Youtube comments of Barrie Rodliffe (@barrierodliffe4155).

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  27.  @Sevastous  Maybe you can give a few examples of this in real combat reports because I have not seen any such thing and of course Rolls Royce was working on the problem which was much improved by the Battle of Britain and completely solved in 1941. RAF pilots did not seem to have much trouble either and it was hardly just the Spitfire. It was never a fatal flaw, just a small problem and a compromise since the smaller Merlin engine gave more power than the Db 601. Who wants to talk about the Bf 109 fatal flaws? ..Longitudinally the aeroplane is too stable for a fighter. There is a large change in directional trim with speed. No rudder trimmer is fitted; lack of this is severely felt at high speeds, and limits a pilot's ability to turn left when diving. .......Aileron snatching occurs as the slots open. All three controls are far too heavy at high speeds. Aerobatics are difficult. .......The Bf 109 is inferior as a fighter to the Hurricane or Spitfire. Its manoeuvrability at high speeds is seriously curtailed by the heaviness of the controls, while its high wing loading causes it to stall readily under high normal accelerations and results in a poor turning circle. RAF pilots seem to have managed rather well, maybe you should read a few German reports. Albert Kesselring " The Spitfire was the main reason the Luftwaffe failed to stop the Dunkirk evacuation" Adolf Galland " I am very impressed by the Spitfire" This was in the Battle of Britain. This is from an RAF report. The pilot of the Spitfire reduced his revolutions to 2,650 rpm and was then able to overtake and outclimb the Bf 109. At 4,000 ft, the Spitfire pilot was 1,000 feet above the Bf 109, from which position he was able to get on its tail, and remain there within effective range despite all efforts of the pilot of the Bf 109 to shake him off.
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  221. Kirthe Avenger. 262 never fought the Spitfire?, How about the 27th of September 1944, a Me 262 damaged by a Spitfire Mk IX, 30th September another Me 262 also damaged by a Spitfire, both were not near the Me 262 bases. 5th of October an Me 262 which tried to dive away from a flight of Spitfires, a couple of the Spitfires followed , the Me 262 pilot then tried to climb but he met the other couple of Spitfires still up at 13,000 feet, the wreck of the Me 262 fell into allied territory. 23 December a Spitfire chased an Me 262 from Antwerp to Eindhoven, damaging the Me 262. 25 December a Spitfire shot down an Me 262, another Spitfire also shot down an Me 262 the same day. 26 December a Spitfire Mk IX damaged an Me 262. near Julich, another Me 262 was also damaged by a Spitfire near Syavelot 27 December an Me 262 damaged by a Spitfire Mk IX near Aachen. This is just a small incomplete list and just 1944 when the Me 262 was not encountered often. Not one Spitfire was ever shot down by any Me 262`s, not even the unarmed photo reconnaissance Spitfires, Me 262`s were used to chase these since Germany had no other fighter able to catch one except the Me 163 which was more dangerous to it`s own pilots. The Spitfire range was increased by extra internal fuel, the Spitfire Mk VII had 124 gallons as standard but could carry up to almost 200 and could carry a 90 or even 170 gallon drop tank, some Mk IX were fitted with up to 171 gallons internal fuel and again with a drop tank, escort missions of USAAF bombers were happening before the P 51 was able to escort a thing.
