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well 1/3 of 382 miles is 128 miles....maybe 140 miles is not so bad...
Do you have examples of the FW190 D undertaking missions of comparable type, to say an Me 109G, at greater range. The fuel carried might not be the only issue....it might be aerodynamics, aircraft weight, that kind of thing
People, be very careful whether you speak of range or radius! E.g. Milosh statement "Combat range of any a/c would be ~ 1/3 of its flight distance. (1/3 going out, 1/3 for combat, 1/3 for return)" is inaccurate unless the word range is replaced with radius. Another problem with general references is that they often mix. data for maximum air range and the range at maximum continuous speed. One must remember that e.g. at sea level cruising at maximum air range speed a P-38L requires well below 400 hp per engine (1600 rpm/22" Hg, 28" Hg at the same rpm gives 425 hp) while the maximum continuous power at SL is 1100 hp. The latter setting increases TAS from 168 mph to 302 mph while fuel consumption increases from 46 US gph to 245 US gph.So less than doubled speed and over 5 times greater fuel consumption.
BTW, it is regularly laughed that the Me 163's endurance was some 8 minutes or so. Well, check out what endurance modern jets have at sea level if flown at full afterburner...
I believe procedure for Mustangs was to take off on main fuel tanks to 5000ft then switch to rear fuselage tank until that was down to 30 gallons or so then switch to drop tanks. this was to ensure a combat ready plane if the tanks were dropped as the plane could NOT fight with a full rear tank.
the procedure for mustangs was:
which i never thought of but is also interesting. most of the time they would be using drop tank until just moments prior to engaging the enemy. so, the majority of their dogfights were with full or very close to full wing tanks.
Hmm, full fuel in P-51's wing tanks weighs some 500 kg...quite a lot less than "about a ton"...
I thought they held 180 gallons? 180 gallons @ 10 lb per gallon is 1,800 lb about
818kg. That is also provided the rear tank is emptied completely.