A P&W R-2800 engine. 
Posted on 04/09/2009 2:29:15 PM PDT by mikeus_maximus
I know there are "seasoned" ex-military types on this board. I'd like your and anyone else's opinion on this topic. Every year of WWII saw improvements in aircraft development and performance-- so much so that what was state of the art at the beginning of the war, such as the Me 109 and Supermarine Spitfire, would have been death traps by the end, 6 years later.
For years I'd heard the P-51 Mustang was the ultimate WWII fighter. Then I read a quote from a former FockWulfe 190 pilot who said Mustangs were frail-- one bullet in the aluminum cowling and they went down. No one can deny their service record, though.
Other sources say the FW 190D was the best plane to come out of WWII. It was built on the same concept as the P-51-- take a good fighter, shoehorn in a huge bomber engine, and now you've got a great fighter. Except in this case it was a radial engine, which could lose one or two cyl. and keep on ticking (as opposed to the Mustang's inline engine).
Some say the Japanese "Frank" fighter produced near the end of the war was tops. Other have said the Russian YAK3 was.
Recently I heard that the F8F Bearcat was undoubtedly the best plane. Grumman took apart a captured FW 190 and made it better. The Bearcat was a plane deisgned from scratch around a huge radial engine, rather than vice versa. It was smaller, faster and more agile than any of the above. It had a production speed of 455 mph, a rate of climb twice that of a Mustang, and a ceiling almost as high. Is was delviered to the Navy in the Pacific theatre, but the war ended before it saw action, or it would have made its own legend. A few years later a modifed version set the airspeed record for piston planes at 528+ mph.
It gets my vote. Anyone else have an opinion?
A P&W R-2800 engine.
ping
The P-38 was initially designed to be a bomber interceptor. The USAAF wanted a plane that could get to 20,000 feet right now! Hence the two engines and the 4 .50 cal MGs and the 20mm cannon in the nose.
The initial orders were for a low quantity of aircraft, a couple of hundred of so and the P-38 was not designed with mass production in mind. It wasn't until I think the "H" models that the P-38 was set-up for ease of production.
The Lightning excelled in all theaters except for Europe. There have been many theories as to why the P-38 came up short in the ETO. The two most popular that I recall seeing had to do with the British avgas and the fact that in the ETO it was flat out cold.
The Germans in North Africa nicknamed the Lightning, "Der Gabelschwanz Teufel" or "Fork-Tailed Devil.
As mentioned by a previous poster the twin engine reliabilty and the seven league boots of the P-38 made it popular in the Pacific Theater. Nothing like having a spare engine on those long overwater flights!
Somebody mentioned the P-38 with the picture on it. Here ya go, a P-38 done up as Richard Bong's, 40 confirmed kills, aircraft.
And a personal favorite of mine since I was a wee lad:-)Looks lack a mass of PO'ed hornets.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Well if ya ever win the lottery, YEE HAW
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
I’m sure you didn’t mean it in this sense, but Audie Murphy gets my vote.
Here ia a more realistic question for all of us, which propeller driven aircraft used in WW2 mostly in the more defining latter part of the war if it was never introduced or just to the point pulled off and ceased to be produced.
What would the lack of said aircraft have upon the effect of the war and redefining an alternate history?
Let me see if I understand your question.
For example, what if the P-51 had not been fitted with the Merlin and had stayed a Low level tactical fighter?
If the P-51 had not evolved I am not sure that the end result would have been much different. The Mustang did not see widespread squadron service in the ETO until early 1944. While the P-47 was a capable fighter in dealing with the Luftwaffe, the Thunderbolt did have a range issue. The P-47N model, with a 2,000 mile range, started flying in September of 1944 so it is possible that it could have been in squadron service by 1945.
So what does all this mean. By early 1944 the Luftwaffe was almost on the ropes. It was not a question of aircraft because the production rates of German fighters peaked towards the end of 1944. The problem was in trained pilots. German pilots flew until either killed or captured. The US would pull experienced pilots out of action and send them back to serve as instructors. This helped to prepare new US pilots for the rigors of combat.
Also the average US pilot went into action with about 300 hours of training versus the German or Japanese pilots who were lucky to get 100 hours of flight time.
All in all I don’t think it would have made a huge difference in the outcome of the war.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
That... would have been a game-changer.
P-80s escorting B29s over Europe, the Germans would never have a chance.
LOL, Great one!
Would there have been a Pearl Harbor without the Zero? Would Germany be in charge of Russia without the use of the Stormuvich tank killer?
The Battle of Britain without the Spitfire? Or the Mustang as a long range escort?
I was just thinking about Obama shutting down production of the F-22, what if we needed hundreds of them, or more?
The He 162. If they had been able to develop that aircraft a little bit, and make it out of metal than wood, it might have been a game changer on bomber formations because they could have built scads of them.
My father, who flew B17's, was always happy to see any fighter escorts around him. Didn't care which.
I was at the Air Force Museum in Dayton last year and a couple of Hogs were doing touch-and-goes at Wright-Patterson just next door. They were going overhead at about 400-500 feet.
Mark!
Actually it wasn't the wood that was the problem. Note how well the Mosquito did. It was that they were using what amounted to standard wood glue to hold the laminations together, and if it got wet it became ungluded. The plan had been to use an epoxy resin to hold the wood together, but the plant got bombed completely by accident. One of the best misses of the war. It did have a better engine than the 262, but with only 2 x 20mm it was low on fire power against the B17s.
That oughta rattle some windows!
I was thinking the whole course of WW2 could have evolved differently without the Spitfire, in the Battle of Britain of which I am referring to as in the skies such as immortalized in the movie repelled the best of Germanies fighter pilots, Britain could have possibly surrendered and thus fortifying Germany in Europe.
With England vanquished America would not have such a strategic position in Europe.
As far as the Zero at Pearl Harbor it was not the main aircraft used. But what it could have done was force Japan to develope a better long range bomber to eventually surpass the the B-29, that would be my projection, Japan did have the technology to create a submarine that launched aircraft, they built two, what if they had a fleet?
So I could also answer the original point of this thread, what was the best fighter? And again I look at the Spitfire pitted against a larger and more skilled force, and it won.
It wasn’t extra guns, extra speed, it was what won against the odds.
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