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  239. Little Blockhead. Hitler did not issue the halt order of Army group A, he merely confirmed it. Army group B had no such order. There is just a little of the history of the Dunkirk evacuation below, I would suggest reading. The German decision to halt the advance of the Panzers for three days. This let-off has given rise to the bizarre idea that it was a deliberate decision by Hitler to provide a ‘golden bridge’ for Britain, consciously choosing not to utterly humiliate his opponent in the hope of reaching a negotiated peace. How could the most formidable military machine on the planet at this time, which was on the verge of shattering what had previously been seen as the greatest military power in Europe, have made such an elementary mistake? Why would it voluntarily choose to leave the trap open, allowing the prey to escape? It must have been a deliberate decision… hence the golden bridge theory. This was initially propagated by Hitler to explain how he let strategic victory against Britain slip through his fingers; the refrain was eagerly taken up after the war by some surviving German generals who were quite happy to shift responsibility on to the conveniently dead führer – and was spread by Basil Liddell Hart, who was perhaps a little too inclined to take the word of captured German officers, especially when they talked up the influence upon them of his interwar ideas. Nonetheless, the idea really is the most ridiculous nonsense. First, even on its own terms, it does not make any sense. While there is room to doubt the coherence of Hitler’s strategy towards Britain in 1940, it is not implausible to suggest that he would have welcomed a negotiated peace. His prospects of achieving this would have been immeasurably improved by the additional bargaining chip of a quarter of a million British prisoners, to say nothing of the psychological blow to Britain of losing the best-trained part of her small army. Second, the theory does not fit the facts. If the Germans really were trying to allow the British Expeditionary Force to escape, then they displayed an unusual level of incompetence: only Army Group A actually paused – and only in part, as it still captured Calais and Boulogne – and only for three days before continuing. Army Group B and also the Luftwaffe continued to attack the Allies with all of their strength. This hardly amounts to a free pass or allowing the British to slip away. Third, there is a perfectly good explanation available that does not require a far-fetched conspiracy theory – and which, incidentally, is whole-heartedly accepted by every serious work on the subject that uses German sources. Many senior German officers were nervous from the outset about the bold changes made to the original, more traditional plan for the attack on France, and in particular about the envisaged rapid advance of the Panzers that would involve outpacing their infantry, artillery and logistic support. This bold vision was undoubtedly risky; the advancing armour could have faced a serious defeat if the Allies had been able to launch a coherent counter-attack against its flanks or rear. We now know that the German offensive had precisely the effect it was designed to in paralysing the Allied high command, shattering its will and ability to devise and execute an effective counter stroke; but this was not known to the Germans in May 1940. Moreover, there had been a warning sign of precisely what some of the more cautious German commanders feared when the British launched a small-scale counter-attack near Arras on 21 May. This limited and short-lived success played into a growing sense of unease among those German officers inclined to worry that their success was too good to be true, and wary of pushing their attack beyond its culminating point. The Arras counter-attack achieved only local tactical success, but it exerted a decisive influence on a debate that was already underway in the German high command. The Panzers badly needed a pause to rest, repair and reconstitute, and to bring forward support and supplies. There was no need to risk them in unfavourable terrain, when there was a perfectly good alternative in the form of Army Group B and also the Luftwaffe, whose leadership (not least the influential Göring) were keen to seize their place in the sun – a rare case where the overclaiming of air power enthusiasts was to the benefit of the Allies. The tanks would be needed for the rest of the campaign and the push to Paris, taking on the bulk of the French Army, which still comprised a large and powerful force. The Allied armies in the north had been defeated, were nearly encircled and only needed to be mopped up. Why take a risk in rushing these closing moves of the first stage of the operation? This last question suggests an important point about the whole debate: there is actually far less of a puzzle here than has been suggested. Why on earth would it occur to a continental power that evacuation on any significant scale was possible? After all, even the British Admiralty believed at the outset of the operation that at best, maybe 45,000 men could be rescued. There is no mystery in the fact that Germany was not alert to this possibility. The British were trapped and there was no reason for the Germans to suspect that their fate would be anything other than what would, three years later, befall Axis forces after their defeat in North Africa: without a Navy that was willing and able to go to such lengths to rescue them, 230,000 Axis troops were captured and only a few hundred escaped. It is only hindsight and the knowledge it presents of the stunning success of the Allied evacuation that raises the question in the first place with respect to Dunkirk. Considered in this light, the apparent mystery simply melts away.
