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And I suppose BMW told the German High command that they could NOT deliver reliable 801 engines in 1941-42
Considering the oh, so reliable R-3350s going into B-29s in 1944 I am less than impressed with Wrights ability to deliver engines I would like to fly behind
The R-1820 and R-2600 worked like the proverbial swiss clockwork, didn´t they? The R-3350´s problems look like the result of wartime rushing-into-service to me.
Increased work on the R-2600 might have obviated the need for the R-3350, at least to some extent.Increased work on the R-2600 might have delayed the R-3350 even more.
Actually they didn't, at least the R-1820 didn't. While it seemed to work perfectly well in transports and bombers many people who used in fighters found in had oiling problems in inverted flight in the early war years.
As far as the R-3350 problems being a wartime rush to service......design work started in Jan 1936. It was basically 2 rows of 9 R-2600 cylinders instead of 2 rows of 7. It is in the details that things went wrong.
Increased work on the R-2600 might have delayed the R-3350 even more.
I find it hard to understand the difficulty in fielding a R-2600 powered fighter pre or early war, prior to fielding of R-2800 powered fighters.
The point (or the question) (or the possibility) is to have a R-2600 powered fighter in service around the time of 12/7/41 (preferably prior to, or at least shortly after.)
The R-2800, superior as it was, just wasn't ready.
2-stage supercharging/high altitude performance isn't the point.
Would/could R-2600 powered fighters have outperformed the R-1830 fighters of the period?
How would they have compared to V-1710 powered fighters?
Would the R-2600 have been superior for ground attack/support, dive bombing, etc. roles?
Did the Wildcat F4F-4 have 2-stage supercharging?
In my opinion it is a bit of both, for fighter use anyway.
The R-2600 was in short supply in the early years ...
Which happens to be the ultimate reason against an R-2600 powered fighter. If there are not even enough engines for the bombers you have to have, you can not spare engines for a fighter you need much less.
The "Ultimate" reason may be that without more development work for either a better single stage supercharger or a two stage supercharger the R-2600 (assuming the engine could handle it) wasn't going to yield a fighter that would do anything much different than what was in hand.
Practically anything you could stick an R-2600 into you could also stick an R-2800 into.
While heavier it was a tad smaller in diameter, It' s smaller cylinders promised better cooling and higher rpm. And P&W was further ahead with the supercharger.
So your good enough planes are good enough right now and why devote resources to a second best plane for future production when you have what look like winners already being worked on.
Some numbers, with F4F-4 as base airframe.
The 'loaded' weight was some 7950 lbs. The difference between R-1830 (2-stage) and R-2600 of 1941 were 500 lbs, and 250 hp @ 13 kft (1350 vs 1100). The power loading was 0,138 hp/lb, while 'my' pet plane would have had 0,156 hp/lb (with extra 200 lbs added to cover the airframe strengthening) - beating early F4Us (12000 lbs, cca 1850 hp @ 13 kft) and F6F-3, two crucial years earlier atop of that.