Spitfire V Versus P-40E

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My mistake, I thought flying farm equipment was an army of one, a legend in his own mind.

Yeah, them Rolls-Royces are awful. It's not as if they have a reputation for quality or anything like that, is it?

A quick check of Spitfire production tells me there were:
1) 9,300 single stage Merlin Spitfires (54.7%) of total: 1 prototype, 1,569 Mk I, 921 Mk II, 2 Mk III, 229 Mk IV, 6,478 Mk V, and 100 Mk VI.
2) 9,024 two-stage Merlin Spitfires (44.3% of total):150 Mk VII, 1,652 Mk VIII, 6,126 Mk IX, 26 TR-9, and 16 PRX.
3) 2,043 Griffon Spitfires (10.0% of total): 100 Mk XII, 957 Mk XIV, 300 Mk XVII, 225 PR XIX, 120 Mk 21, 287 Mk 22, and 54 Mk 24.
 
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You are correct the Merlin in the P-40F/L wasn't enough to close the gap, but it was the best the US could do at the time (prepare for and execute the NA invasion and then Italy) and it may have done it's job adequately. The US may have failed to follow the British lead in allowing higher boosts at low altitude?
One story claims the US failed to acquire enough spare Merlins and the higher than expected consumption of engines in North Africa (low mounted supercharger intake?) just compounded the problem. I don't know if the Americans even came close to getting the 3000 engines they were supposed to get under the initial agreement. Whatever they didn't get went into British aircraft. Subsequent agreements or modifications to agreements don't seem to get much expose.
 
Hi Shortround,

You make a very good point about the P-40F being not enough to close the gap, but better than the Allison units at 20,000 feet. If you were going to fight at 20,00 feet in a P-40, you'd want a P-40F/L. No doubt about it.

I would really like to have seen a P-40Q with a Merlin 2-stage in it ... but it was never to be seen. To my eye, the 2nd and 3rd P-40Qs look quite a bit like Spitfire 24s and at gross weight, were a bit lighter than the Spitfire 24 (9,000 lbs for the XP-40Q-2 and 9,900 lbs for the Spitfire 24). It is a tantalizing "might have been," but was not to be.

XP-40Q-2:


Spitfire 24:



Nice cannons, huh? Both look good ... at least to me.

Let's see, they made 54 Mk 24s and 3 XP-40Q, but only two with bubble canopies. So, neither one was exactly "mass produced." In the case of the Spitfire 24, it was probably a combination of the end of the war in sight and jets showing what they could do. We've discussed the XP-4Q before ... but it still is a good-looking and good-performing airplane to contemplate.
 
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Good question, rochie. It's like photoshopping a pic of your own girlfriend, one you still like. What's the point?

Anyone who knows Spitfires will recognize the fake and, if they don't, exactly what is the point of it?
 
GregP said:
Good question, rochie. It's like photoshopping a pic of your own girlfriend, one you still like. What's the point?

Anyone who knows Spitfires will recognize the fake and, if they don't, exactly what is the point of it?
Click to expand...
Possibly just modeling a plane he'd like to see? Like a Lancaster with jet engines? A "slip-wing Spitfire"? Not everyone can build museum quality models.
 
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