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That being said, and I have to agree with almost all of it, some fighters were known to be particularly good in a zoom climb ... the P-51, Sea Fury, and Tigercat being three of them. It is probably a function of all the variables mentioned above, but this group holds energy very well at medium speeds and above if you climb at relatively high power.
In most airshow acts nobody is flying at WER or even at maximum rated power, but the P-51, Sea Fury, and Tiugercat all seem to have no trouble doing a big 4,000+ foot loop and coming over the top with energy to spare. Some of the other fighters I have seen do a smaller loop (maybe 3,000 - 3,500 feet) and look pretty slow over the top ... but, and here's the rub, that could simply be a function of which pilot is willing to carry more power through the loop.
Your observation about zoom being an important characteristic is correct, but I have never seen a mesurment of it in comparative data versus other fighters of the same era.
It would be nice to get that list, but the owners of warbirds today probably will never agree on how much power is agreeable to them to carry through testing. After all, THEY are paying for the engines and fuel. I know guys who never operate at more than 900 HP for their Merlin and I know guys who will take it out to 1,300 HP on a semi-regular basis.
Here is a classic example of a Bell P-63.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jSHZPmiSPk
There is nothing whatsoever wrong with the P-63 and it has PLENTY of power. But the pilot flying this aircraft was very probably carrying less than 40" of manifold pressure the whole time and wasn't going very fast to start with. That according to people who build and fly Allisons. You cn see that the P-63 never even gets over the top of the loop, but rather stalls and enters a spin. Had he been carrying 55" - 57" of MAP, he could have done a loop of twice the diameter and would have gone over the top with plenty of energy to spare.
Considering that zoom climb was a performance characteristic that one would think would have been a very important aspect in the air to air combat environment of WWII, one would also think that this performance aspect would have been measured, charted, and recorded to death. Is there any such data listed for the fighter aircraft of that era? I've never seen any...and which aircraft would you think would be the best at this?
There is no P-51 that cruises at 380 mph. Any standard P-51 D / K pilot manual will tell you that.
Let's pick a weight of 9,600 to 10,800 pounds with two 75-gallon wing tanks ... typical. Max cruise was 42" and 2,400 rpm, give or take a bit. Let's say we fudge it just a bit and choose to cruise at 43" and 2,450 rpm. TAS is 340 mph.
A MUCH more likely cruise is below 42" and 2,400 rpm.
OK, choose 41" and 2,250 rpm at 69 GPH and, right off the chart, the TAS is 280 mph, right where you'd expect it to be if you were in the cockpit. You weren't going to get anywhere near 380 mph in any cruise condition.
You CAN get there, but only at elevated power levels consisent with combat and dropped tanks.
Post war manual for a 51-D says it will do 379mph at 25,000 with a pair of 75 gallon tanks using max continuous power. Any owner using such power settings now is both rich and has a stock of spare parts. Not to mention cruising at 25,000ft may violate FAA rules.
Cruising at that speed cut range and made keeping station with the bombers much harder. It might have been used at times ( near known Luftwaffe air fields?) But not as a general practice. Bomber escort would have been flown at 300-325mph as a compromise between range/endurance and ability to respond/accelerate/climb.
You can get almost any P-51D/K to 380 mph TAS, but you can't run it that hard from London to Berlin and back. C'mon huys, this ain't a flight sim I'm talking about, it's a real WWII escort mission, flown in formation, tracking the bombers all the way there and back, iwht possibly a few minutes of conbat thrown in. And if you DO get into combat, you still want to get home on that same flight in the same airplane with some of teh same gasoline left in the tanks when you get there.
Cruising at 380 MPH (even at best altitude for that speed) wouldn't give you the range to make it to Berlin and back, let alone enough reserve for combat and loiter time for landing.I thought the whole thing behind the P51 was an extremely slippery frame with a modern (at the time) supercharged engine. The P51 cold chug chug at its most economical speed for hours then wind up the boost for the short time combat was needed. I know its a simplification because P51s cruised to a rendezvous then escorted/fought then cruised back home.