UK marine spitfire V us p51 mustang

This is an "apples & oranges" comparison. The Brits have always designed superb interceptors: defending a small island nation, the Hurricane & Spitfire did the same job as the English Electric Lightning years later. But when trying to sell these designs overseas, their range limitations were a severe handicap. For a long-range, potentially offensive fighter, the Americans had the right idea: forget super-fast scrambles - just concentrate on good all-round performance and staying power. That's what you got with the P-47 & P-51. The Spitfire & Mustang were used in totally different roles.

Klive

 

In some documentary on the battle of Britain that was fortunate enough to be made while many air vets were still alive. Most spitfire pilots started in the hurricane but even they said the 109s were a problem, a good pilot could shake them off but they were hard to make a fight with most talked about just trying to break away. But when they got to spits they said but was something different, faster more maneuverable. I'm surprised they took so long to get the bubble type out, the Malcolm canopy was already so close. I really like the 51s with the Malcolm canopy gives them a interesting look. The fact that hawker kept trying to improve the hurricane but gave up and developed an all new airframe shows the basic airframe had reached it peak and could go no farther. Just look at all the marks of spitfires and years of service after the war. Hell during the early Arab Israeli wars both sides loved them, the Israeli's first spits were from salvaged wrecks. They were elated to get a bunch of spitfires from Czechoslovakia, for free, many joked that it was an apology for the a via s-199. Read some of the problems the Israeli's had, the mechanical problems were not too bad except for the interrupter mechanism. Pilots got in the habit of test firing the guns to make sure it was working or shoot the propeller offvsnd have to glide in to a landing. I heard part of the reason they gave them the planes the Soviets had demand that all satellite countries had to dispose of all western equipment. The Czechs didn't want to destroy them and gave them to Israel, funny just a few years ago one of those planes was found in the back yard of a farm as part of a garden display still looking pretty good not sure what happened after that as most countries have laws on war goods most considered historical artifacts and property of the state. Some guy was visiting relatives and when e was a boy his father during the war made a spot in the attic that had a small space he hid a small case. He looked for the panel found it and the case. They had to report it by law and a museum took the case they let him keep some items but the rest was put in a display showing items from the war years. I think it amazing how much stuff has been found recently that people had to have known about for years those 109s though I never saw any with a four prop before was that something they were working on late in the war. Those panthers and still working. M4a2 Sherman in Russia, more KVs and 34s. Too bad about that b29 in Alaska, that guy put most of his money and time and they got so close.

 

I never heard of the early Spitfires as interceptors but as fighters.

 

"The Spitfire was designed as a short-range, high-performance interceptor aircraft by R. J. Mitchell, chief designer at Supermarine Aviation Works, which operated as a subsidiary of Vickers-Armstrong from 1928. - Wiki

 

I thought the RAF cleverly waited that the Bf 109's had a limited time period over England and once they had to leave the RAF attacked the bombers. Of course there were losses but a lot less if the 109's were around.

 

Now, if you take a late-model Spitfire vs a late-model P-51, the same thing still holds true. A Griffon engine Spitfire, say the Mk XIV or even Mk 21 versus the P-51H, the comparison still holds, only now the Spitfire is getting long in the tooth while P-51H benefited from improved design and a far more careful engineering assessment of the plane's structure.

The P-51H was still using a Merlin, and it could hit 470 + mph versus about 460 for the Spitfire. With a lighter structure (about 600 lbs. shaved off and over half-a-ton difference loaded) and new wing, it also had nearly the same level of maneuverability and could roll or out roll a Spitfire. So, by 1945 it was on par with even the latest Spitfires and still had more range.

As for carrier use, the USN did try the P-51 out in trials aboard the USS Shangri-La in late 1944. A modified P-51D was fitted with an arresting hook and catapult hookup points. The plane made a number of landings and take-offs from that carrier. The USN rejected it for carrier use based on several objections:

The landing speed was such that the pilot had to maintain a 7 mph window, and this was considered too small a range for average pilots to use under a variety of conditions
The P-51 bounced too much on landing and would have required a landing gear redesign
The view during takeoff and landing was considered poor and unacceptable


Unofficially, this variant of the Mustang was sometimes called the "Seahorse."

 

Bob Elder was driving.

 

Here's an interesting bit. In the MTO, two USAAF fighter groups flew Mk V and IX Spitfires. The Mustang wasn't in use there, and there was only one P-38 group. The rest of the fighter groups flew either the P-40 or the P-39. The later was used almost exclusively for ground support and only a few squadrons were flying it most of the time. The workhorse was the P-40, but wherever possible, the models were the F and L. These had a Merlin engine, not an Allison and had decent performance up to about 25,000 feet rather than the 15,000 using an Allison.

