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To: Moose4

The Brits might have put Merlins in their P-38’s — it was the Brits after all that put the RR Merlin in the P51, and that made that fighter a world-beater.

I’m not aware that they did, however...


34 posted on 10/27/2007 3:44:14 PM PDT by Tallguy (Climate is what you plan for, weather is what you get.)
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To: Tallguy
The Brits might have put Merlins in their P-38?s

Actually that would no doubt have been great, but unfortunately the only P-38s that went to the RAF were a few which were delivered without the turbochargers, and they were dogs. They were known as "castrated P-38s" and left such a bad taste that they didn't ever ask for any more. The USAAC didn't have a lot of success with the P-38s in the 8th AF in Britain, even though it did very well in the Med and Pacific theaters. Apparently the much colder conditions in northern Europe caused a lot of problems.

40 posted on 10/27/2007 5:48:54 PM PDT by 19th LA Inf
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To: Tallguy
"The Brits might have put Merlins in their P-38’s"

Don't think so, the supercharged Allisons worked fine and there were other places for the Merlins to go.

P-40 "F" and "L" ran Merlins without much improvement in performance...Google tells me that those were later re-engined back to the Allison.

65 posted on 10/28/2007 7:47:21 AM PDT by norton (Go ahead, vote for Hunter, you know you want to.)
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