P-51 Mustang or F4U Corsair

Bullockracing · 04-22-2006, 08:51 PM

I'm not seeing any discussions on the variant of the planes, the Goodyear FG-2 being my noob preference. I would have to say that both planes were exceptional, since they lasted firmly into the Korean War on front-line duty.

Soundbreaker Welch? · 04-23-2006, 04:45 AM

I don't think I had a typo? I just cut and pasted from the web sites.

Jabberwocky · 04-23-2006, 07:05 AM

I didn't mean you had a typo, just that the article you posted wasn't factually correct, which is half of the problem with sourcing things from the internet, which very rarely has any form of independent editorial review.

chris mcmillin · 04-24-2006, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bullockracing

I'm not seeing any discussions on the variant of the planes, the Goodyear FG-2 being my noob preference. I would have to say that both planes were exceptional, since they lasted firmly into the Korean War on front-line duty.

Interestingly,
The Mustang wasn't the first choice for the Korean operation for the Air Force. The Thunderbolt was the airplane the Air Force wanted, but it's spares and numbers weren't up to the necessary levels.
NAA was worried that the Merlin spares wouldn't hold up either, and they drew up engineering drawings for the airplane to be re-engined with Pratt&Whitney R-2800's.

I can't remember who told me personally about the Thunderbolt choice, but it was either General Doolittle or Bob Hoover. I was a teen at the time and my head would swoon in such company.

An air racing friend had drawn some working drawings of a Mustang with an R-2800 CB-17 for a proposed racer and an old NAA engineer heard of it and provided some NAA original drawings. It was a pretty good looking airplane with the radial, too.

Tempest's (originally Sabre) and Sea Fury's (originally Griffon) were good lookers with radials, so not an unheard of switch.

Anyone find any good performance data on the Mustang and Corsair yet? The German/American thing is way off topic.

Chris...

Bullockracing · 04-24-2006, 07:20 PM

Thanks for that Chris. Very interesting on the AF wanting the Jug. I only wish I was able to rub shoulders with either of the two characters you mentioned...

Do you have any of the drawings of the Mustang with a radial? I know the 109 with the annular cowling wasn't very pretty, and that's the look I keep seeing in my mind's eye on the Mustang.

chris mcmillin · 04-24-2006, 11:29 PM

No I don't, but as I remember it the 2800 isn't all that wide and didn't make for a huge look to the nose.

It had a big spinner and afterbody for the intake like most racers, and a fixed area ramp on either side for the cooling air exhaust and the engines exhaust stack outlets arranged at the exit point for jet-pump like augmentation of it's escape.

The Mustang fuse is pretty deep and there was no difference in the side profile until the taper towards the leading edge of the cowling. The radiator scoop was of course deleted so it was a very clean profile. The oil cooling was done with a 0 drag boil-off system, and the wings were clipped at the production break at the second aileron hinge as is typical for all but two Mustang racers.

The hot rodded 2800 would produce about 3200 hp at 90 in hg and 3200 rpm and at the time would've been super competitive in the racing scene. Maybe it still would, as the Dwight Thorne Merlins put out the @ same hp but have the radiator drag. It would depend on the amount of detail to cooling drag, as it always is.

As for the military version, I never saw the NAA drawings. The ones my racer friends had were detail for the motor mount and such. I just saw the racer outlines and some cowling sketchs.

I was very lucky to have met a lot of the pioneers. Amazing that so many were involved in air racing, or is it?

Chris...

syscom3 · 04-25-2006, 10:37 AM

Ive seen pics of the F-51 and F-47 in national guard squadrons well into the mid 50's.

Both aircraft were well designed.

Soren · 04-26-2006, 02:24 PM

*Sigh*

Why do I even bother...

wmaxt, had you ever bothered actually reading my last post you would have realized I wasn't listing METO power figures, I was infact listing 60" Hg boost figures which was the highest boost pressure allowed for the P-38 in the ETO. You on the other hand either post figures for underloaded P-38's running at 60" MP or normally loaded P-38's running at 70" MP, exaggerating the P-38's performance on both accounts.

Also you talk of lacking evidence concerning the Dora-9's performance figures (which is weird cause I posted the original doc's in the very same post), yet you never present any evidence to back up your dubious claim's about the P-38 yourself, how is that ? You desperately cling on to your precious game-chart believing it to be true, yet it has no credibility because you cannot provide an original and because it contains rather weird error's. (But I guess the "Data courtesy of lockheed-martin corp." phrase must be the deciding factor for you, Im not impressed though)

And about the figures on the Spitfireperformance site, wmaxt you really need to read it all, not just small excerpts of what you'd like to hear from the site...

Note the following written on the site:

Flight Test Engineering Branch
Memo Report No. Eng-47-1771-A
5 July 1944

- All tests were flown at a gross weight at take-off of 17,363 lbs.

- At sea level a maximum rate of climb of 4040 ft/min was attained at 70" Hg. manifold pressure and a rate of climb of 3570 ft/min at 60" Hg. manifold pressure and 3000 RPM.

