LUFTWAFEE 1946 (Would Have Happened if ...)

Really? Sources pls.

Except of course for the F3F, Gladiator (except for height), Yak-3, Yak-9U(except height), I-16 (except height), LaGG-1 (except height), LaGG-3, P-26(except height), and SAI-207 (except height) and depending on aspect the F2A, C.200, Mig-1, A5M4, Ki-27, Ki-43, PAL p.7, PZL P.11c, PZL P.24, RE. 2000, Yak-1b, P-66, IK-3, M.S,406, Mig-3, F.K.58, IK-2, D.510, D.520C.1, G.50, P-36A, VG-33, and A.120.[/QUOTE]
The formulae for comp'ing various planes is (( LOA in Meters, times height in meters) times (Wing area in meters divided by the aspect ratio)) times ten, or twenty, or forty depending on target aspect! Would you be so good as to run the numbers for all of those planes and amend your list above?
Sincerely,
Stewart.

 

Really? Sources pls.

Except of course for the F3F, Gladiator (except for height), Yak-3, Yak-9U(except height), I-16 (except height), LaGG-1 (except height), LaGG-3, P-26(except height), and SAI-207 (except height) and depending on aspect the F2A, C.200, Mig-1, A5M4, Ki-27, Ki-43, PAL p.7, PZL P.11c, PZL P.24, RE. 2000, Yak-1b, P-66, IK-3, M.S,406, Mig-3, F.K.58, IK-2, D.510, D.520C.1, G.50, P-36A, VG-33, and A.120.[/QUOTE]
PS. I forgot to address the first part of your post above. The F6F and Corsair were heavier than the F4F and had both faster landing speeds and sink rates. If I said F4F before, that was a brain fart! In addition, the Corsair has a very long nose with little view over that proboscis! Making it impossible to land on a carrier until the Brits who were much more desperate than we were, taught us how!

 

Yes! I evidently made a major Faux Pas and typed F4F when I meant F6F was hard to land! Did not catch it until much later. Sorry!

 

This is meaningless because navy pilots had to operate faster and heavier jet aircraft from the Essex class carriers. Never mind the Skyhawks and Crusaders, the Skywarrior was nicknamed the "Whale" and had a max take-off weight of about 82,000 lbs. Not sure about the max landing weight.

The weight limit for a Hellcat was closer to 15,000 lbs.

 

Yes really. Just how often was a P-47 mistaken for a Spitfire. Also the P-47 had the same guns as most US fighters during the war from what I"ve read.

If you were looking for sources on the info below

PS. I forgot to address the first part of your post above. The F6F and Corsair were heavier than the F4F and had both faster landing speeds and sink rates. If I said F4F before, that was a brain fart! In addition, the Corsair has a very long nose with little view over that proboscis! Making it impossible to land on a carrier until the Brits who were much more desperate than we were, taught us how![/QUOTE]
Then perhaps you should have looked before you made your statement but wiki has the dimensions for all those.

 

I would be interested in some sort of statistical data from the USN which might baldy state that the F6F, known as one of the most stable and forgiving aircraft in the USN inventory of the day, was hard to land on a carrier. Or is someone just guessing?

And before we go off on the FAA teaching the USN how to operate F4Us from carriers it might be good to remember:

1. That the USN was operating F4Us in combat off carriers before the FAA.

2. ALL of the FAA F4U squadrons were trained to operate F4Us at US naval stations in the US by USN instructors and carrier qualified, albeit with FAA Batsmen rather than USN LSOs (helps to keeps one's signals consistent), ashore in FCLP sessions and aboard USN carriers before receiving their deployable allotment of planes and heading off to whatever RN assignment. Jeez, who do you suppose taught those guys to land on a carrier?

 

Just noticed this:

Whoose formula is that? Head on it's essentially fuselage height by fuselage width. From the top or the bottom there's the question of whether it's presented area or critical dimension (and exactly how to define the latter). From the Sides it would be the fuselage height x the length. In any case those planes are all going to have numbers so close together that there would be no practical difference. Indeed lighting conditions, sky conditions, and camouflage would probably be more important.

