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British seem to think so. So did some post war customers.
Ah, but useless if they had been made in numbers?
Dropping the national pride thing, the Italian aero industry was very small in the scheme of things and one good american factory probably made more aircraft than all of of Italy but that doesn't mean we can't learn from their designs or see what was possiable if other choices had been made. If you want to understand the potential of engine then looking at other installations is a big help. All Three of the Italian "5" series fighters offer possibilities that the 109 did not.
The Italians made some fantastically stylist aircraft SR6 and had the benefit of world class engineers.
Macchi M.C.72 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is one of favourite planes.
I love older Italian cars too. The Alfa Romeo pages @ C a r s f r o m I t a l y
What would I give for one of these.
Cheers
John
I know what you mean Readie I love Italian bikes and cars even when they wont go because of electrical problems. My old Morini 350 would refuse to start if the weather man forecast rain never mind if it was actually raining or not.
Must be that British heritage influence. One can understand the Italians having trouble with rain but not the British. Never had a British car or bike that ran well in the rain.
British seem to think so. So did some post war customers.
Ah, Spitfire had a wing about the same size as the Mustang (actually a small bit larger unless clipped) it was 1000-2000lbs lighter, it sometimes had the same engine for all practical purposes. Why is it worse at high altitudes than the Mustang?
Not that the Spitfire wasn't a great plane. Even late war spits were top performers.
I know they weren't ideal for high altitude flying. Try a steep dive in a later Spit.
Things like range and fuel quanity, particularly with weight distribution would be an issue.
A later Spit might still have a limited time in the air unless it climbed at a lower output. Similar to the 109s issues.
I know the Mustang out turned, or i should say had a better sustained turn than the Spitfire at altitude. So did the P-47 if that says anything.
MW50 is water/alcohol. It does nothing for power by itself. The alcohol is there to keep it from freezing. When introduced into the supercharger it evaporates and cools the hot air in the supercharger ( and due to the super charger even air at 40 below zero can be heated to several hundred degrees before it gets to the engine) the cooler air is more dense and denser air means more power ( more weight of air per cylinder full to burn) lower temperature means even more boost can be used before hitting detonation limits. It also helps to cool the cylinders from the inside. It helps the most at altitudes below full throttle height. At full throttle height and above the supercharge is maxed out and not going to give any more air (boost) so the only benefit is the denser air fram charge cooling. Maybe a 4% increase in power? One source says a certain model DB 605 used 106 gals of fuel an hour at take off rating but increased to 141 gals an hour when using MW50. about a 33% increase in fuel consumption.
NO3 was very useful at high altitudes because it is essentially carrying extra oxygen in the plane. It is pretty much useless at low altitudes because the engine is already making just about all the power the engine can stand. Over full throttle height as the air gets thinner and the pressure in the intake manifold/s falls , squirting in the NO3 allows more fuel to be burned to bring the power back up. There may be some charge cooling to but that that is not the major benefit. The two systems really can't be used together even if the airplane was fitted to carry both which the 109 wasn't. It was either one or the other. The MW50 tank and the NO3 tank fitted into the same space. The MW 50 tank could be used to carry fuel to extend the range/ endurance of the 109 (or a fuel tank put in place of the MW 50 tank) but again, it was a choice one option or another. No 109 carried two of the three options.
With the introduction of the DB 605AS engine with the bigger supercharger giving better high altitude performance than the DB605A the 109 may have seen the last of the NO2 installations ( I could well be wrong on that). The NO3 tanks were heavy and may have been of limited duration.
Understanding the benefits of MW50 or water injection, ie lower inlet temps, anti-detonation and allowing higher compression ratios,
could it be argued that the N2O (corrected NO3) system was a more favorable system to the 109 flying high altitude missions?
Looking at performance specs, there isn't a lot of input with 109s using that system.
Pilots accounts found it useful in BnZ attacks particularly when climbing away.
Its been a couple years since i've read about it in any detail.
Allied pilots mention meeting 109s at 35k ft, and i don't see them being competitive with an MW50 system.
Must be that British heritage influence. One can understand the Italians having trouble with rain but not the British. Never had a British car or bike that ran well in the rain.
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Have you any examples to back these comments up? Would agree that the normal spit lacked the range of the P47 and P51 but I have never heard of either of these types out turning the Spitfire and I believe that the Spit was very good at altitude.British seem to think so. So did some post war customers.
Not that the Spitfire wasn't a great plane. Even late war spits were top performers.
I know they weren't ideal for high altitude flying. Try a steep dive in a later Spit.
Things like range and fuel quanity, particularly with weight distribution would be an issue.
A later Spit might still have a limited time in the air unless it climbed at a lower output. Similar to the 109s issues.
I know the Mustang out turned, or i should say had a better sustained turn than the Spitfire at altitude. So did the P-47 if that says anything.
British motorbike electrics were appalling but Italian electrics only had a passing aquaintance with watts and volts.
Actually thinking about it the worst bike I ever had for wet weather was a Honda 400/4 the problem was the electrics would work well until it rained then pack up completely. The British and Italian bikes were bad but you could usually make it home by squirting a whole can of WD40 under the tank.
Not that the Spitfire wasn't a great plane. Even late war spits were top performers.
I know they weren't ideal for high altitude flying.
Try a steep dive in a later Spit.