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  341. Boeing has gone downhill, I for one will not fly in a Boeing again after reading the following. In 2015, an auditor with the Federal Aviation Administration discovered a Boeing subcontractor was falsifying certifications on cargo doors for hundreds of 777s and had been doing so for years, according to interviews and government documents. Boeing mechanics were leaving tools inside plane wings, precariously close to the cables that control their movements. Workers also were improperly installing wires in 787s, which could increase the risk of shorts or fires, FAA officials found. Repeatedly, safety lapses were identified, and Boeing would agree to fix them, then fail to do so, the FAA said. The agency launched or was considering more than a dozen legal enforcement cases against the company for failing to comply with safety regulations, a review of FAA records shows, with fines that could have totaled tens of millions of dollars. So FAA officials tried a new approach. Rather than pursue each violation separately, agency officials bundled them together and negotiated a broader deal. In 2015, the FAA decided to try to get Boeing to meet, then go beyond, federal safety requirements by addressing broader corporate culture and governance issues, including what agency officials considered a lack of transparency. The week before Christmas of that year, Boeing and the FAA signed a five-year settlement agreement that was unprecedented in scope. The company paid a modest $12 million penalty, but it agreed to make significant changes in its internal safety systems and practices for “ensuring compliance” with regulations. In the days after the agreement was signed, top U.S. officials cast it as a powerful reminder that every company, no matter its size, must comply with minimum safety standards. But Boeing’s profits after signing the deal topped $20 billion by the end of September 2018, making the company’s $12 million penalty easy to gloss over despite occasional press reports of the firm’s shortcomings. The company committed to improving the quality and timeliness of information it provides to the FAA. But in the case of the 737 Max, the FAA said, it took Boeing more than a year to notify it about a software problem that disabled a crucial warning light connected to the automated system at the center of the tragedies.
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  363. crossdresser the engineer? is that what you calll yourself when playing with your toy tractors? The US might build more but not better, they had to copy Rolls Royce for the Merlin engine and for jet engines. Did the Wrights claim to have made aero engines? They went shopping for engines, they went to Bleriot and many others because they did not know how to make engines. Packard used bearings of local production, they were not better than the bearings Rolls Royce used before Packard were given the engine to copy and Rolls Royce continued to use the same bearigs rather than the US ones. The result was the RR made Merlin was more reliable and able to handle higher boost . Unlike Packard who had to be shown how to make the engines by Rolls Royce, the enines built in Britain worked well and that includes the mass produced engines made before Packard even started to assemble any. Maybe you missed out on how many cars you import from everywhere else? Most of your cars are European, Japanese or Korean. In 2008 the UK automotive manufacturing sector had a turnover of £52.5 billion, generated £26.6 billion of exports and produced around 1.45 million passenger vehicles and 203,000 commercial vehicles. In that year around 180,000 people were directly employed in automotive manufacturing in the UK, with a further 640,000 people employed in automotive supply, retail and servicing In 2016 car and truck production was higher than it had been since 1999. with a forecast at the time that production would exceed the peak of 1972. You might not know it but you import a lot from Britain. Never mind snoring crossdresser you can go back to riding on your plastic toy tractors.
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  480. The Small and light Merlin engine gave more power than the DB or Jumo engines. Britain built 3 refineries for 100 octane fuel before the war, one in Britain and two in the West Indies. The RAF had sufficient stocks by the Battle of Britain for the fighters. Both the Spitfire and Hurricane had three blade constant speed props before the Battle of Britain. They worked well enough to give the Luftwaffe a hiding. The Bf 109 had a big problem with its landing gear, ground loops were quite common, not a problem for the Spitfire which used grass airstrips rather than paved runways. The Spitfire handled better at high speed than the Bf 109, the rate of roll was not a problem until the Fw 190 arrived in late 1941, the clipped wing which was a very easy change made a big difference. What reliability problems? The Spitfire did not seem to have much trouble climbing against the Bf 109, I have read many combat reports and in a lot of the RAF reports the pilots mention having no trouble out climbing the Bf 109. How was the German armament more effective, the cannon were very low muzzle velocity and did not always do much damage if they hit anything. Self sealing and protected fuel tanks as well as fire protection in behind the firewall, or as one RAF pilot put it, would you rather have fuel in front of you or be sitting on top of it. A de Wilde bullet in a Bf 109 tank and the poor pilot would be sitting in the flames. Sometimes pilots had trouble with the canopies early on, but at least a Spitfire pilot could get out if his plane was upside down, the Bf 109 then became a big problem. All planes had flaws but you really are clutching at straws trying to make out the Spitfire was not good. Try to learn a bit before making a complete fool of yourself.
