Spitfire

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oldcrowcv63 said:
I am already a big fan of both the Hurricane and Spitfire (as you know!) and happy to declare it. But for God's sake do not under any circumstances reveal this to any other ex-colonial.
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Your secret is safe with me.
The mother country keeps all her colonial offsprings secrets secure....
John
 
Without a doubt, the Spitfire is one of the prettiest planes to ever grace the skies! I don't care if it was a failure ( and it was not ), it would still be beautiful!
 
Oh yes, beautiful plane indeed.....and perhaps unlike some even the last heavy versions still keep a look of grace that is just so....well, you either know what I mean or you don't.

Maybe it's (largely) a British thing.

(but I think my fav is something like a mk9 in invasion stripes, blummin gorgeous)
 
IMO the P-51 barely qualifies as an American aircraft. The airframe and engine were both designed to British specifications. If not for the financial backing and engineering genius of Britain our best long range bomber escort would not have existed.

I am an American and proudly embrace the F4U as the best overall American fighter aircraft of WWII. It was kicking butt and taking names a full year before the Merlin engine Mustang entered service. It remained in production for 11 years (1942 to 1953), the longest production run for any U.S. piston engine fighter aircraft.



 
Hello
one of my favorite Marks, VIII, sorry about the Total's bowser in the background, it spoiled the atmosphere a bit. BTW, Finns called Yaks "Wooden Spitfires"

Juha
 

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Dave, Don't you feel a bit like bringing a neanderthal into a Victoria's Secret fashion Review? I mean the Corsair is certainly among the most lethal looking mechanisms devised by the human mind with all the attributes you list, but imagine a pilot being pursued by a Corsair. He would need a change of underwear if he saw the hog on his tail or anywhere in view if he was a potential target. I ask you, is that any way for a pilot to die?

Now consider the view of a luftwaffe pilot confronting a Spitfire. His reactions are delayed as he traces the elegant curves of his RAF opponent. He loses a few more seconds of reaction time as he mutters to himself, shone, shone (missing his umlauts), gnadiges frauline.... then he is shot down while he is in a state of aesthetic bliss. Few other aircraft can mesmerize their opponents with their beauty.
 
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davebender said:
If the RAF wrote design specifications for the Merlin engine they have no one to blame but themselves.

Perhaps Britain should have hired a French consulting firm to help the RAF get the Merlin engine design right.
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There's the thing - the RAF did not write a design specification for the Merlin - it was originally a private venture, funded solely by Rolls-Royce.

The biggest obstacle in the way of a hub mounted cannon was the supercharger.
 
davebender said:
Now that's what a proper fighter aircraft looks like. If it had a hub cannon it would be about perfect.

Speaking of hub cannons...
France and Germany both made hub cannon work. Why didn't Britain?
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You have a choice, a supercharger that works or an engine mounted cannon, pick one.

The French Hispano was a terrible engine by 1940/41 and only got more outdated. While it may have been great in 1934-35 it was too old, too outdated. They got the engine mounted cannon by putting BOTH the exhausts and the intakes on the OUTSIDE of the "V" and by using a supercharger that fit UNDER the breech of the cannon (center of the prop-shaft). Neither is a good recipe for high performance. The six blow through carburetors were hardly likely to impress the British either.
 
Daimler-Benz superchargers worked yet they had a hub cannon.

It could be worse. You could choose the U.S. development path for the Allison engine.
- Low performance supercharger.
- No hub cannon.
- No reliable aircraft cannon period, forcing the use of .50cal MGs into the 1950s.

Fortunately we had the R-2800 radial engine by 1942. You don't need finesse if you've got 2,000hp. Let our enemies call us neanderthals. They will soon be dead anyway.
 
davebender said:
Fortunately we had the R-2800 radial engine by 1942. You don't need finesse if you've got 2,000hp. Let our enemies call us neanderthals. They will soon be dead anyway.
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Yikes, I am an ally not an enemy, especially of any air arm that sports the dreaded hog. Where are the surrender papers, I'll sign, I'll sign. (and no snide comments about the heritage indicated by my surname which will forever be kept a secret within the confines of this forum.)

Hay wait, if it wasn't for our oddly articulating cousins (who lent us their lovely Spitfires when we had crap for aerial mounts), we wouldn't have even known how to train the Neanderthal to do our bidding in the cause for which it had been created. True that Tom Blackburn was able to figure it out without much help, but apparently BuAer had to be convinced by the pilots of the FAA.
 
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Gen Eisenhower commanded in the Mediterranean during 1943. His B-17 transport aircraft was normally escorted by a squadron of Spitfires even though plenty of American made fighter aircraft were available. That speaks volumes about which Allied fighter aircraft type was considered most effective.

If the U.S. Army Air Corps had purchased F4Us Ike wouldn't have needed British made Spitfires for protection.
 
Would have loved to see F4Us used in the European theater. That would have been interesting! The F4F and F6F on the rare occasions did pretty well as I understand it... I think the F4U would have presented a real problem to the Luftwaffe on air control, long interdicton and escort missions, but the 'Stang was pretty good at that too.
 
Being good doesn't help much if the aircraft isn't available when needed most.

The F4U entered production during the summer of 1942. It could have been available for operations in North Africa, Sicily and Southern Italy. Good aerial performance plus good endurance would have made the Corsair ideal for those battles.
 

concur! especially in NA with P-38's being limited by their initial teething problems
 
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