Westland Whirlwind alternative engines?

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The Hurricane was more than adequate in 1940 which is essentially the period in question.

As far as comments about landing speeds for fighters to operate at night, I would suggest looking into the Air Ministry specifications and decisions of the Operational Requirements Committee before passing subjective comments on the AOC-in-C Fighter Command.

Cheers

Steve
 
tomo pauk said:
The X5F5 was good for 358 mph @ 17300 ft with 900 HP. sheet
That is without guns, ammo, not full tanks.
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Old post, I know.

Tomo pauk: look at the weights on the XF5F. 7990 empty, 10,021 loaded with 178 gallons, 10,892 overload with 277 gallons.

The low back, bubble canopy XF5F had radio equipment installed. They installed the radio equipment when they rebuilt it from the high back, razorback, F4F looking fuselage it first had.

LOADED 10,021 minus empty weight 7990 leaves 2,031 for load, minus 1,112 for 178 gallons of fuel leaves 919, subtract 200 for pilot and 150 for oil leaves 569 pounds unaccounted for. I know they were never fitted, but I believe it was ballasted for 4 50's and some ammo during tests. 4 50's would be 300 pounds, 200 rounds per gun would be 200 pounds, leaving 69 pounds for miscellaneous things I missed.

OVERLOAD 10,892 minus empty weight 7,990 leaves 2,902 for load, minus 1,731 for 277 gallons of fuel leaves 1,171, subtract 200 for pilot and 200 for overload oil, leaves 771, subtract 300 pounds for 4 50's, leaving 471, subtract 400 pounds for 400 rounds per gun, leaving 71 pounds for miscellaneous things I missed.

I believe this makes a good case for the XF5F being ballasted for weapons during these tests.

Also, the climb rate on that test doesn't look right to me. The climb rate of this plane was supposedly 4,000 fpm. At 10,000 pounds with 1,800 to 2,400 hp divided between 2 3 bladed props, that sounds very reasonable.

Also, what hp would a Wright 1820 that's rated at 900 hp at 14,000 feet be down to at 17,300 feet?
 
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All pilot accounts I have read suggest the Whirly could operate from smaller fields than the Spit, e.g.
 
Trilisser said:
All pilot accounts I have read suggest the Whirly could operate from smaller fields than the Spit, e.g.
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I'd have to look up the Whirlwind's operational take off run,but the requirement to which it was built required it to clear a 50' screen at 600 yards, though this might be extended to 700 yards in certain circumstances.
Spitfire I, N3171, was tested by the A&AEE, clearing a 50' screen at 370 yards with a Rotol propeller.
Cheers
Steve
 
A total of 1,715 Hurricanes flew with Fighter Command during the period of the Battle, far in excess of all other British fighters combined. Having entered service a year before the Spitfire, the Hurricane was "half-a-generation" older, and was markedly inferior in terms of speed and climb. However, the Hurricane was a robust, manoeuvrable aircraft capable of sustaining fearsome combat damage before write-off; and unlike the Spitfire, it was a wholly operational, go-anywhere do-anything fighter by July 1940. It is estimated that its pilots were credited with four-fifths of all enemy aircraft destroyed in the period July-October 1940.

From the RAF website

So it wasn't that bad really....................
 
In what the British call the BoB period there were, on average, 34 Hurricane squadrons and 19 Spitfire squadrons operational.

Based on the totals (which are debatable) of 655 victories credited to 30 Hurricane squadrons (22.5 per squadron) and 530 victories credited to 19 Spitfire squadrons (28 per squadron) we can see the difference was not that great.

The same figures give the Hurricane squadrons 55% and the Spitfire squadrons 43% of the kills.

Cheers

Steve
 
herman1rg said:
A total of 1,715 Hurricanes flew with Fighter Command during the period of the Battle, far in excess of all other British fighters combined. Having entered service a year before the Spitfire, the Hurricane was "half-a-generation" older,
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.
.


At the end of the Battle of France, there were approximately 250 each of Spitfire and Hurricanes. Without the Hurricane the training units and squadrons withdrawn and rebuilding away from the south east would have had nothing to fly.
 
It depends on how you work the variables (boosts, weights, mods, variants, etc.), but looking at the figures - generally the Spitfire has the longer take off run (no take off flaps) but the Whirlwind has the longer landing distance (higher speed, less effective brakes).
 
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wuzak said:
From a decision they made in 1929 after testing a turbo Condor?
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I have read most Merlin-related RRHT books and the tone in them is very clear: all technical choices R-R made were the best and if some other maker selected another solution, like direct injection or turbocharging, the authors are extremely arrogantly dismissive. In the RRHT book on the Meteor one can read R-R memos fighting to the last breath against diesel engines in tanks hailing the spark-ignition engine as the best possible tank engine ever. One just needs to look at modern tank fleets and their powerplants to weigh how far-sighted R-R was. That ignorance is even more perverted when the existence of the Soviet V-2 diesel was known. The V-2 had over 30 % better s.f.c. over the r.p.m. that the fuel crematorium Meteor.
 
Thanks! One more reason to avoid that Chorlton. Uuno Karhumäki, a very experienced Finnish pilot and aviation pioneer, described the Hurricane's handling "as if every control was operated via rubber bands". On average Finnish Hurris accumulated 101 flying hours (Buffaloes averaging 448 hrs). Even Gladiators averaged over 170 hrs. And Russian interrogated PoWs described it "somewhat weird". All this from the book Lentäjän näkökulma 2.
 
Mason had this to say in his Hurricane book:

... despite a complete absence of spare parts, most survived to see operational service in the Continuation War ... They were employed principally for interception duties owing to their lack of range, but are generally remembered by the Finnish pilots with affection, who judged them to be their best fighters until the arrival of new German aircraft. They gained a number of victories over Soviet aircraft in the early months of that war and none was ever lost in air combat.
 
In early 1985 Aeroplane Monthly ran a 2-part article on the Whirlwind. It quotes some test data, giving a TO ground of 325 yds at +9 boost. The article received reader feedback and J. B. Wray, former pilot from the 137. Sqn., wrote:"...allowed an experienced pilot to land in a shorter distance than either the Spitfire or Hurricane."
 
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