 

My vote goes here

And as night fighters no less...

 

Stepping back to this question.

Thinking a bit more about it I realize that it indicates Shooter hasn't read or is ignoring many of the previous "best of" threads. That said to answer his question one method would be to list the various roles that a fighter was expected to perform or alternately characteristics a fighter needed to exhibit in WW2 and then rate the various contenders in each of the roles. Summing up their score (perhaps weighting the different factors according to need) would then lead one to the conclusion as to which was best. Note that the Me-109 would receive some pretty low scores in some areas (such as long range escort or suitability for use on carriers).

 

And the answer cannot be found in widget counting.

 

They are watermelons and peanuts and not related. The Corsair and F6F were about twice as heavy as the F4F and you have to remember that there was an entire world of technology between the jets and cats. Look at accident rates for the early jets and the early WW-II cats. Then realize that there was a 25% chance that you would die in a carrier landing accident before your 20 was up in a jet plane. So you see, there was no parity between the two types.

 

Planes are not related to planes...Who knew?

Not sure what you are going on about...The F3F was about twice as heavy as the F4F, the F6F && F4U were about twice as heavy as the F4F, the early jets were about twice as heavy as the F6F & F4U.

The accident rate had more to do with the immature jet technologies than the weight of the aircraft.

 

Your not going to get one answer on a formula for "best"...Because, "best" is a very subjective term...Essentialy, it's an "opinion", and everyone has one, and they often don't agree.

 

And you compared the accident rate to the number of aviators and found . . . what? From where do you draw your numbers? Or is this just another one of your guesses?

 

Below is a summary of the early history of the F4U detailing some of the initial problems.
Technical issues[edit]
In part because of its advances in technology and a top speed greater than existing Navy aircraft, numerous technical problems had to be solved before the Corsair entered service. Carrier suitability was a major development issue, prompting changes to the main landing gear, tail wheel and tailhook. Early F4U-1s had difficulty recovering from developed spins, since the inverted gull wing's shape interfered with elevator authority. It was also found that the Corsair's right wing could stall and drop rapidly and without warning during slow carrier landings.[28] In addition, if the throttle were suddenly advanced (for example, during an aborted landing) the left wing could stall and drop so quickly that the fighter could flip over with the rapid increase in power.[29] These potentially lethal characteristics were later solved through the addition of a small, 6 in (150 mm)-long stall strip to the leading edge of the outer right wing, just outboard of the gun ports. This allowed the right wing to stall at the same time as the left.[30]


An early F4U-1 showing the "birdcage" canopy with rearwards production cockpit location.
Other problems were encountered during early carrier trials. The combination of an aft cockpit and the Corsair's long nose made landings hazardous for newly trained pilots. During landing approaches, it was found that oil from the opened hydraulically-powered cowl flaps could spatter onto the windscreen, severely reducing visibility, and the undercarriage oleo struts had bad rebound characteristics on landing, allowing the aircraft to bounce down the carrier deck.[30] The first problem was solved by locking the top cowl flaps in front of the windscreen down permanently, then replacing them with a fixed panel. The undercarriage bounce took more time to solve, but eventually a "bleed valve" incorporated in the legs allowed the hydraulic pressure to be released gradually as the aircraft landed. The Corsair was not considered fit for carrier use until the wing stall problems and the deck bounce could be solved.

Meanwhile, the more docile and simpler-to-build F6F Hellcat had begun entering service in its intended carrier-based use. The Navy wanted to standardize on one type of carrier fighter, and the Hellcat, while slower than the Corsair, was considered simpler to land on a carrier by an inexperienced pilot and proved to be successful almost immediately after introduction. The Navy's decision to choose the Hellcat meant that the Corsair was released to the U.S. Marine Corps. With no initial requirement for carrier landings, the Marine Corps deployed the Corsair to devastating effect from land bases. Corsair deployment aboard U.S. carriers was delayed until late 1944, by which time the last of the carrier landing problems, relating to the Corsair's long nose, had been tackled by the British.[N 1]

One of the things that may have been missed is the comparison between the F4F and F6F. The later was considerably harder than the former. Note the quote from a prior post that the famous English Test Pilot thought the F4F was the best landing and take off plane in service world wide.

