Just Schmidt
Senior Airman
I started a new thread, as this might turn into too much of a thread drift. In the ongoing thread about single engined fighters with 9 cylinders Shortround wrote:
I don't know, maybe the Spitfire? My reasoning is this:
On the face of it, of course it only had two different engines, the Merlin and the Griffon, at least to my knowledge. But comparing the Merlin of 1938 with the Merlin of 1945 makes me wonder to what extent that is the same engine. On the one hand they are both called Merlins, on the other the later engines have two stage superchargers, I'm not really savvy enough to deside if that is to be considered part of the engine or an add on. Then I always struggled with the American engines, mostly a couple of letters followed by apparantly almost equal numbers. Very confusing for one like me to discern how much different one Allison is from the other, when is it a gradual development, and when is it a new engine?
In airframes we have a similar situation, but I feel better equpped to discuss it. Take the Spitfire, just the difference from the Mk I to the Mk 21, not to mention later developments, is staggering. New engine, new profile, bubble canopy, new wing and double the weight. But undoubtedly they are all Spitfires.
Then take the Yak family, Yak 1, Yak 3, Yak 7, and Yak 9 to again stay in the war years. I could make a case that they basically was incarnations of the same basic fighter, on the other hand I'm tempted to divide them into 1, 3, and 7, 9 families. At which point do they 'really' become a new fighter?
To take the Japanese, the Zero changed quite a lot from A6M2 to A6M8, or at least to A6M7 if we only allow operational models. Not as much as the Spitfire and the yaks, but still. On the other side there's the Ki -and the Ki-100. It should not be controversial to claim that the latter was merely a Ki 61-II modified to accept a radial, but they are by nomenclature two different fighters.
On the other hand the tempest stayed the Tempest even when it got tubbier, the FW-190 only changed from A to D when it fitted an inline. Except the next derivative became the Ta-152, but was that 'really' so much more different from the D than the D was from the A. Same problem with the Laggs and La's really.
The italians may be said to do this in the most handy way. There's the MC 200, the 202 and the 205, the Re 2000, 2001 2002 and 2005 and the G 50 and 55 five. Same but different.
But as not everybody was so sensible as the Italians (never thought I'd say that), we are left with a question that I fear we cannot answear 100% consistently. Sometimes the gradual evolution ends with something new, it's just that we cannot always draw a firm line between one and the other.
So after this dose of postmodernism, i'm still wondering whether the Spitfire had more different engines than the Hawk 75, Hawk 81 and Hawk 87. At least the last two were still P-40's.
I don't know, maybe the Spitfire? My reasoning is this:
On the face of it, of course it only had two different engines, the Merlin and the Griffon, at least to my knowledge. But comparing the Merlin of 1938 with the Merlin of 1945 makes me wonder to what extent that is the same engine. On the one hand they are both called Merlins, on the other the later engines have two stage superchargers, I'm not really savvy enough to deside if that is to be considered part of the engine or an add on. Then I always struggled with the American engines, mostly a couple of letters followed by apparantly almost equal numbers. Very confusing for one like me to discern how much different one Allison is from the other, when is it a gradual development, and when is it a new engine?
In airframes we have a similar situation, but I feel better equpped to discuss it. Take the Spitfire, just the difference from the Mk I to the Mk 21, not to mention later developments, is staggering. New engine, new profile, bubble canopy, new wing and double the weight. But undoubtedly they are all Spitfires.
Then take the Yak family, Yak 1, Yak 3, Yak 7, and Yak 9 to again stay in the war years. I could make a case that they basically was incarnations of the same basic fighter, on the other hand I'm tempted to divide them into 1, 3, and 7, 9 families. At which point do they 'really' become a new fighter?
To take the Japanese, the Zero changed quite a lot from A6M2 to A6M8, or at least to A6M7 if we only allow operational models. Not as much as the Spitfire and the yaks, but still. On the other side there's the Ki -and the Ki-100. It should not be controversial to claim that the latter was merely a Ki 61-II modified to accept a radial, but they are by nomenclature two different fighters.
On the other hand the tempest stayed the Tempest even when it got tubbier, the FW-190 only changed from A to D when it fitted an inline. Except the next derivative became the Ta-152, but was that 'really' so much more different from the D than the D was from the A. Same problem with the Laggs and La's really.
The italians may be said to do this in the most handy way. There's the MC 200, the 202 and the 205, the Re 2000, 2001 2002 and 2005 and the G 50 and 55 five. Same but different.
But as not everybody was so sensible as the Italians (never thought I'd say that), we are left with a question that I fear we cannot answear 100% consistently. Sometimes the gradual evolution ends with something new, it's just that we cannot always draw a firm line between one and the other.
So after this dose of postmodernism, i'm still wondering whether the Spitfire had more different engines than the Hawk 75, Hawk 81 and Hawk 87. At least the last two were still P-40's.
