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Subject: Best All-Around Fighter of World War II
sentinel28a    10/13/2009 3:38:03 PM
Let's try a non-controversial topic, shall we? (Heh heh.) I'll submit the P-51 for consideration. BW and FS, if you come on here and say that the Rafale was the best fighter of WWII, I am going to fly over to France and personally beat you senseless with Obama's ego. (However, feel free to talk about the D.520.)
 
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oldbutnotwise       7/3/2013 11:14:19 AM
I have heard that the engineers never recieved the info but I have heard that they did its is only heasey either way yet the engines were very similar,
 
they may have stripped the whittle and thought them wrong however what they produced was worse and they ended up with licensed versions of the british engines
 
I dont sell US engineers short what I do is refuse to accept that they were gods and that the Brits were useless, that wonderfull F86 you refer to owes a lot to the Brits (engine, all moveable tail, ejector seat) and german (engine, swept wing) as well as US engineers (the fact that the US kept the all moving tail from us despite it being a Miles idea supplied to the US by us Brits still ranks)
 
as for thier own govenment ignoring them that seems to happened to engineerers in all countries, one thing to remmeber is that yes engineers with, what in hindsight, is a obvious and brilliant idea were ignored, but many other were allowed to produce, and how many thousands of dead ends and just plain wrong ideas were rejected too?
 
It was impossible to folow them all and some will always get lost in the chaff (as will a few howlers be followed when they should have been binned)
 
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oldbutnotwise       7/3/2013 11:23:48 AM
Rereading that and it loks like it was Pavlecka and his Northop team that didnt recieve any info not GE or Allsion who quite clearly did, he then leaves for Lockeed who has recieved a lot of UK info so find it strange that they didn on this subject, however the lockeed engine is also a bust
 
and as the engines you refer to are not Northop/Lockeed it is a red herring
 
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marat,jean       7/3/2013 10:17:34 PM
Johnson, Heinenmann and Northrop ARE the aviation demi-gods. History recognizes this.  R.J. Mitchell is one too. Kurt Tank, is one. Who else? Sydney Cam? He is the Willy Messerschmidt of Great Britain. If Britain had traded him for Mitchell, they would have been far better off.
 
Among engine designers Price, Tumansky, and Pavlecka are known. Who else? The Merlin was designed by a committee. That same committee produced the Peregrine. Remember that debacle?
 
Not everything  British is good, Not everything American is bad. Same is true for any country. 
 
The Americans had the chrome steels and the native talent to fix what the British sent them. They fixed it. That included the Merlin by the way. 
 
Do you hear me complain about how Dassault and SNECMA fixed the German BMW 003 derived engines they used in the Mystere after the Nene powered Ouragan proved disappointing?
 
 
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marat,jean       7/3/2013 10:29:28 PM
General Electric after the Whittles and the J-33 did not use British designs. They designed their own engines.
 
 
 

The surrender of Germany, in 1945, unlocked a treasure trove of wartime discoveries and inventions. General Electric and Pratt & Whitney, another American engine-builder, added German lessons to those of Whittle and other British designers. Early jet engines, such as those of the Me 262, gulped fuel rapidly. Thus, an initial challengeinvolved building an engine that could give high thrust with less fuel consumption.

http://www.pilotfriend.com/aero_engines/images3/4.jpg" height="273" border="0" width="431" alt="" />
The J-31 (also known by its company designation, I-16) was the first turbojet engine produced in quantity in the United States. It was developed from the original American-built jet engine, the General Electric I-A, which was a copy of the highly secret British "Whittle" engine.

Pratt & Whitney solved this problem in 1948 with its "dual spool" concept. This combined two engines into one. The engine had two compressors—each rotated independently, with the inner one giving high compression for good performance. Each compressor drew power from its own turbine; hence there were two turbines, one behind the other. This approach led to the J-57 engine , which entered service with the U.S. Air Force in 1953.

That would be thePavlecka split spool engine concept first seen in 1943 when he worked for Jack Northrop.
 
 
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45-Shooter       7/4/2013 12:00:43 AM


 
The Packard Merlin was tweaked for American production practice. Elbows were made more gentle in curve, and other things RR COPIED.  
rubbish pure rubbish, if anything it was Ford that introduced changes to RR production and most of that was by the provision of superior machinery
Not even close to the truth.
 
So Ford knew a lot of things that neither GM, Allison, RR, or Wright did not going in, from their own sources. [Ford UK.]
Ford had access to the bendix Stromberg a better carb, however their is nothing I can find on its V12 installation, I can however find a lot on its installation on the V8 GAA, and little of it good, feeding from both ends it resulted in the outer pistons running rich and the centre running lean, not a huge issue in a Tank but in a fighter? boom
And as the STROMBERG was an AMERICAN technology, (BENDIX Alfred Stromberg, around 1926, Chicago, inventor) don't you mean RR bought their carburetors from FORD, the UK outlet supplier?
Actually prior to 1941 the Bendix Stromberg was classed as state secret and was prohibited from sale to the UK so who they bought from is mute

they used SU's as these were the best available
   


 
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45-Shooter       7/4/2013 12:08:38 AM

2. Then look at all the refinements that Packard brought to the Merlin.
3. Know that no R-R built Merlin put in service during or after WW-II made as much power, or lasted as long as Packard built Merlin's that actually entered service during WW-II in the 555 P-51Hs!
Firstly No Hs saw active service, secondly as proved many times the Packard and the equivalent RR merlin had identical service lives
You are confusing "Service" with Combat! Yes the P-51H did enter "Service" in Squadron strength. The Hornet did not enter service until after the War, not even in time for the end in August 1945 in the PTO.
 
The best post war Merlin made at most 2,080 HP in the De Havilland Hornet and Sea Hornet, while the Packard V-1650-9 made 2,218/2,220 HP and were in service both before and after any Hornet. 
yes but the -9 needed water/methanol injection to make that figure but the RR figure was an engine that didn't use enhancers oranges and lemons old boy
Well actually, the Hornet required ADI to get 2,080 HP, WO which, it was a 1,720 HP engine! Also the TBO in actual service in the Hornet and Sea Hornet never went over 400 hours! See the post war Jane's All the Worlds Aircraft Hornet write up.

 
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45-Shooter       7/4/2013 12:25:31 AM

Any comments on this aspect?
yes and its total rubbish as the merlin was imperial not metric nothing on a merlin was 40mm or anything merlins tolerance's were as fine as anything being produced at the time in the US, My uncle was a QC Inspector at Packard during the war. This is simply not true. Their tolerances were nothing like as tight and uniform as those in many US engine makers! The Proverbial phrase "File to fit." was found in over three dozen places on the Blue-Prints furnished by R-R to Packard! File to fit is not precision tolerance! the US drawing used a different layout we used first angle the US used third angle, without correction this would have been a nightmare, I also believe that the method of indicating tolerance on a drawing were different While this might be true, the statement " File to fit." was not seen on the Packard Blue-Prints to make Merlin engines! It was however placed on the R-R copies over 36 times!  
Packard were amazing engineers and did produce improvements to what was a an RR design it is conveniently forgotten on your side of the pond all the changes RR made that were incorporated into Packard's including the improvements in supercharging, and I can find no source that the intercooler was in anyway a US design (glycol was in common usage as a coolant pre-war

 
if Packard was so amazing why was it that the premier engine they made was a licensed copy of the merlin were was its replacement? RR had the Griffon Packard had?
For two reasons. 1. the Alison 143, IIRC was waiting in the wings type tested at 2930 HP. 2. Jets were on the way and we were not willing to waist money on a new, but obviously obsolete Recip engine!
 
as for the P80, exactly what engine did it have? oh yes the de Havilland H-1 B at first then Rolls-Royce Derwent,'s  as you US could not get your version working properly (J33) and again do you believe that it was done without help from Britain despite the UK having a lead in such design?
I think you should read the US side of the story. Just saying that you might learn something?

 
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45-Shooter       7/4/2013 12:45:45 AM


was not even a good fit for PT use (the high octane fuel was not a good idea on a wood boat, the german diesel in the E boats were better
Actually it was a great engine for it's purpose! it was lighter and more compact than the German diesel. I was as, if not more durable than the High speed diesels in the E Boats. Three Packards weighed less than one Nazi Diesel leaving more weight for weapons. It could be over sped giving over 55 knots and still last. Some sources claim 60! Service speed because of it's light weight nature was 46 Knots with four torpedoes on the Higgins boats, IIRC. I do not think the E boats were so fast, or well armed.
 
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45-Shooter       7/4/2013 1:00:17 AM

25- Hours! This is the defect related to materials science, not design. The Nazis did not have access to the high strength alloy steels and high temp alloys that Whittle did.


 
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oldbutnotwise       7/4/2013 3:56:33 AM
Johnson, Heinenmann and Northrop ARE the aviation demi-gods. History recognizes this.  R.J. Mitchell is one too. Kurt Tank, is one. Who else? Sydney Cam? He is the Willy Messerschmidt of Great Britain. If Britain had traded him for Mitchell, they would have been far better off.
 
Cam was as good as anything the US produced 
 
 
Among engine designers Price, Tumansky, and Pavlecka are known. Who else? The Merlin was designed by a committee. That same committee produced the Peregrine. Remember that debacle?
 
The Peregrine was actually a good engine just never got the development it needed as resource was need to develop the Merlin and Griffin
 
Not everything  British is good, Not everything American is bad. Same is true for any country. 
 
Yet from your posts it would seem that the US was better that the UK and "fixed" all our stuff
 
The Americans had the chrome steels and the native talent to fix what the British sent them. They fixed it. That included the Merlin by the way. 
 
Chrome steels were NOT limited to the US  a lot of the specialized steels were developed in the UK
 
Do you hear me complain about how Dassault and SNECMA fixed the German BMW 003 derived engines they used in the Mystere after the Nene powered Ouragan proved disappointing?
 
The Ouragan was disappointing? then why build 350+
 
by the time the Ouragan entered service the Nene was EOL so its not surprising by that time the RAF had moved on and the only people still using it was the French and the russians
 
 
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