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  551. GamerzHistory You said a lot but you understand very little, the F 22 is so awesome it has done almost nothing. Getting wet adversely affects the coating and it is very costly and time consuming to repair it. Radar is not the only way to detect a plane, Passive Infrared works very well at long range and a coating and weird shape do nothing about that, even the F 35 is getting Pirate if the F 35 ever works. The F 18 is not all that fast but much faster than the very slow F 35, remember just one engine which is a big handicap, some modern fighters have two powerful engines, even the F 22 has. Again the poor thrust to weight ration makes the F 35 a poor performer and the top speed of mach 1.6 is beaten by many fighters from the 1960`s on, The old English Electric Lightning is much faster and so is the Tornado, the Typhoon and all the Mirages, Rafale, Saab Draken, Viggen, Gripen, the F 14, F 15, F 16, F 18 and F 22 none of these faster planes can outrun a mach 4 + missile, the slow F 35 can`t outrun a slow 40 year old fighter, are much faster. The 43,000 lbs thrust P & W F 135 in the F 35 is not even the most powerful combat engine in the world, it lags a long way behind the Kuznetsov NK 32 which gives 55,000 lbs thrust,4 of these on the Tu 160 make it very much faster than the single P & W F 135 on the F 35. The Typhoon has two engines and weighs a lot less than the F 35, the lightest version of the F 35 weighs 29,098 lbs empty compared to the Typhoon which weighs just 24,000 lbs. Explain again how a plane that has a top speed of just 1,200 mph can outrun a missile which has a speed of over 3,000 mph.
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  762. In 1940 there was no Mustang, it could do nothing. In 1942 the Mustang first entered service but was very inferior, it took until the end of 1943 and the Rolls Royce Merlin engine as well as British drop tanks. The Mustang could not protect bombers until they used up the fuel in the rear tank and got rid of the drop tanks which is why the USAAF needed other fighters to escort the bombers into Germany first and that included Spitfires which were also doing many other jobs the Mustang could not do. The Faster Spitfire also went higher and had much better acceleration and climb. The Mustang P 51 D in mid 1944 had 6 x 0.5 but the Spitfire had 2 x 20 mm cannon and 4 x 0.303 which made the 0.5's seem very puny. The Spitfire did far more than the one trick Mustang and did it right through the war. What was very clear is that the Spitfire was taking the fight to the Germans far from home, as in over 1,000 miles from their bases and did protect RAF bombers on missions as well as the USAAF bombers, in fact the main escort fighter for the USAAF until mid 1943 was the Spitfire. Britain was secure before USA got involved and the Luftwaffe as good as finished before the Mustang did much at all. No Mistake the P 51 was far from the best, to quote Luftwaffe pilots, the fighter we feared most was the Spitfire, not the P 51 unless we met it in overwhelming numbers." To quote a USAAF pilot William R Dunne " After the Spitfire all other aircraft were inferior in one way or another" He was not alone with that opinion.
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  821. Lets look at the A6M2, it entered service in July 1940 so after the Spitfire Mk I and about the same time as the Mk II some Mk II had 20 mm cannon. The A6M2 was not able to be developed as much so it was good for a short time. The Fiat G 55. would have little trouble against P 38's and P 51's but against the Spitfire it would be up against it, the top speed similar, acceleration and climb would go to the Spitfire M VIII which would reach 25,000 feet over two minutes faster and the Spitfire had a higher service ceiling. P 51 D in mid 1944 when it entered service top speed 703 kmh, Spitfire Mk XIV in late 1943 720 kmh, acceleration and climb the Spitfire was much better. The P 51 D dive speed limited to mach 0.8, the Spitfire mach 0.86. The heavy P 51 would enter a dive faster but the Spitfire could follow and out turn and outclimb the P 51 so it is no contest. The P 47 is not even close, dive speed about mach 0.7. The Spitfire was used in combat quite often, it was before D Day and apart from when it was used for chasing V 1's which it was better than the P 51 for, that was from the 13th June the P 47 never used for chasing V 1's, but by August 1944 the V 1 threst was less and the Mk XIV went back to combat, soon being based in Belgium and Holland and flying all over Germany. The P 38 L was slower than most fighters, 414 mph and not great climb, sure t had about the speed of a 1941 Fw 190 A, the P 38 was the last fighter to be shot down by a biplane. The USAAF used Spitfires a lot until they got P 51's. The P 38 had a worse dive speed than even the P 47. Ki 84. entered service a year after the Spitfire Mk XIV but lets compare it to the Spitfire Mk