Secondly, the standard fighter armament was at first blush, two .30s and, one or two .50s synchronized to shoot through the prop disc. Then they wanted to change the .30s for .50s making four .50s, two of which fired through the prop disc, in effect making them CL guns for all intents and purposes, and according to the Germans each twice as effective as wing mounted guns for an effective fire power of six .50s! Then when they switched to all wing mounted guns, they decided that they required six .50s. The P-47 had eight .50s mounted in a particularly stiff and strong wing, which made them much more effective than ALL the other planes with wing mounted guns! The only plane that had comparable, or superior fire power was the P-38s four .50s and a 20 mm cannon, all mounted in the nose! ( Equal to 8 X .50s and two 20 mm wing mounted cannons!)

 

Developmental problems are too a large extent irrelevant to the current discussion.

Which does not mean that the F6F was hard to land on a carrier indeed some of the snip text indicates it wasn't.

Soruces please. Also note that if they are firing through the prop disc they can't achieve their maximum rate of fire.

Sources please. I have a hard time believing that wing stiffness and strength really made much of a difference.

How about the F4U-1c? or the F6F-5N?

 

No, I have read and taken part in many threads on many military topics including dozens about Aircraft. But being a true weapon system analyst, I would think that it should be easy to find empirical data to support a honest ranking of types that have a common mission. Then you have to use hard facts, not opinions. The Me-109 in all it's various guises shot down more EA than any other type extant! It would be very easy to add up all of the various victories by German pilots who shot down more than say 150 EA. The plane they flew, by a huge margin, was the Me-109! Ignoring the other 2,700 German Aces, just makes the point better!
Since the 109 is not the best plane in almost any category, many people try to discount this indisputable fact. But the 109 is the very best plane in mass production in the "Low Observables", or Stealth as we all call it now. It is small and very hard to see coming. It has CL Mounted guns which have long zones of effective attack when compared to planes with wing mounted guns! It has LE Slats that allow it to use a much larger Angle of Attack than any other WW-II fighter plane, which when combined with the longer ranged guns yields a much bigger zone of control. ( Weapons Range times angle of attack yields a cone of control.) The longer ranged with higher velocity & Ballistic Coefficient, when combined with larger AoA lets you control a larger volume of air space. The larger volume, the more dangerous the plane!

The 109 has several other attributes that make it more effective as a combat aircraft than most other planes.

 

I highly doubt that...

Thanks, I needed a good laugh...See response above.


Yous see shooter2018 has been blathering on about how bad the F6F was to fly and land...Then posted this gem concerning the F4U

NOTE - the passage I have highlighted in red...shooter2018 has directly contradicted himself with this quote! You don't see that very often, especially by those who are supposed to know what they are talking about.

Reminds me of Robdab...Shudder.

 

You may have but if you'd read the ones on this board you wouldn't have made the statements you have, at least if you were being honest.

Several of us on this board are or have been professional military analyst. None of the ones I know have supported your claims or methodology. Indeed they have been rather critical of it.

First you have to agree what constitutes a "common mission". "Fighter plane" isn't it if you are talking all of wwii.

Agreed but you have been using somewhat soft facts and choosing ones to support your opinion.

Possibly indeed probably true. That doesn't mean it was the "greatest fighter aircraft" though.

But is the point relevant to the claim? I would argue only marginally so.

What "fact" exactly are you talking about.

There's that claim again. The cases I presented call that to question. Indeed there's no way the claim that it has "stealth" or "Low Observables" has any merit at all.

That may be but others were as well some possibly even harder and many so close as to not make a difference.

Or not. Long range fire between planes especially fighter planes was essentially a waste of ammo in WWII.

Now you are defining you own terms to suit your argument.

Sorry no.

In WWII possibly but that's because there were a lot of aircraft in WWII that weren't all that effective as combat aircraft. Compared to other top of the line combat aircraft it's pretty much middle of the road.

 

So what now?...we're doubling all aircraft firepower.

Cool! Sign me up for the P-47 with 16x.50 cals! I'll bag a whole mess of Messerschmidts!