And for comparison here's the test with the P-38J I was talking about:

As you can see this is running at 60" MP(1600 BHP) at a weight of just 16,415 lbs, which means a 50% fuel load - Max climb rate: 3,750 ft/min.

At a gross weight of 17,500 lbs that is probably 3,500 ft/min, and at 70" MP it is likely to be around 4,000 ft/min. (Now what do ya know! thats the same as what is written on the Spit-performance site!

)

And at 54" MP it is 3,200 ft/min:
http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/1...clchart2op.jpg

And now wmaxt, Im not going to discuss this anymore as its become tiring and uninteresting to me, cause you obviously refuse to listen to anything I have to say and frankly I've had enough of it. So now, having made my case clear(for the 2nd time), I'm going to leave this discussion.

Oh and btw, in your post following my last one, thanks for talking as if I werent there in it, that was very kind of you wmaxt

wmaxt · 04-30-2006, 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soren

*Sigh*

Why do I even bother...

Thats fine, you are entitled to your opinions. You've stated that you already know all you need to, OK, I know where you stand. I've presented a lot of valid data from multiple sources which you have just dismissed out of hand and has absolutely nothing to do with any game.

The Spitfire.com test is of a J-15/10 model the weight was correct for that model and it showed 4,000ft/Min SL and 5.37min to 20,000ft @ 60" and 1.600hp.

Your right about the AAF - 60" limit, however both Allison and Lockheed approved 64", L model (and were in the field adjusting the aircraft) and various pilots reported using "over 60", accept it or not I don't care.

You still insist on using METO as in your last post, I have tried to use the same power settings for comparisons, I'm sorry you don't approve.

The Spitfire.com Fw-190D9 data is, just like the P-38J data, production aircraft right off the line, and tested by the Germans with an eye to improving performance, so any comparisons should be valid. The testers made a point of stating gap seal problems as well as lack of expected power output affecting performance.

I to, have had enough.

wmaxt

Jank · 04-30-2006, 05:45 PM

Soren, am I reading that chart correctly?

It appears that the F4U-1 will climb to 20,000ft in about 13.5 minutes and can climb at a rate of about 3,100fpm at sea level, 2.950fpm at 10,000ft and about 1,650fpm at 20,000ft.

Is that at WEP? It looks like the F4U-4 climbs to 20,000ft in about 9 minutes at 70".

syscom3 · 04-30-2006, 07:09 PM

When you look at the figures, no single aircraft dominates the other.

Big deal if one aircraft can get to 30,000 ft 15 seconds faster than its contender.

Big deal if one aircraft is 10 mph fater then its contender.

Big deal if one aircraft can turn faster than its competitor when that style of dogfighting is going to be avoided.

Soren · 04-30-2006, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jank

Soren, am I reading that chart correctly?

It appears that the F4U-1 will climb to 20,000ft in about 13.5 minutes and can climb at a rate of about 3,100fpm at sea level, 2.950fpm at 10,000ft and about 1,650fpm at 20,000ft.

Is that at WEP? It looks like the F4U-4 climbs to 20,000ft in about 9 minutes at 70".

No Jank, you're not reading it correctly. According to that chart the F4U-1 reaches 20,000ft in about 7.5min, where'as the F4U-4 reaches it in just 5min.

And as you can see the F4U-4 has a max climb rate of about 4,400ft/min at sea-level, which is pretty darn fast.

Jank · 05-01-2006, 09:51 AM

Soren, is that 7.5 min figure on the F4U-1 climb to 20,000ft the maximum or WEP?

Twitch · 05-01-2006, 11:28 AM

"When you look at the figures, no single aircraft dominates the other.

Big deal if one aircraft can get to 30,000 ft 15 seconds faster than its contender.

Big deal if one aircraft is 10 mph fater then its contender.

Big deal if one aircraft can turn faster than its competitor when that style of dogfighting is going to be avoided."

Syscom3- exactly!! Wahahahahahaha! That's what makes these "comaprisons" absurd. Anyone that knows combat knows minor, sometimes even major, differences in performance are meaningless to the outcome. The flight simulator mentality of comparing/contrasting 2 planes from the same country as combatants is equally juvenille.

syscom3 · 05-01-2006, 11:49 AM

The late model fighters of all the combatants were all evenly matched. The advantage of one was offset by the advantage of another.

Speeds at any given altitude were similar, accelerations were similar, rate of climbs were similar, firepower similar, blah, blah, blah.

There was only one parameter though, that really stood out on them, and that was range. The US fighters had such a tremendous range advantage, it could not be ignored.

I think it was FLYBOYJ who mentioned that there are so many factors to analyze, its almost an impossible task for us mear mortals to do it.

That said, I would say that it was the P51D that was the best fighter of WW2. It was good enough in most catagories PLUS it had a range that couldnt be ignored. And for the Spitfire fans, I ask you one simple thing: From Dec 1943 to July 1944, how many sorties did the Spitfire fly over Berlin? Like I said, if you cant bring your aircraft to the party, you sure arent going to prove anything.