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The defender of free world - P-40.
The most criticized part of plane was that engine power was not seen sufficient for such tough plane, in ETO mostly. So here it is: P-40 with R-2600.
I need it by FridayI'll be home the day after tomorrow, so just a little patience
If Fairey can do it, so can Junkers: Stuka with 2 engines. BMW or Bramo, retractable U/C, much easier instalation of tank-busting cannon(s), while it could still hurl a big bomb if no heavy cannon is present.
2nd pic lacks wing engine to show 37mm cannon mounting. An all-around ground attack plane, with perhaps 1-2 30mm cannons, more up forward, or in wing roots, would of course enable the big bomb all the time. Stern barbete (not shown here) would be nice to have.
Talk about lost opportunities.
Another underdog - He-112.
Here is how those Romanians coul've used M-88 engine from captured Su-2 (1000-1200 HP, depending on who is talking) to make it go faster then Yak-1 stuff.
It had two things against it as a fighter engine.
1. it's diameter, it was as big as an R-3350 which didn't do much for streamlining in the early days, bigger than an R-2800.
2. Wright never seemed to get a good high altitude supercharger. While take-off and low altitude power seemed to be fine even the 2 speed supercharged engines had critical (full throttle) altitudes of around 11,000-14,000ft which for western use was a bit on the low side. Not much better than an Allison. Combine that with the fact that there was no WER rating or that military power at 11,000-14,000ft was several hundred HP below the take-off rating and it just didn't offer the performance fighter designers were looking for. Great at getting heavy twin engined planes off the ground though.
Well, here's what the Hungarians did try, the Weiss-Manfred WM-23, a He-112 variant with a Gnome-Rhone radial:
1: The diameter was only 5% greater than of Twin Wasps, the wide-spread fighter engine, says Wiki. The diameter was 4% greater than of R-2800, so not a great issue. If we look at A-20 B-25 cowlings, those were surely well streamlined.
2. Wright was never tasked with such thing. R-2800 (mech-supercharged) also took time to develop a supercharger set for 20kft +.
Two quirks there:Allison engines being good for 1400-1500hp at altitudes of 5,000ft or so when running at WEP in late 1942 or early 1943.
. Planes powered by 2600 were in combat 2 years before the ones with 2800 - not a bad thing for WW2 needs.
As for cowlings - esp. the one at A-20 looks really neat to me. I guess fan-cowling was no rocket science to prevent installation in an US fighter.
Two quirks there:
-5kft makes pretty low altitude, 1.7 km perhaps.
-It's WEP rating for Allison. I doubt that WEP was out of capability of Wright to develop it by 1942 if brass asked for it in time German tanks overran Poland or France.
In 1945High altitude turretless Lancaster for 500mph at 40,000ft?
NowThe ground
I doubt you'll find one, the R-2600 was never fitted to fightersIf you can find a rating for WEP for an R-2600 I would be interesting in seeing it
What planes powered by R-2600s were in combat in the summer of 1940?
The fan cowlings weren't rocket science but nobody used them until the FW 190 showed the way. Early attempts at streamline cowlings on the P-42 and P-48/66 didn't work out so well.
Again, perhaps in theory. The Russian Ash-82FN had 'forsage' option to bolster the power output for short period of time - WEP in Russian that is.Liquied cooled engines worked better at WEP. You had to overload the cooling system which took a few minutes compared to overheating the aircooled engine.
A GR2600-A5A engine from a 1941 book was credited at 1600hp for take off at 2400rpm. 1600hp/2400rpm at 1500ft low blower military power and 1400hp/2400rpm/11,500ft high blower military power.
Radial engines didn't take to over revving as well as V-12s did either.
WEP was usually obtained at below the rated altitude of the engine by fulling opening the throttle rather than restricting it's opening in order to limit power and save the engine.
That's still 250-350 HP more, 2 years before.Quirks are that a standard P-40E could develop close to 1500hp at low altitude for a couple of minutes instead of the 1150hp take off rating which evens things up a bit compared to a R-2600 which while rated for take-off at 1600-1700hp wasn't rated any higher. And at altitude the P-40E was still good for 1150hp at 11,000ft compared to the R-2600s 1400-1500hp at 11,000-14,000ft.
The R-2600 does have more power but not as much as a comparison of the take-off ratings suggests.
If you can find a rating for WEP for a R-2600 I would be interesting in seeing it.