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Calculated,Really, ~1280 miles on internal fuel?
Sea Hurricanes carried only enough fuel to sustain themselves for 1 hour at combat power, and 4.5 hours at full-economical settings. The Fulmar and Martlet could stay aloft for 2 hours and 2 hours 45 minutes under combat power, and 6 hours economical.
Something is way off. Way Way Way off.
You could keep a Merlin running (economical settings) at a bit under 30 Imp gal an hour. which means 135 imp gallons for 4 .5 hours.(what kind of drop tanks on the Hurricane?)
Now the problem really comes in the the "combat power"
6lbs of boost?
9lbs of boost? 88inp gal an hour?
12lbs of boost?
16lbs of boost? (could be 150imp gallons an hour for a Merlin 45)
Yeah,
Parameters like.
fuel used for warmup.
fuel used to take off and even climb to 2500ft.
Fuel reserved for emergency (like finding the carrier, or heaven forbid, circling the carrier after the plane in que ahead crashed and it took 10 minutes to clear the flight deck.
The Wildcat had around 30-35% more range than the Hurricane except for the first few hundred Grummans built and with neither plane using drop tanks.
The drop tanks are within 1-2 gallons of each other once you convert from Imp to US gallons.
Neither was particularly streamlined.
Neither was in very good supply until 1943 or late 1943. US showed all kinds of range figures but if the tanks are not in the supply chain they are not being used (or used rarely).
Every time these discussions about range come up, in which it is pointed out by me or anyone else that range was a factor that mattered in air warfare during WW2, out comes the complaints that WW2 era range figures are all wrong, and the misleading comparisons of one type for another based on all the many parameters. I've speculated as to why and my conclusion is that many enthusiasts prefer to think only of high speed and altitude performance as relevant factors in air combat, and find mentions of other traits irritating diversions to that poetic simplicity.
Just a guess though.
But here's the thing. I don't think anyone reading the forum, even the most willfully deluded among us, is under any illusions that maximum range as typically reported on aircraft data sheets was anywhere near being the same as operational range. It's just a yardstick by which to measure like with like between different aircraft types. So you can do planning appropriately, for example "Gee, I guess we can't send our Hurricanes out to escort most of our bomber strikes since they have such short range compared to our other fighters".
Just as an aside, Wildcats did not only fly from carriers, and operational range or combat radius in carrier ops is of necessity always less than operational range from land bases, partly (but not only) because of the need to find carriers to land on.
External tanks of 58 gallons (I agree, not streamlined) seem to have been available in 1942 and fairly common in the South Pacific by 1943. I have yet to see good data on when drop tanks became available for Hurricanes anywhere, but I'm looking forward to learning.
The Martlet IV/F4F-4B data card shows us the probable formula used:
Allowance for TO and climb to 15K ft.
15 minutes at combat power
20 min loiter at MECS at 2K ft
Plugging those number into a SH1B we get:
~18 IG for TO and climb to 15K ft (79IG remaining)
~30IG for 15min combat (49IG remaining)
~10IG for 20min loiter at 2K ft (39IG remaining)
~39IG = 1.3 to 1.5 hours loiter vs 2.1 for the Martlet IV/F4F-4B with 120IG internal fuel.
It's interesting that the data card predicts a non-combat loiter time of 3.4 hours at 15K ft, while at Midway the 10 F4F-4s suffered forced landings from fuel starvation after ~3.5hrs.
The practical combat radius calculation for the F4F-4 yielded a radius of 105nm :I'm sure the 1940s era Royal Navy, the Fleet Air Air, the RAF, and the USN, Marine Corps, and Grumman aircraft company were all conspiring to frustrate forum fan fiction enthusiasts in the 21st Century in their fervent beliefs about their favorite aeroplanes.
No doubt the people at the armoured carriers site also, similarly, intended to even further frustrate this same demographic. For which I salute them.
That is all obviously far more likely than one particular flight running out of fuel after flying for slightly over the stated loiter time, either due to getting lost, hitting weather, using higher throttle settings at some point in their three and a half hour flight, flying at a lower altitude than that used in the endurance estimate, or etc. Or just being just over the limit in the rated time.
Stated flying endurance for the F4F-3 seems to be considerably higher than 3.4 hours if they are flying low (60%) throttle and 144 gallons of fuel (internal, no external tanks)
View attachment 758045
The 840 mile range (internal fuel) estimated for the F4F-4 is based on a conservative adjustment and considerable allowances for taxiing, warmup, takeoff etc., plus another 15%, eg:
View attachment 758047
That just covered 2 years and over 1/2 of the Pacific war.seem to have been available in 1942 and fairly common in the South Pacific by 1943
Range does count an awful lot.Every time these discussions about range come up, in which it is pointed out by me or anyone else that range was a factor that mattered in air warfare during WW2, out comes the complaints that WW2 era range figures are all wrong, and the misleading comparisons of one type for another based on all the many parameters. I've speculated as to why and my conclusion is that many enthusiasts prefer to think only of high speed and altitude performance as relevant factors in air combat, and find mentions of other traits irritating diversions to that poetic simplicity.
I think you're being rather condescending here. Many of us recognize that range is clearly an issue in air combat. The problem is that you're comparing range figures that have different underlying assumptions which makes the comparisons effectively meaningless. Per the post by S Shortround6 , many US range figures do not factor in start-up, taxy, climb-out, minimum reserve etc. Using those figures to beat up airframes from other nations, that did include those factors, is comparing apples to oranges.
It's not that we think range is unimportant. It's that you're taking performance figures out of context and using them to prove an excess of superiority
without ensuring that you're making a like-for-like comparison. Yes, the F4F had longer range than the Sea Hurricane but was it 3 times? I very much doubt it.
Well, he down to twice. Maybe in another year he will be down to only 30-40% better, which is close to the difference in fuel capacityI will concede that it seems closer to twice, except for the very early F4F types.
External tanks of 58 gallons (I agree, not streamlined) seem to have been available in 1942 and fairly common in the South Pacific by 1943. I have yet to see good data on when drop tanks became available for Hurricanes anywhere, but I'm looking forward to learning.
Well, he down to twice. Maybe in another year he will be down to only 30-40% better, which is close to the difference in fuel capacity
The 840 mile range (internal fuel) estimated for the F4F-4 is based on a conservative adjustment and considerable allowances for taxiing, warmup, takeoff etc., plus another 15%, eg: