Worst warplane of WWII ?

the standard comment at the time about B-17 was that it was the American equivalent of a Mosquito, with twice as many engines, 6 times as many crew, half the speed and same bombload. (Don't get at me, I'm repeating what was said at the time)
Wasn't P-51 originally designed to a British specification/ requirement?

 

This can't have been entirely true, AFAIK when the RAF recieved the initial Fortress MkIs (Pre-Pearl Harbour) the first Photo-recon Mosquitoes were just about entering service, minus bomb load or guns of course. It was much later in the war that the Mossies were able to take the Cookie, and although the earlier versions could have carried the Cookie much earlier, they didn't, and of course by then the B-17 could carry a much bigger bombload potentially.

It probably was said, but it equally probably wasn't entirely true (Over to Ricky for an introduction in how to start a controvertial topic!)

The P-51 prototype was a response to a request from the UK purchasing commission. From what I understand the UKPC approached North American for a licence produced P-40, NA were reluctant because they'd have to pay Curtiss a small fortune in royalties/licencing fees (Pretty sure Royalties isn't the correct term, but I'm just too lazy to look it up!) but had prepared for the possibility by doing the ground work in doing preliminary designs for their own fighter. This was then offered to the UKPC along the lines that "We don't want to pay Curtiss a huge amount, but we might have our own plane for you...". 100 or so days later the Mustang prototype flew and the rest is history.

This does also mean that the "Designed in 100 days" legend isn't entirely true as the preliminary work had been done in advance.

The Alison Mustangs were a disappointment, Farnborough stuck a Merlin on the Airframe, P51B, C, D, K appeared with Packard Merlins and became one of the best all round fighters of the war.

 

I agree about B-17, I didn't say it was a factual comment, but it was a comment at the time. Probably more to do with "we've been fighting for all these years and they come along late with a supposed wonder weapon"
Thanks for clearing up on the P-51. On the Packard Merlin, my G&MD teacher (Geometrical & Mechanical Drawing - now draughtsmanship) had some sort of connection with the transfer of RR drawings to Packard and was not impressed, but that was, (as I worked out many years later after investigating his bias), because RR didn't design for mass-production as the Americans understood it, the two companies had different perspectives on fit tolerancing. Ask an engineer about the differences in BS 4001 shaft-based/ hole-based system sometime if you ever suffer from insomnia :lol:

 

Thanks, I'll give that one a miss unless I'm having a real bad night... :lol:

 

Oh no, not again!