Was the corsair as good a fighter as the spitfire or the FW?

[Readie]

British seem to think so. So did some post war customers.

Thank you SR6 for your posts. I, for one, really appreciate them.
Cheers
John

 

[Readie]

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

 

[fastmongrel]

Back to the original question which is best Corsair, Spit, Fw 190. I dont know I bet they all had advantages and disadvantages but I know which cockpit I would want to be in and its the "Bent wing bastard" every time. I have sat in a spit cockpit and my rugby forward shoulders just about fitted in but closing the canopy would have been like packing sardines in a can. A Fw190 cockpit doesnt look any bigger but have sat in a Corsair cockpit and it fitted me just fine. How anyone over 5'8" ever fitted in a Bf109 cockpit I dont know must have been like sitting in a dustbin with the lid on but with less visibility.

 

[fastmongrel]

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.

My favourite Italian bird is the Macchi C202/205 beautiful and deadly the only plane that comes close to the Spit for elegance. Luckily for a lot of allied pilots shortages of engines and production problems kept the numbers down.

 

[Milosh]

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.

Fiat made a nice DB powered a/c, the G.55 The G.56 had potential.

 

[buffnut453]

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.

My Mini Cooper S convertible is awesome in the rain. Runs like a dream, roof doesn't leak. Just sayin'....

 

[post76]

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.

 

[fastmongrel]

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 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.

 

[Glider]

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.

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.

 

[Readie]

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.

Only a fool ventures forth without WD40 !!
The worse bike I had for rain were the 1970's Suzuki GT 250.380 550 two strokes. The brakes were so bad that the Japs put a sticker on the front fork leg pointing out that wet weather braking performance was impaired.

I've got an 03 Mini Cooper S. love it to bits. Its a great blend of British design and build with BMW engineering.
Cannot beat that.
Cheers
John

 

[Shortround6]

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.

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.

Try a steep dive in a later Spit.

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.

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.

I don't think anyone denies the Spitfire fighters had low duration/endurance, at least compared to some American fighters, P-39s weren't much for range. Many Soviet fighters didn't have much range till later in the war. Some Italian fighters didn't have that much range/endurance either.
Would you care to share the source for the better sustained turn by the Mustang and P-47?

Understanding the benefits of MW50 or water injection, ie lower inlet temps, anti-detonation and allowing higher compression ratios,

MW50 didn't do much, if anything, in allowing higher compression ratios.

could it be argued that the NO3 was a more favorable system to the 109 flying high altitude missions?

Since the two do NOT overlap (at least by much) in the altitudes they are useful at it follows that the NO3 system was the ONLY system that was useful at high altitudes.

Improvements in supercharger technology rendered it somewhat less useful. A larger, higher capacity supercharger that could provide a higher pressure ratio (deliver 1.30 or 1.42 AtA at a higher altitude than the old supercharger) and/or do so with more efficiency ( took less power to deliver the same amount of air at the same pressure) Meant the weight and complication of the NO3 system wasn't as attractive.

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.

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.

 

[post76]

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.

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.

Would you care to share the source for the better sustained turn by the Mustang and P-47?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Good to know. I've never heard of that, i would think it would be prone to evaporation when actually installed in the GM1 system.
I would also think that its limited use would be another dislike. Do you happen to know the quantity of N2O used in their GM1 system?
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/bf-109-gm1-performances-11480.html

I wondered if that 20 minute usage you refer to was a constant use, or if it could only be used incrementally.
Such as 7 x 3 minute uses, maybe less.
I know with auto N2O systems they are limited by heat and can be particularly abusive on engine parts but applying that knowledge to WW2 109s at 8000m might leave more leeway.

Jagdgeschwader 50 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
JG 50 were initially equipped with eight Messerschmitt Bf 109G-5s and Bf 109G-6s polished to increase speed, and equipped with a special tank for liquefied nitrous oxide as part of the GM-1 engine power boosting system, which was injected directly into the supercharger intake. This allowed the pilot to boost the rated horsepower of the DB 605 engine. 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


"To provide some more data: In a Me 109G-1/R2 with N2O injection, R. Klein had achieved 680 km/h at 12000 m and a ceiling of 13800 m."



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?

 

[Readie]

Hmmmmm

King Arthur sleeps with his knights under an English hill waiting to ride out and save England in her hour of greatness need.
The Spitfire prowls the skies of England making sure her children are safe from harm.

You should visit my home county of Kent, stand on the white cliffs of Dover and let your imagination run a bit. Its great (if you are English )

Cheers
John

 

[Shortround6]

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.

Part of the problem is that there are so many different Spitfires. Early ones had overly sensitive elevators and fabric covered ailerons. Later ones Corrected both. Aileron reversal (instead of ballooning fabric covered ailerons) didn't happen until something over 500mph. Aileron flutter, which cost a few aircraft in high speed dives is also different. A 6000lb Spitfire and an 8000lb Spitfire are not going to accelerate the same in a dive.
Lots of planes controls stiffened up to some degree in high speed dives.

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.

The MK 21 didn't turn as well as a MK XIV let alone a MK IX. Without seeing the Russian charts and/or knowing the conditions of the Russian tests it is a little hard to judge. I am not saying the Russians didn't get the results they did but without knowing the weights of the aircraft in the test and the boost pressures they were using ( I am also wondering were they got a MK 21) for power it makes it a little hard to compare to some English or American tests.

