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?
Late or not, the P-38 shot down more Japanese aircraft than any other USAAF fighter in WW II.
Now, I am taling air-superiority “fighter” here. There are other planes, with other missions, but this thread starts with “fighter.”
Speed was up to 426 m.p.h., and best climb to 3,900 ft./min. The “J” would climb to 20,000 ft. in 5.9 minutes.
Nothing else came close.
Best fighter: ME262, Hands down.
Best Prop fighter: P-38
Best single engine prop fighter: P-51
The FW-190 and P-47 were both plenty rugged, but lacked the speed and maneuverability of P-51. Better suited to a ground attack role than the p-51. IMHO.
Nope, the P-38 was not the fastest, however compressibility was discovered because of the P-38.
The designer, Kelly Johnson, my favorite, who also designed the F-104, P-80, and the SR-71.
Our pilots or theirs? ;^)
Those were cool, but airborne time was what? 15 minutes?
The P-38 shot down Yamamotos plane, I have a detailed model of one, one of my favorites, it even has a decal that looks like a small piece of a front page newspaper with a picture of a woman called “Marge” the pilots best gal.
Six Browning machine guns all in the nose, thats firepower!
Yes I forget the name the Japs gave the P-38 they respected that Plane, The Handy work of MR Johnson.
John Basilone. Hands down.
The only US fighter in production before,during, and slightly after the war.
IIRC, the initial Lightnings delivered to the Brits had no superchargers and lacked counterrotating props. I think that the Brits shipped them off to secondary theaters because the just couldn’t compete at high altitudes. The lack of counterrotating props would tend toward handling problems.
Next question.
It was based on a advanced version of the P-47 incorporating the Pratt & Whitney R-4360-13 Wasp Major 28-Cylinder radial air-cooled engine producing 3,450 hp.
It would do 490 mph without the supercharger turned on, top speed was estimated up into the 550 range for the prototype using the contra-rotating props.
In fact there were several fighter offerings to be based on the awesome Pratt & Whitney R-4360 engine. Several of them were to incorporate contra-rotating props to absorb the immense power and torque of the engine.
http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/URG/xp72.html
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=419
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=2272
Thats very true, and its something that continues to this day, sell a US product but not the SAME product we use.
Fork-tailed devil, I believe.
I vaugely recall “whistling death” but I (a redleg army guy) know that was the name given our A-10, so I am probably getting that mixed in my mind.
Although the P-51 Mustang replaced the P-47 in the long-range escort role in Europe, the Thunderbolt still ended the war with 3,752 air-to-air kills claimed in over 746,000 sorties of all types, at the cost of 3,499 P-47s to all causes in combat.[16] In Europe in the critical first three months of 1944 when the German aircraft industry and Berlin were heavily attacked, the P-47 shot down more German fighters than did the P-51 (570 out of 873), and shot down approximately 900 of the 1,983 claimed during the first six months of 1944.[17] In Europe, the Thunderbolt flew more sorties (423,435) than P-51s, P-38s and P-40s combined.
I suppose an equivalent Navy aircraft would have been the F6F Hellcat.
Navy and Marine F6Fs flew 66,530 combat sorties (45% of all fighter sorties of the war, 62,386 sorties were flown from aircraft carriers)[20] and destroyed 5,163 (56% of all Naval/Marine air victories of the war) at a cost of 270 Hellcats (an overall kill-to-loss ratio of 19:1).[21] The aircraft performed well against the best Japanese opponents with a 13:1 kill ratio against Mitsubishi A6M, 9.5:1 against Nakajima Ki-84, and 3.7:1 against Mitsubishi J2M during the last year of the war.[22] The F6F became the prime ace-maker aircraft in the American inventory, with 305 Hellcat aces.[23] That being said, it must be noted that the U.S. successes were not only attributed to superior aircraft, but also because they faced increasingly inexperienced Japanese aviators from 1942 onwards, as well as having the advantage of ever-increasing numerical superiority.
Corsair
By the beginning of 1945, the Corsair was a full-blown "mudfighter", performing strikes with high-explosive bombs, napalm tanks, and HVARs. She proved surprisingly versatile, able to operate everything from Bat glide bombs (without sacrificing a load of 2.75 in/70 mm rockets) to 11.75 in (300 mm) Tiny Tim rockets.[48] The aircraft was a prominent participant in the fighting for the Palaus, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Statistics compiled at the end of the war indicate that the F4U and FG flew 64,051 operational sorties for the U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy through the conflict (44% of total fighter sorties), with only 9,581 sorties (15%) flown from carrier decks.[49] F4U and FG pilots claimed 2,140 air combat victories against 189 losses to enemy aircraft, for an overall kill ratio of over 11:1.[50] The aircraft performed well against the best Japanese opponents with a 12:1 kill ratio against Mitsubishi A6M, 7:1 against Nakajima Ki-84, 13:1 against Kawanishi N1K-J, and 3:1 against Mitsubishi J2M during the last year of the war.[51] The Corsair bore the brunt of fighter-bomber missions, delivering 15,621 tons (14,171 tonnes) of bombs during the war (70% of total bombs dropped by fighters during the war).[50]
Oh no, not at all! : - D
It was however a mistake in the making when it was designed.
Your dad was a marine wasn't he?
The Corsair was designed to be a carrier plane (Navy) however it was too hard to land because of the long nose on it.
Of course you do know that that's why the wings are inverted gull shape so the landing gear struts were shorter and more stout for hard carrier landings and yet it was able to clear the ground with it's large propeller.
It was also the 1st aircraft to break 400MPH.
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