Best Two Engine Fighter of WW2

[hojutsuka]

Thanks for the data Hotjutsuka.

 

As I noted in my post, getting to my books is something of a problem.  Unfortunately the most readily accessable book on WW2 fighters I have, "The Illustrated Dictionary of Fighting Aircraft of World War II, Bill Gunston, Salamander Books Ltd, 1988, ISBN 1 84065 092 3" does not list the Hornet.  The Dornier is in there.  The Tigercat too.  He's even included the Westland Whirlwind.  But it seems to go straight from the Mossie to the Firefly.  He also seems to feel we don't need access to Wing Area in the specs.  But hey, the book is nice none the less.

 

I do have a series around here from William Green.  "War planese of the Second World War."  It a series of little books published (looking at Vol 7) in 1967 by Double Day.  Unfortunately being small books they are kind of hard to keep rounded up.  The Green book has that funny quote about the (was it the Franks or Georges?) at Okinawa.  I'll keep digging.  They're kind of scattered. 

 

I've outgrown my house.  Either that or I have too much junk.  Books are getting a little  scattered.  I built shelves in the basement but they are full.  So now the books are kind of spilling all over the place.  I suspect some of you know the feeling.  I think I lost the "German fighters" book of that Green series to the shower.  Bad habit of reading them in the bathroom.

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I understand your situation perfectly. I usually try to check my sources before posting here, and it always seems that the book I need is twenty books down in a precarious stack of books that are sitting on the floor because I have no room in the bookshelves (small house, no basement). If the book is in a bookcase, that's worse. I now have to dismantle three stacks of books that are in front of the desired section of the bookshelves. The worst is when I know I have the book but I don't remember where I put it. I end up going through the stacks on the floor, the bookshelves, and finally the boxes of books in a rented storage unit...

 

Hojutsuka

[Paul F Jungnitsch]

It's nice to have them though. I'm expecting in the next little while I'll be moving a lot so just hauled my little collection (books are a bitch to move) off to storage and IT REALLY IS ANNOYING.

 

Like I can kinda remember points but can't really nail the specifics anymore. Look forward to getting a house eventually.

[Tony Williams]

We all seem to suffer from the same problem - stacks of books in front of bookshelves. And my article filing is even worse. I hate to think how much time I spend just looking for things

 

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[FormerBlue]

We all seem to suffer from the same problem - stacks of books in front of bookshelves. And my article filing is even worse. I hate to think how much time I spend just looking for things

 

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

204315[/snapback]

Aw, it's worse than that. When I was in my teens there was a local "head shop." In order to stay in business they sold used books as their cover. 10 cents a book. That I could afford. The "Job of Pipe" was one of the 10 cent books. When I received orders to Europe they messed up. 400lbs was total shipping allowance. I packed the few signed books I had and mailed the others to my brother for storage. His apartment burned. Bye bye books. I bought a lot more in Germany (including a lot of Panzer books in German). More when I returned. When I moved to the city I'm currently in the books, still in boxes, went into the basement. 2 weeks later the basement flooded. It still hurts to think of what I lost there. First edition hard cover of the HHGTTG series comes immediately to mind. Some of my very expensive German editions. The one I miss the most was a large book on US tanks. Bought second hand at a library sale. It had unique pictures. It seems most books simply reuse the same photos but this one didn't. There was a pic of an M26 at a Kaserne in about 1946/47. Panther armor welded on front. This wasn't the same one from the war everyone is aware of. I've wanted to reference that photo a number of times since. The author captioned the photo with the date. It was assuredly post war by at least a year.

 

In any event I rounded up what I can find of the William Green series. Vol 1 is German fighters. Vol 4 is US. Vols 7 and 10 are bombers and recce. It's possible that the Brit fighters is what the shower took. German fighters was propping up my wife's computer (stress the case differently so the fan isn't so loud). She's received some CDs for that instead....

 

We've skipped a number of German twins of course. TA154, AR240, FW187. We've also skipped what was possibly the ugliest twin of WW2 - S.E. 100.

 

I show wing loading for the F7F at 35.87. Weight and Area as 16,321 and 455. That's the two seater, single seater is close but a little lighter.

 

P-38 is 12,200 @ 327 for 37.3.

 

Just as a comparison, wingloading for P-51H, F4U-4, and FW-190(A/D) are 28, 27.6, and 35.9/39. P-61 was 31. Bearcat was also in the 28 range.

 

Appears that the US singles were somewhat lighter on the wingloading. I guess we could do more but it seems wing loading wasn't that significant of a factor. The loading difference between the twins (DO, P-38, F7F, Hornet) were all much heavier than the US singles. But the FW was in the range as those twins.

[KingSargent]

We've skipped a number of German twins of course.  TA154, AR240, FW187.  We've also skipped what was possibly the ugliest twin of WW2 - S.E. 100. 

 

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None of those were operational, except a few prototypes some German units snuck into action.

 

And I don't think the SE 100 was all that ugly - especially compared to the Arsenal-Delanne 10.

 

Gee, FB, your library sounds like mine... Once in college I was feeling foolish and flush after a lucrative summer job, so I ordered a whole bunch of books. They arrived the day before I departed so I left them in the boxes in my room. My mother decided to move things around (mothers are funny that way ) and put all the boxes in the basement. AND my gun collection... naturally there was a flood...

[tankerwanabe]

Moving engines out on to the wings in fighters will affect the roll acceleration by adding to the roll inertia: in other words, all other things being equal, a plane with engines out on the wings will roll slower than a plane with engines along the center line.  This can be significant in fighter combat but, as has been pointed out, is different from wing loading.

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Thank CaptLuke, this was the crux of my argument but I chose the wrong wording of "wing load."

 

Is there a "word" description for the effect of having more weight in the wings that would impede roll rate?

[FormerBlue]

Thank CaptLuke, this was the crux of my argument but I chose the wrong wording of "wing load." 

 

Is there a "word" description for the effect of having more weight in the wings that would impede roll rate?

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There is a word for the exact opposite. Centerline thrust.

[Tony Williams]

Yes, other things being equal wing-mounted engines will slow the roll rate. Similarly, front-and-rear engines like the Do 335, which distribute the weight along the length of the fuselage, will slow the pitch rate (or whatever the term is).

 

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[nyati]

No one has mentioned the ME410 yet? It was a decent twin-engine that supposedly fixed the major problems of the Me210.

 

Jeremy

[FormerBlue]

No one has mentioned the ME410 yet? It was a decent twin-engine that supposedly fixed the major problems of the Me210.

 

Jeremy

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Too little too late. They were able to get some built in 1943 (291 from my book) and about 800 in 1944 but a fighter that had a top speed of less than 400mph was more of a target than fighter at that point. I think the Germans were pretty committed to single engine fighters and jets at that point. Maybe twins just left a sour taste after the 110. I can't think of any other reason for the serious lack of interest in the Uhu.

 

I'd have to think the RLM war with Willie also went against it. As did the 210 fiasco.

 

FW-190s and ME-109s use one less engine (cost) and go significantly faster. I just don't see what the 410 brought to the table that the singles didn't. Other than that silly 50mm cannon in the A-1.

[KingSargent]

I can't think of any other reason for the serious lack of interest in the Uhu. 

 

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The problem was that Heinkel built it. Milch hated Heinkel and tossed out many possible war-winners because they were designed by someone he loathed.

 

Killing Milch in 1938 would have been a Godsend for the Luftwaffe.

[FormerBlue]

The problem was that Heinkel built it. Milch hated Heinkel and  tossed out many possible war-winners because they were designed by someone he loathed.

 

Killing Milch in 1938 would have been a Godsend for the Luftwaffe.

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He was also the one picking fights with Messerschmidt.

 

Is Milch the same reason the HE-280 didn't see service? They'd have had jets a lot sooner.

[KingSargent]

He was also the one picking fights with Messerschmidt. 

 

Is Milch the same reason the HE-280 didn't see service?  They'd have had jets a lot sooner.

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I think Milch probably had a lot to do with it, but I have doubts about the German's ability to pull enough jet engines out of the hat to make a huge difference.

[istvan47]

If we consider, the HE 280 wwas introduced in service, when this could had been happened? What kind of capabilities it had on the paper?

[KingSargent]

If we consider, the HE  280 wwas introduced in service, when this could had been happened? What kind of capabilities it had on the paper?

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From Green: Armament 3x 20mm MG151; Maximum speed 578mph at 19,685 feet (ie, 6000M); climb rate 4923 ft/min; range 435 miles.

 

The airframe coulld have been in production in 1943. Where they would have gotten the turbojet engines, I have no idea.

[nitflegal]

From Green: Armament 3x 20mm MG151; Maximum speed 578mph at 19,685 feet (ie, 6000M); climb rate 4923 ft/min; range 435 miles.

 

The airframe coulld have been in production in 1943. Where they would have gotten the turbojet engines, I have no idea.

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Turbojets would have been the problem. The HeS.8 was unsuitable for actual prodcution and was very tempermental, even for a German WW2 jet engine (which is really saying something!). The HeS.11 looked good on paper but they just couldn't get it to work. That's why they tried to strap Jumo 004's to the thing. Unfortunately, they were heavy enough that the performance degraded. Once that happened, the Me-262 was clearly superior to the re-engined He 280, so they dropped it.

 

Basically, they couldn't have gotten engines to fly them with. Range was hypothetical and there are reports that the armament was seriously unbalancing for the fighter, although I've not found good references to confirm this. In short, facinating prototype, pretty much useless to actually try and field them.

 

Matt

[Richard Young]

While I normally find myself in agreement with FormerBlue, I must respectfully raise a few points about the following post...

 

No, the P-82 wasn't a WW2 fighter by any criteria. And no I'm not a fan of it. What I said was the P-82 was more inferior than it could have been due to a mandated engine decision. Even with the Merlins it would have been just another prop job in the age of jets.

 

1. Decision to equip F-82 with Allisons was forced by the British cancellation of the exporrt license for the Merlin engine. While enough war surplus Merlins were probably laying around, the Air Force wanted an engine in current production because: 1. they wanted to maintain the technological base with orders for new production, and 2. they didn't know how many they would end up needing for the Cold War/Korea if the the new jets idn't work out AND develope enough range or inflight-refueling to escort bombers all the way to the targets and back - which is what it was built for, and why it carried a relief pilot.

 

2. The Allsion engine was no sacrifice at that pointi n time - the version in the F-82 had fuel injection, (which the Merlin didn't...), and the problems with supercharging that orginally hurt the Allison's power output at altitude had been solved - the fastes models of the Mustang ever built used Allsion engines, and an experimental Allison in a P-39 late in the war put out an incredible 3,000 horsepower - unfortunately, at a cylinder head temperature considered 100 degrees beyond what current spring and valve metallurgy could withstand for operational use...