VIII, Similar top speed, rate of climb goes to the Spitfire which also went higher, similar armament, the Ki 84 had good range but the Mk VIII range was not too bad. The Bf 109 had fuel injection which Rolls Royce did not use because it was less efficient, the smaller RR engine gave more power. The Spitfire MK XIV was contemporary to the Bf 109 G 10 but lets see how the Bf 109 K 4 compares to the Spitfire MK XIV. The Bf 109 K4 had similar top seed to the Spitfire Mk XIV from sea level to 25,000 feet but then the Spitfire was faster all the way. That is fine except before the Bf 109 K 4 arrived the Spitfire Mk XIV's had been approved to use + 21 lbs boost and that meant the spitfire was faster all the way except about 25,000 feet where the speed was similar, Rate of climb the Spitfire was better all the way. The 30 mm was prone to jamming leaving the poor pilot very much outgunned by the Spitfire. The Bf 109 like the Spitfire was in action right through the war. Fw 190 A. The Spitfire from the Mk IX on had an advantage and there were no special clipped wing versions, the wingtip could be changed very quickly as was sometimes done between operations. The Fw 190 D arrived over 8 months after the Spitfire Mk XIV which maintained a decisive advantage. The Yak 3 which had engine overheating issues, most combat took place at low altitude because apart from the Spitfire and Bf 109 there were no fighters that could manage high altitude. The comment from a Luftwaffe pilot who fought on the Eastern front. In the closing stages of the war the USAAF and RAF were appearing and the fighter we feared most was the Spitfire, followed by the P 51. The La 7 max speed 661 kmh at 6,000 metres or similar to a spitfire Mk IX. at sea level the La 7 was quite good, but beaten by the P 51, Tempest Mk V and Spitfire Mk XIV. The Tempest Mk V was like the Spitfire Mk XIV used against the V 1 but also like the spitfire Mk XIV they were based in Belgium and Holland and flew over Germany a lot. The Tempest Mk V it was fast in a dive, it would enter a dive faster but the Spitfire had a higher mach limit than even the Tempest, the only fighter to achieve over 1,000 kmh in a dive without damage.
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  822. Berhnit. The A6M2 was no match for the Spitfire Mk V in Burma. The Spitfire Mk V did very well against the Fiat G 55, it was the Spitfire along with the Seafire that gave air superiority until the Spitfire Mk IX and VIII came along. The P 47 D and P 51 D which were much later than the Spitfire Mk IX yet did not accelerate or climb with the Spitfire at any height and they could not go as high. P 47 D as flight tested in September 1943 rate of climb drops to 0 by 40,000 feet. 35,000 feet climb rate 550 ft/min. WEP was not available until 1944, but the P 47 D was still not up to even the P 51D for climb rate P 51 D as tested in June 1945 rate of climb drops to 0 at 42,300 feet climb at 36,000 feet 850 ft/min time to 40,000 feet 22.4 mins these figures are at WEP. The P 38 G as tested in February 1943 time to 39,400 feet 22.04 mins. rate of climb at 39,700 feet 0. P 38 J as tested in February 1944 time to 40,000 feet 25.14 mins rate of climb at 40,500 feet 0 Spitfire Mk IX as tested in October 1942 rate of climb at 42,400 feet still 100 feet/min. climb rate at 40,000 feet 480 ft/min. climb rate at 36,000 feet 1,140 ft/min time to 40,000 feet 20.6 mins. These figures are at normal rating with a drop tank. The Ki 84 might have fought on equal terms with the P 51 D, P 38 L, F 4 U and P 47 N ( the P 47 M was not in the Pacific ). They were not Spitfires. The Bf 109 in the Battle of Britain had a slight altitude advantage but most combat took place at about 15,000 feet where the Spitfire held the advantage. After the Battle of Britain the Bf 109 was unable to match Spitfires, the Bf 109 G was beaten by Mk IX and Mk VIII, the Bf 109 K 4 on paper may have been a match for the Spitfire Mk XIV but in practice it wasn't. The Fw 190 A had an advantage over Spitfire Mk V's but from the Mk IX on that was gone. The FRw 190 D was good and certainly P 51 and P 47b pilots would have a bit to be afraid of but against a Spitfire Mk XIV which had better climb and maneuverability, no as for dive the Fw 190 D was only faster at the start of a dive and no match on a long dive, when they pulled out of a dive the Spitfire was faster and better. RAF pilots reported in late 1944 that the Me 262 was not quite as rare as it had been but not very dangerous, in fact no Spitfires were ever shot down by any Me 262's, Spitfires did shoot down Me 262's. Strange how on the Eastern front the Luftwaffe pilots reported that late in the war USAAF and RAF fighters were appearing and the most feared fighter was the Spitfire, followed by the P 51 D, no mention of the Yak or La. I prefer to take the opinions of pilots including USAAF and Luftwaffe about which was the best fighter rather than someone who hates the Spitfire because it is British.