Charts and math formulas are all well and good but they should reflect real world results. If they say something different which one is wrong? actual flight tests and trials or the charts? Stall speed or actually co-efficient of lift changes with the angle of attack and is not the same for all airfoils or for all wing plane forms. Also the co-efficient of drag of the wing changes as the angle of attack changes and for different airfoils the co-efficient of lift and the co-efficient of drag to not change at the same rate.
A lot of the math is beyond me but trying calculate actual turn rates form just a few points of data seems rather iffy. For instance just flying level you have profile drag, induced drag, and (I believe) parasitic drag. Just banking changes one or more of them and pulling a high "G" turn could change all of them.

Maybe the charts you saw do take all of these into account, I don't know.

On the 109, the FTH is increased/decreased by MW50?

Lowered, of sorts. The altitude at which the throttle can be fully opened is lowered and the engine makes more power at the lower altitudes BUT the throttle will remain fully opened up to and beyond the original full throttle height and the engine will just as much power as it ever did at those heights. It may make just a bit more, 3-5% based on charge cooling alone but there is no increase in boost pressure at the higher altitudes.

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.

That is because the original supercharger set up can provide no more air at those altitudes. An engine is an air pump. The more air in the more power it makes. The air at 30,000ft is about 37% of the density of air at sea level by weight so at 30,000ft you need 2.7 times more air by volume to get the same power. If your engine needed 1.3AtA to get sea level power you need 2.7 times the volume of air at 4.38 times the pressure of the air at 30,000ft. It is no wonder that the superchargers and engines ran out of steam at these altitudes. No amount of water/alcohol is going to make up for this.
Two stage superchargers do better and the turbo charged planes do a lot better because the turbo was delivering sea level pressure air to the intake of the engine supercharger up to 25,-30,000ft. This means the turbocharged planes still had some extra supercharger capacity left at 25,000-30,000ft. Limiting factor for them was often carburetor inlet temperature. They tried to keep it under 100 degrees F after the inter-cooler and here is where the Water/alcohol could do it's thing and cool the intake charge so more boost could be used.

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.

There was no place to put a turbo and intercooler in a 109 (and without an intercooler turbos don't do anywhere near as good). 109s stayed with singe stage superchargers. This doesn't mean that "supercharging tech" had reached it's limit. New intakes, new impellers, new diffusers could all affect pressure ratios and efficiency.

Do you happen to know the quantity of N2O used in their GM1 system?

It seems to be either 80 or 115 liters ( same tanks could be filled to either level)

Using the NO3 also called for more fuel. Perhaps another 40 liters an hour? There may have been more than one setting of injection of the NO3.

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

It might have been a record for a certain class of plane (weight class?) the absolute world record was about 10,000ft higher. Might have still been held by Bristol 138 using a two stage engine.

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)

Limited how? The 109 at times had trouble out diving an F4F Wildcat.

Main reasons for the F4U not being used in Europe was that in 1943 there weren't that many of them and they were going to the Pacific. Only about 2300 F4Us made in 1943 compared to about 1500 P-38s and 4400 P-47s. With the P-51 coming on line the need for another fighter type in the ETO doesn't seem very pressing. The F4U was a great plane and I am sure it could have held it's own but there just doesn't seem to be much a need for it in the ETO.

Did the Spitfire have any "special" boost equipment, N2O or turbo/super?

Special over and above the two stage supercharger used from the MK VII and beyond? It wasn't really needed.

 

[Ratsel]

where are you guys getting "NO3" from?

 

[Shortround6]

You are correct, it should be N2O. My apologies.

 

[Milosh]

This link has some fuel consumption numbers for the DB605 engines,
http://mitglied.multimania.de/luftwaffe1/aircraft/lw/DB605_varianten.pdf

Must be fat fingers Ratsel. Should be NO2.

 

[Hop]

I know they weren't ideal for high altitude flying.

Spitfires were about the best for high altitude flying. Low wing loading becomes progressively more important as altitude increases.

Mach limit wouldn't be the limiting factor. I'd ask how responsive it was at higher speeds?

The Spitfire had one of the lightest elevators going, which is handy when you want to pull out of a dive at altitude.

I'd ask when aileron reversal became an issue?

Aileron reversal is a minor issue at any speed. The mid war and later Spitfires didn't really have much of a problem. The reversal speed was 660 mph indicated, so well beyond the sort of speeds that could be reached by a ww2 fighter.

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.

Standard procedure for the RAE when testing high mach numbers.

What is impressive is the speeds reached. For the RAE, Squadron Leader Tobin reached mach 0.89. The Spitfire he did that on was still being used for tests months later when it was lost in an accident.

It also had a tendency to nose up in the dive, but this might have been corrected in later Spits, I'm not sure.

According to the RE it had a tendency to nose down in the dive. Again that's normal, it's called "mach tuck".

The beauty of the Spitfire is that the light elevators allowed it to be pulled out of the dive at very high speeds. In the words of the US test pilot who took a P-47 up to much lower mach numbers, the plane was "well out of control" and couldn't be recovered until the dive flaps were deployed.

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.

No WW2 fighter could sustain a 5 G turn at any altitude.

The Spitfire, with it's lower induced drag, could hold higher sustained G than any comparable fighter.

 

[wuzak]

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?

 

[fastmongrel]

His name wouldn't be Gaston by any chance?

Oh no now you have done it you said the G word