The P51 Mustang, the best offensive fighter of WW2 ...

[fguffey]

All in all a horse apiece, with the inverted V12 needing oil scavenging in two heads instead of one crankcase.

With the small amount of information available at the time I was reminded of the Springfield Junket looking for a rifle and then came home with the Crag. The Germans pretended to be looking for a sea plane to build and race. The Germans thought the British racer had the engine mounted upside down. I had no idea the Germans had a taken a CYA course.

The Mustang was fuel injected, the spitfire had a delay, it appeared to put out a puff of smoke before everything caught up. Little known, the Spitfire made daily trips from England to Berlin and back.

F. Guffey

[togor]

Another interesting aspect of all of those WW2 aircraft engines is that they drove constant speed propellers that automatically adjusted pitch to hold RPM at a setpoint. By very early in the war all modern fighters had them.

From a throttle perspective, with displacement fixed, and now RPM and mixture ratio more or less held constant, the way to adjust engine power was with manifold pressure--the mass of air (+fuel) that moves through the engine. This is why power setting is described in terms of manifold pressure in those old training vids that people post to YouTube. Not how us car guys are used to thinking.

[fguffey]

Detonation issues or lack of them was not related to engine orientation. But the DB had the bigger displacement in order to make up for running at a lower compression ratio.

Not how us car guys are used to thinking

I do not know about 'you car guys' but if I built a low compression engine and I wanted it to perform I would be trying to pack air into it. And then there is the heat created by compression meaning I would have to figure a way to cool the air before the fuel is mixed. For a long time, I refused to believe we could raise the pressure by as much as 4 atmospheres. The Germans had equipment and planes available with no fuel, that was no way to run a war.

The British outside of the military burned coal and the used the incomplete combustion of the fuel to run cars and truck. The devise looked like large square backpacks, the British did not start the war, but they started with enough fuel to finish it.

I built an engine that was very sensitive, after it was put under a load the engine was very quiet (meaning the parts got hot and fit), the only sound that could be heard was the air research turbo turning; sensitive? The difference between running for 24 hours and Gaulding the pistons to the cylinders was 50 degrees. The spheroid condition clamed many engines for the lack of pressure.

F. Guffey

[togor]

At the end of the day, power goes with mass flow of fuel + air through the motor.

Primary factors governing mass flow include

Displacement
RPM
Pressure
Temperature

Germans were indeed slow to adopt intercooling, which increases gas density at the intake manifold.

[jjrothWA]

Basically, the THUNDERBOLT was built around the turbocharger first then the rest of the airframe.

That how it got the 11 ton weight.

The the propeller designer , did their work and came up onthe four blade propeller with WIDE blades, [18 inch wide]

[bruce]

Republic really did a great job designing and producing the Thunderbolt. It had a powerful double rugged engine that could and did keep running with cylinders blown off. It was armed with eight .50 caliber machine guns were capable of unzipping anything flying and most anything crawling along roads, etc. It was supremely well armored making it more than a match for whatever Axis plane might want to go round and round. Sincerely. bruce.

[dogtag]

A flying Tank in other words.

[barretcreek]

Read the book "Thunderbolt" by Johnson, I think it was equal.

Great book. I think he made the point it was more survivable.

[bruce]

"It was more survivable." Yep! Survival has a lot going for it! Sincerely. bruce.

[fguffey]

A friend/neighbor was a P47 Piolet, he became a Braniff piolet; he worked his way up to the 707, other piolets wanted to stay with the Super G Constellation. They claimed the Super G would get off the runway as fast as the 707. It was about that time an argument started and money exchanged hands and then someone had to step up and take off. There was no room to stand inside the Love passenger building because of the interest. The pilot backed up, released the brakes and took off, it was a most impressive take off, he won the bet and got suspended. He told me about a P47 that was being ferried when it almost lost a xxxx he said they wrapped one bank of cylinders with a chain and binder, seemed it was the pilot's choice, it was the end of the planes military career or fly it to a military base to be repaired.

And then Braniff shut down and the piolets found work anywhere they could. My friend went to the middle east, he had trouble getting along with them and then he got a job teaching John Travolta to fly, I was happy for both of them. He found a Lincon, early 60 4 door convertible, he wanted it rebuilt and I said "great, I will be able to use my 19/32 1/2" drive socket". He purchased a small ranch east of Bowie, Tx, he named it "The flying Lowe Ranch" his name was J. Lowe.

There was a man named Kerby that was assigned a P47, the problem was he was not given an opportunity to get close to combat so he rustled up some drop tanks to give him range. And another problem, he was in the Pacific. In short order he became an outstanding pilot. He said his success was based on the speed of the P47. He said he did not engage a Japanese plane unless he was diving on it and passing it at the same time.

F. Guffey

[barretcreek]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnX_mQ9apu8

Cavalry charging in.

[fguffey]

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/george-preddy-jr-the-usaafs-greatest-p51-ace/

F. Guffey

[blackhawknj]

IIRC even with a drop tank the Thunderbolt lacked the range to accompany the bombers into Germany and back.