pilots. Many of the early models were not equipped with tanks for methanol, which was in very short supply in any event. At low altitude, the top speed and acceleration of these examples were inferior to those of Allied fighters. Hans Hartigs recalled that only one of the first batch of Dora-9s received by the First Gruppe had methanol-water injection, and the rest had a top speed of only 590 km/h (360 mph).
18 December: The First Gruppe reported a strength of 52 190As and 28 Fw 190 D-9's… The Second Gruppe flew its first mission in its Dora-9s, but failed to contact the enemy.
23 December: The Second Gruppe flew its first Fw 190D-9 mission.
24 December: The first combat mission for the new Fw 190 D-9s of the First Gruppe was an attempted interception of the heavy bombers.
25 December: The First Gruppe reported in the morning that only nine of its Focke-Wulfs were serviceable. The Stab and the 2nd and 3rd Staffeln were taken off operations to train in the Fw 190 D-9.
III/JG 54 returned to the combat zone, still led by Hptm. Robert Weiss, a member of JG 26 back in the glory day on the Kanalfront. […] The unit had been built up to its full strength of sixty-eight FW 190D-9s.
26 December: The biggest news the returning pilots had for their comrades was the Mustang's superiority in speed and acceleration to their Dora 9s. "
P-51 Mustang Performance
Note 51D performance comparisons with 150 octane fuel (available in quantity after June 1944) - just a little off the P-51B-15 - both greater than 440mph at 22K+ and all versions greater than 420mp from 7K up.
Anecdotal discussion say 190D-9 roll rate less than Fw 190A, Test comparisons say slower than 51D (when each compared equivalently with respect to racks, internal fuel and ammo max load =even when 2.02 ata given but noted that 2.02 ata may neverhave been achieved in combat, one with MW50 the other with 150 octane and 75" boost)
These are SOME of the easy things you could have found with a casual search of this forum..
Now - So your thesis is the 190D-9 had superior roll performance?
Prove it.
Regards,
Bill
Ad Nauseum by the look of it.
Virtually all of this thread is subjective circular argument, based on documents which can be interpreted in any way the poster sees fit to suit his premise.
If Priller returns from the grave, joins this forum and gives his opinion on the Fw 190 D I'd be prepared to listen. Until then this thread should be consigned to oblivion.
i already posted the roll rate comparison chart you show me where the pony did anything 30-100% better than the dora that mattered in a dogfight at dogfight speeds.
Show me a quote from me where I said any such thing..
care to define dogfight speeds? trot out your performance thesis by altitude and gross weight to provide any shred of substance to 'all else being ="??
oh and to dispute the chart, you prove the dora rolled significantly worse or the anton, or that the pony d rolled significantly better than the pony b.
As you said earlier, the burden of proof for superior roll rate of the Fw 190D-9 lay in YOUR hands.However look to roll rate comparisons by speed to get a clue? I easily conceded Fw190A roll rate superiority to 51 at speed below 300kts but the curves for the Fw 190A dropped off sharply at high speed/medium high altitude in the only comparison I have seen for this plot
otherwise like i have said i am going with the fighter with the edge "all else being ="
Bill,
Physics hasn't left the building at all, come on now. You know as well as I that turn performance is a function of power available to power required. Thrust is just as important to turn performance as is lift, and the Dora featured A LOT more thrust than the Anton. (I can show you the FW AG prop efficiency charts again if you wish?) And the weight was again the same, 4270 kg for the D-9 and 4300 kg for the A-8. So as you can see physics fully supports the fact that the Dora-9 was a better turn fighter than the Anton.
Turn performance is a function of power available in the context of maximum G sustainable at a specific altitude for a given aircraft. Its rate of turn and the radius of the turn is a function of drag, wing loading, and speed. Additionally there are variables including stick forces and trim drag while sustaining both roll and turn. We have been down this path too many times.
Simply stated there is not one reason to believe that a 190D will out turn a 190A with respect to radius of the turn or out roll a 190A to get into the turn - absent consistent and repeated tests comparing the two.
As for Caldwell, sorry but I just don't trust his claim that what he wrote on this matter is from any interview, esp. when direct quotes from pilots who actually flew the plane are in total contradiction with what he writes in his book. Caldwell is an oddball in my opinion and I don't take his work very seriously.
By definition, you don't trust the reliablity of the Caldwell's interviewees opinions (Crump, Krupinski, etc) - Ok with me by why should you believe anybody's opinions absence engineering data an facts?
As for Mike Williams he relies on tests done with aircraft which had recieved an underperforming batch of engines and he also mistranslates the charts, I have the charts in their entirety and he leaves out valuable input.
The charts I directed Thor too are the translations of the tests performed at Rechlin with links to the German versions. He didn't translate them,
As for my sources on the Dora's performance, I've posted it on here before many times with plenty of documents and the like. In Dietmars book are quotes from LW squadrons opinion on the Dora vs the Anton, and the entire squadron feels that the Dora is a big improvement over the Anton in terms of turn performance, climb rate and all out speed.
The quotes from the interviews cited in JG 26 War Diary are all from interviews with JG26, III./JG 54 pilots - so does Dietmar selectively interview and report, did Caldwell selectively interview and report, did one or both skew what they heard?
That IS the problem with the anecdotal references... and most of them are obviously survivors.
I concur Bill, I've seen your posts on other forums and have been impressed by their depth and impartiality. The problem remains that any opinion stated in this thread is completely subjective, no one commenting here (to my knowledge) has flown a P 51, let alone a Fw 190 D. I'm not saying we don't have a few pilots among us, but even so any comment for or against would still be conjecture.
It would be the equivalent of me saying Ferrari make better cars than Maserati because, I know, I drive a Fiat.
I certainly agree with your comments vis-a-vis Dietmar Hermann, a respected researcher indeed.