A later Spit might still have a limited time in the air unless it climbed at a lower output. Similar to the 109s issues.
I know the Mustang out turned, or i should say had a better sustained turn than the Spitfire at altitude. So did the P-47 if that says anything.
Understanding the benefits of MW50 or water injection, ie lower inlet temps, anti-detonation and allowing higher compression ratios,
could it be argued that the NO3 was a more favorable system to the 109 flying high altitude missions?
Looking at performance specs, there isn't a lot of input with 109s using that system.
Pilots accounts found it useful in BnZ attacks particularly when climbing away.
Its been a couple years since i've read about it in any detail.
Allied pilots mention meeting 109s at 35k ft, and i don't see them being competitive with an MW50 system.
Mach limit wouldn't be the limiting factor. I'd ask how responsive it was at higher speeds? I'd ask when aileron reversal became an issue? If all it had to do was dive in a straight line at a relatively shallow angle then it might be fine.How do you know this? Very few planes were actually "ideal" for high altitude flying. Spitfires did accomplish the highest altitude intercepts of the war. Granted they used modified planes and some very determined and skilled pilots.
Not sure what you are getting at here, I believe the Spitfire (a Late one?) has the highest limiting Mach number of any WW II piston engine fighter. It may take it a bit longer to reach this speed but a low limit on diving speed was NOT a Spitfire problem.
I don't remember his name, but he had all the charts and all the math that illustrated it.Would you care to share the source for the better sustained turn by the Mustang and P-47?
The MW50 system was never intended for use at 35,000ft. The Principal it works on depends on the supercharger being able to deliver more air than the engine can normally use. This is only going to happen at less than full throttle height.
I don't have the figures for the weight of the GM1 system. It was disliked for several reasons. One was that the plane carried the weight penalty regardless of the mission and the GM1 could ONLY be used over 8000meters. Another was that the NO3 was capable of evaporating out of the tank/s in fairly short order. The Germans did use two systems, a high pressure and a low pressure system. In one of them they figured that a full NO3 tank would empty itself in 48 hours just sitting on the ground in hot summer weather. In summer even a 6 hour delay from filling to use would reduce the time of usage from 22 minutes to 19 minutes. Cold weather slowed down the evaporation.
Hmmmmm
Mach limit wouldn't be the limiting factor. I'd ask how responsive it was at higher speeds? I'd ask when aileron reversal became an issue? If all it had to do was dive in a straight line at a relatively shallow angle then it might be fine.
The dive info is not all the impressive.
Its started from +40,000ft and at a shallow angle of dive and reached the high mach over 40 seconds of dive. The steepness of the dive never goes beyond 45 degrees.
I reckon most planes would out dive it unless it already had a good jump. It also had a tendency to nose up in the dive, but this might have been corrected in later Spits, I'm not sure. Don't bash on me to hard about that.
It could climb up to 40,000ft pretty quickly.
I don't remember his name, but he had all the charts and all the math that illustrated it.
Factoring load limit, stall, speed, and engine power above 20,000ft.
He plotted points of speed and G load. The P-47 held a 5 G turn better than the Spitfire at that altitude.
I'm passing on what's already been demonstrated to me.
There's also the Russian tests that give the turn times. It includes the later Spit21 and the P-51D has a better time. The XIV does have a better turn if recall.
You can look there if you need affirmation.
On the 109, the FTH is increased/decreased by MW50?
I'm actually not sure if that's the rule because reviewing other aircraft w/water they all appear to steam out around 30,000ft and the benefit of water injection becomes less and less above 30,000ft. There appears to be a bigger difference between turbo and supercharged when it comes to performance in the nose bleeds, so to say.
The GM1 became an alternative when competing at high altitudes especially when supercharging tech had near reached its limit and trying to fit turbos in a 109 wouldn't be practical from a time limit standpoint.
Do you happen to know the quantity of N2O used in their GM1 system?
Graf set a world record[citation needed] for high altitude flight of 46,885 ft (14,291 m) feet in one of the modified 109s
Where does that leave the Corsair in this discussion?
It eludes more to the reasons why the Corsair was not widely used in the ETO.
Another plane also limited by dive performance. (vMax...see F4U manual)
Did the Spitfire have any "special" boost equipment, N2O or turbo/super?
I know they weren't ideal for high altitude flying.
Mach limit wouldn't be the limiting factor. I'd ask how responsive it was at higher speeds?
I'd ask when aileron reversal became an issue?
The dive info is not all the impressive.
Its started from +40,000ft and at a shallow angle of dive and reached the high mach over 40 seconds of dive. The steepness of the dive never goes beyond 45 degrees.
It also had a tendency to nose up in the dive, but this might have been corrected in later Spits, I'm not sure.
I don't remember his name, but he had all the charts and all the math that illustrated it.
Factoring load limit, stall, speed, and engine power above 20,000ft.
He plotted points of speed and G load. The P-47 held a 5 G turn better than the Spitfire at that altitude.
I don't remember his name, but he had all the charts and all the math that illustrated it.
Factoring load limit, stall, speed, and engine power above 20,000ft.
He plotted points of speed and G load. The P-47 held a 5 G turn better than the Spitfire at that altitude.
I'm passing on what's already been demonstrated to me.
His name wouldn't be Gaston by any chance?