The Merlin engine P-40, in terms of performance, was basically the same as with an Allison the exception being it could operate at higher altitudes before performance dropped off. The Merlin engine P-40 had a top speed usually within about 5 mph of that of the same model with an Allison for example.

It would be the two groups flying Spitfires that had the highest kill tallies overall. They also had lower loss rates. But once the war started to move to mainland Europe and the USAAF went much more on the offensive in the MTO, these groups had to give up their Spitfires for P-51's because they were becoming irrelevant due to lack of range of their aircraft.

 

I don't know if it was planned, but ordering the Hurricane from experienced fighter manufacturer Hawker provided insurance in case the "high-tech" design from Supermarine - their first venture into fighters - didn't work out or was excessively delayed.

The eight-gun monoplanes were a considerable leap forward anyway, but the Hurricane design and construction was otherwise similar to a long line of successful fighters, less chance of anything being drastically wrong with it.

 

This suggests that the intent was to have something somewhat better than the P-40, but for the same basic roles. Something I've asked about before, was really long range, i.e. escorting heavy bombers all the way to their targets, ever stated as a requirement?

 

No. The North American P-51 was designed in response to US experience in Europe. The P-40 was not in the fight over European skies. - Everyone knew that. Looking at British and especially German fighter aircraft the US knew it needed something new and improved to compete - The 51 was always going to be designed and built (similar to the Spitfire and Hurricane, the P-47 was the back-up to the 51 if it failed.) It was designed with the lessons learnt in Europe. Even then the early 51s were showing signs of old design and needed plenty of "touching up" as time passed - Engine changes and upgrades - canopy, tail for example. This was an illustration of how behind the US was in warfare design. Aircraft engine design was behind and needed the Merlin to design their first useful in-line engines - And even then struggled to get the same performance from their Allisons. Aircraft design was behind - Relying on the old "barrel fighter" designs famous in the Navy and used for the P-47
It was not initially designed for long range escort - The P-47 was already better suited for that role.
It takes a trained eye...but you can see elements of both the 109 and spitfire in this body...

 

The US wasn't "behind" in design practices, but rather simply had different ideas and needs in designing aircraft. For example, US fighters were much more strongly constructed than British, German, or Japanese ones. That added weight, typically about 500 to 800 lbs to the plane. Both the P-40N and P-51H took advantage of very critical design studies that looked at every component and part of the plane and attempted to reduce its weight. This included much more careful analysis of the part's strength with regard to things like G limits. In both cases, Curtiss and North American were able to reduce the weight of their aircraft by about 600 lbs. just from good component design.

US manufacturers took more advantage of work by the NACA--surprisingly NACA calculations were used by other nation's aircraft manufacturers too--to reduce drag and refine aerodynamics.

The USN's "barrel" looking aircraft came about because of needs the USN had for their aircraft design. They wanted the pilot to have good visibility over the nose for carrier landings, and to have the ability to use deflection shooting in combat. The later was not on anyone else's design criteria list at the time. That was one of the reasons the F4U was initially rejected for carrier operations even as the FAA okayed it for use on RN carriers. Another oddity was pre-war the USN wanted a window on the bottom of the fuselage for the pilot to have a downward view. This was to assist the pilot in lining up for catapult launches. USN aircraft also were built with higher stress limits on the airframe as it was expected they would take more stress and abuse from performing carrier landings.

The P-47 was a continuation of a line of development for a radial engine, high altitude fighter based on the previous P-43 with view to combat reports from Europe. This made the plane using an alternative engine to the Allison of the P-40 line. The P-47, like the P-43 was designed around its engine and the turbo-supercharger system of the plane. These weren't an afterthought like in say, the FW 190C


The Germans and Japanese tried to make use of turbocharging technology but did so on an ad hoc basis. As you can see, Tank ran the exhaust lines on the outside of the fuselage due to lack of internal room and had to add a large scoop to pull in the air to be compressed.

The P-38 made full use of GE's turbocharging technology and that's what made the plane a success. The British turned down a version without the then classified turbochargers. These were returned to Lockheed and were subsequently fitted with turbochargers and issued to the USAAF as the P-38G. The P-38's weak spot was its complexity and cost to produce. There were never going to be enough of them to go around.

Curtiss, like North American, produced a prototype for British sales in the P-46. It was a smaller aircraft than the P-40 and aimed at the European market specifically. Performance proved disappointing and no orders resulted.

Bell's P-39 held promise when first rolled out but was let down in service by its single stage supercharged Allison and short range.

 

"There was a wide consensus in U.S. military circles about 1940 that U.S. pursuit fighters were substantially less capable in terms of performance than their equivalent European counterparts."

Aerodynamics/Propulsion two critical areas of an aircraft -The US was "behind" in both areas...If you like i can start saying "inferior" instead.
If you look across the board the US began "behind" in just about all areas of combat. - The Navy perhaps the exception.

Australian built "CAC Mustangs"