Which is the better fighter, P-40F or Typhoon?

P-40 or Typhoon


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Wow! Rube Goldberg would be proud. That sucker most have had a ginormous oil pump with all that slipsliding going on. Wonder how much hosepower that valve mechanism consumed. I notice it has a less than 1:1 power/weight ratio.
Cheers,
Wes
I don't know TBH, as with horsepower consumed. There are a lot of parts in contact but no reciprocating valves pushing against springs. What I do know was the Sabre was a bit problematic when cold, even turning the engine over was a bit of a problem. They not only heated them but also continually ran them up over night to keep them warm to hot. The other thing is they were quieter because theres no valve clatter.
 
Do you have a source for that? Thats pretty close to a 60 series merlin Spit 9 . 385 seems to be the number most often quoted for a Spit III, although I have never seen a primary source for its performance.

Morgan and Shacklady, Spitfire the History.

Mk.III
Engines: Merlin RM.2SM (Merlin X), electric starting, 1,265hp @ 9,500ft, 1,145hp @ 16,750ft
Merlin Rm.3SM (Merlin XX), electric starting, 1,280hp.
Merlin 61

Coolant: 70% water, 30% glycol. 16.5 UKG in system

Fuel: 100 Octane. Capacity (fuselage) upper 53 UKG, lower 46.5 UKG, total 99.5 UKG

Oil: 6.8 UKG, consumption 1.75 to 2.0 UKG/hour

Armament: A (8 x 0.303") or B (4 x 0.303" + 2 x 20mm) wing or 4 x 20mm + 4 x 0.303"

Radio: TR1153

Performance (Merlin X):
Max Speed:
340mph @ 5,000ft
360mph @ 10,000ft
369mph @ 15,000ft
400mph @ 21,000ft

Max Dive Speed: 450mph [presumably IAS]

Take-off Run: 250 yards

Climb: to 15,000ft 4.5 minutes, to 20,000ft 6.4 minutes

Service Ceiling: 39,000ft

Stall: flaps and undercarriage up, 93mph.

Landing Run: 600 yards


There were two Mk.III prototypes, the original one and a second converted from a Mk.I.
 
If the production models met the prototypes performance figures the Mk111 would have been the hot rod to own until at least '43.
 
One of the reasons the Spitfire Mk.III did not proceed was because the fuselage was strengthened, which would have required changes to the production lines.

But no great reason why the Merlin XX could not be put into a Mk.I/II as was done with the Merlin 45 for the Mk.V.
 
It has been said that the Merlin XX was 4 in longer than the Merlin 45 due to the two speed drive set up.
This is given as the reason that the Engine was not used in the Spitfire as to the needed design work. Obviously they fit in the much longer Merlin 60 series engines but that did take some redesign.

However there is at least one account of Spitfire MK IIs being fitted with Merlin XX engines long after they had been retired from front line units. They were being used for ASR work at the time. This may have been due to the Merlin XII engine no longer being in the supply chain or perhaps a desire for much more power near sea level? Or it may be a mistake or typo as to engine used?
 
I wish somebody has access to any Hawker drawings (not fanboy art) of a Griffon engined version, it was talked about at Hawkers and bit of preliminary work done.

I could be wrong but I seem to remember that, in order to get the CG right the wings had to be swept forward, by how much I don't know but sticking in an engine hundreds of pounds heavier is not going to be a matter of unbolting the old engine and bolting the new one.

The Hurricane is a bit of an odd airplane, it was relatively large compared to many other fighters of it's era (say 1936-1940) and yet it's weight wasn't that far off.

Since this is a thread about the Typhoon

Plane............Hurricane (late)...................Typhoon (Late)

Wing span.............40ft...................................41ft 7 in
WIng area............257.5sq/ft......................279 sq/ft
Length.....................32ft...................................31ft, 11 1/2 in

The Spitfire was roughly 30mph faster using the same engine so any diversion of better engines to a Supercane is just going to get you an inferior fighter to the Spit using the same engine I don't know what the point is.
And cutting 3-4 feet off the wing (wing area is still around 240sq ft or higher) is not going to add a whole lot of speed.
 
I think this was about production decisions. The MKIII was a new design of airframe but they already had a lot of I/II airframes waiting for engines, these were finished as Mk Vs, most of the modifications of the Mk III were eventually incorporated into the Mk V. The same happened when the Mk IX was created from modified Mk V airframes. You could read into that as a Mk IX being actually just a modified Mk I/II which was not the case.
 
Apparently the Ju-88C was among other things, a P-40 killer! Maybe it's time to start another thread Lol:

"Occasionally, the sea convoy escort missions were still flown. Those missions were performed jointly with selected bomber crews of KG 54 and 60 flying Ju 88As. On June 14, during one of such sorties, nine Beaufighters of 252 and 272 Sqns. attacked a group of freighters. The British pressed their attack unaware of a Ju 88C flown by Lt. Wiedow. The German pilot put his aircraft in a near-vertical dive and quickly got on one of the Beaufighters' tail. The British aircraft performed a shallow left turn, only to be hit by accurate fire from behind. The aircraft's starboard engine caught fire and moments later the Beaufighter, crewed by F/Sgt. Gael and Sgt. Amos, crashed in the sea among the convoy ships.
The following day more fighting took place over the convoys and Oblt. Albert Schulz claimed a Maryland. On the night of June 18 Ofw. Hermann Sommer jumped a single P-40 Kittyhawk of 260 Sqn. After a long fight the German crew won the upper hand and shot down the British fighter killing its pilot, Sgt. Carlisle. It was the 150th victory for I./NJG 2. "


Have to look that one in up in Shores MAW...
 
Correction to your post, scoring one ariel victory does not make one aircraft a "killer" of another.
 
A couple of hundred claims in the ETO for the Hurricane in 1941; victories after the BoB dried up to a trickle.
 
They weren't replaced until end 1941 as fighters. Still scoring victories in 1941 over UK.
Over the UK possibly but the main thrust of the air war in Europe change to the UK attacking France and Hurricane were rarely used in that role. As pointed out by Stig claims dropped to a trickle because the RAF knew the Hurricane wasn't up to fighting over German held area's
 
Correction to your post, scoring one ariel victory does not make one aircraft a "killer" of another.

Did you notice this part:

"Apparently the Ju-88C was among other things, a P-40 killer! Maybe it's time to start another thread Lol: "

You know what Lol stands for right? Doesn't anyone around here have a sense of humor?

You get outlier incidents like this, sometimes due to special circumstances. I did mention Ju 88s shot down some P-38s once. Someone else mentioned Avro Ansons allegedly shooting down Bf 109s. Does that mean the Anson is a "Bf 109 killer"? Well if those claims could be validated (big if), in the most technical sense yes, but not really if it wasn't consistent.

Ju 88 could have caught a Kittyhawk with battle damage, or almost out of gas, or with an injured pilot, or just got lucky on the first surprise pass and did some damage that affected a subsequent dogfight. Or maybe attacking a Kittyhawk when you have superior E in a Ju 88C is sufficient to give you a chance... or maybe it's an unbsubstantiated claim like so many of them were.

I'll look it up in Shores though he does mention the pilots name so it won't be hard to check.
 
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