P40: The underated underdog, or just behind the times

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Damn right it was. It had places to go, and would have kept going probably in the ground attack role with ever decreasing numbers into early 1947 if the war had dragged on, even though jets were coming into service on both sides that were fighters, bombers, dive bombers and ground attack aircraft that would have made its design obsolete. The Ta-152H could have put up a fight against the P-80. Hell P-51's shot down Me-262's, Ta-152s could shoot down a P-80.
 
The vast majority were lost on the airfields. The Allied airmen discussed time and time again ways to defeat the Me-262 in combat. But the main problem was to dogfight one must drop his tanks so after the combat, the Mustangs would have to break-off and go home. In that way, they might stop the jets from breaking through the fighter screen but then the fighter screen disappears and the German conventional aircraft move in on the unprotected bomber formation for the kill.

Mustang pilots were informed not to attack the jets unless directly threatened. So, most of the time the Allied airmen would have to wait until the jets had finished their mission - which at most would be about three high speed passes on the bomber formation - then once they had seen off the conventional aircraft they would hunt the jets on the ground.

Another time was when they were taking off and landing. Which was always a hazard because of protecting German fighters and the heavy concentration of light AA that covered all German airfields.

I'm sure Erich will correct any mistakes I've made.
 
To add to Ds excellent comment, early jet engines had horrible spool up times. Two things about flying these jets, they are hard to slow down and hard to speed up, in other words you can't get behind the aircraft. Because of this there were many accidents where pilots landed long, landed short, lost direction control while the aircraft was "floating" because they landed long or came in with too much airspeed, and didn't have enough power to execute a go-around when the landing didn't look good. Combine this with marauding fighters that out number you 3 or 4 to one and you had a recipe for disaster.

I also read that P-51 pilots, if attacked by the -262 would just continue to turn and sometime could turn into and inside the jet. It seems that its turning ability was not that great especially if was being operated at speeds closer to the Mustang. Does any one also have information or comments about this?
 
Right, well where i was taking it was that the P-40 had some room to grow, but that growth wasnt capitalized on, or forced through because there were so many alternatives, and forcing a design that dated back to the mid thirties just wasnt needed, when something new and revolutionary could come about soon enough. When the P-51, P-47, F4U, and newer and newer versions of the P-38 were coming out, or on the drawing board, why change somehting that can only go so far, instead of start fresh with something new...thats my mentality why a true successor never came out.
 
I think you could say the P-60 was an attempt to improve the basic P-40, but the performance of the P-60 was a disappointment. Same for the P-46, a lightweight 'cleaned up' P-40 that somehow didn't perform any better than a P-40D/E. For whatever reason, the P-40N was as good as this airframe ever got. If that was because of some inherant design charateristics, or the fact that Donovan Berlin left Curtiss, who knows. Also, there was some controversy about Curtiss getting large P-40 contracts until mid-'44 (Truman Comission), but remember that the P-40 was extensively used as an advanced trainer, and no wrongdoing on the part of Curtiss was even proven.
 
Attempts were made to 'clean up' the P-40, but because it was niether urgent nor in demand (as in the german case with the Me-109) it was allowed to recede into the history books as a workhorse, not the best, but it did the job that was asked of it. I mean if the japanese had taken the aluetians, and then kept moving on and on towards more american territory very quickly and unstoppably, then maybe we would have pushed an successor through, but it of course would have had some serious shortcomings, like the much later 109s, with the very, very rough high speed handling, short range, and just a slight redesign of progressive airframes with ever-uprated engines. But fact is, new and more advanced fighters were coming out, negating the real NEED and push to upgrade something from the mid 30s.
 
It was a great plane for it's early war fighting. It showed it could hold its own with the Zero if flown right. I think it fits in with early war planes. The Hurrican, Zero, I-16, and Bf-109E. I think if it would have gotten the super charger it would have been a winning design. It was rugged, had a heavy punch with its guns, and it could dive like all american planes.
 
Just something new that I picked up today, I saw a photo of P40's taking off from an American Carrier in Tunisia. They were transferring to the shore and flew in.
I had never heard of such a transfer using P40's before, does anyone have any information on this?
 

Oh yes, Operation Tourch - I think they were the 325th FG...
 
Yes you are correct. It was Operation Torch and on the 10 and 11 of November the US Navy Escort Carrier Chenango launched 78 USAAF P-40's where they flew to a field at Port Lyautey. From there they flew there operations.
 
American Escort Carriers were larger than the Royal Navy Escort Carriers.

Call them Light Fleet Aircraft Carriers if you will. The one that launched the P-40s mentioned above was the Chenango of the Chenango class (CVE-27-29). She was launched on Jan. 4, 1939 and were ex Oilers converted to Aircraft Carriers. She had a length of 556 ft and carried a normal compliment of only 34 naval fighters. When she launched the 78 P-40s she was only ferrying them from the United States. They launched off of her deck to go to land based airfields.
 
That was common though in the african and mediterranean theaters, flying land based planes to isalands or airfields from carriers. After the British found out how un-economical it was to try and fly the aircraft straight to malta, they started ferrying spitfires for sure, and some hurricanes i think, earlier on, to malta. The idea kept on working, because it was needed. Though when the luftwaffe became more numerous in the area, it became increasingly perilous for ships of any sort to come anywhere near malta.
 
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