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  867. vinDimwit. The Spitfire and Hurricane won the Battle of Britain, more Hurricanes but the Spitfire had the performance to take on the Bf 109. The Bf 109 was in Northern France in bigger numbers than both Spitfires and Hurricanes in the South East of England. That is why even when very outnumbered by experienced B f 109`s the Spitfire won so often, like when Adolf Galland was leading a flight of 40 Bf 109`s and tehy were attacked by just 12 Spitfires, the Spitfires won that little fight. In the Pacific the Spitfire was outperformed by what, Wildcat slower than a Hurricane, Hellcat about as fast as a Mk I Spitfire. In fact no fighter in the Pacific could match the Spitfire, the best fighter of the war. We owe it to try to be accurate, you do not try. Goring never said any such thing to Hitler idiot Galland said that to Goring and Galand said more, he said more than once how impressed he was with the Spitfire and most Luftwaffe pilots were afraid of spitfires not p 51`s, P 47`s or p 38`s. William R. Dunne an American who flew with 71 (Eagle) squadron Said "Once you`ve flown a Spitfire, it spoils you for all other fighters. Every other aircraft seems imperfect in one way or another.” Eric Brown (RN test pilot and holder of the world record for number of types of aircraft flown): "I have flown both for many hours, and would choose the Spitfire [over the Mustang] if given a choice in a fight to the death." Writer Jerry Scutts, quoting German pilots in his book JG 54: "The Jagflieger had to keep a wary eye out for enemy fighters, particularly Spitfires, a type JG 54's pilots had developed a particular aversion to...Pilot reflections do not, surprisingly enough, reflect over-much respect for the Mustang or Lightning" Karl Stein, Luftwaffe Fw 190 pilot (who served mainly on the Eastern front): "English and American aircraft appeared on the scene in those closing days of the European war. Spitfires were the most feared, then Mustangs..." USAAF pilot Charles McCorkle (who flew both in combat), reporting on a mock combat between a Spitfire and Mustang in 1944: "Now we could see which was the better aircraft...a Mustang and a Spit took off for a scheduled 'combat', flown by two top young flight commanders. When the fighters returned, the pilots had to agree that the Spitfire had won the joust. The Spit could easily outclimb, outaccelerate, and outmaneuver its opponent." I have much more including when the RAF received Spitfires in Burma and turned the tables on the Japanese Are all these pilots so wrong then?
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  878.  @pedrogarciaborges2455  Just to get the facts straight, Senna did manage to catch Prost by 3 seconds on a lap but not every lap, by lap 26 Senna was 11 seconds behind and by lap 32 Senna was 7.5 seconds behind. I make that just about 1/2 a second a lap and at that rate it would have taken another 15 laps to catch up if Prost who was pacing himself rather than driving flat out did not respond to Senna catching up. On lap 26 when the conditions got worse Prost did signal to Jacky Ickx for the race to be stopped but it was not stopped for three more laps and Prost did not signal the last couple of laps. There was never any shame in winning a race especially in the conditions and with problems including locking brakes. Prost was struggling with a misfiring TAG engine and was further hindered by Corrado Fabi’s stricken Brabham just before the entrance to the tunnel. The incident led to Prost hitting a marshal who was trying to push Fabi’s car out of the way. Thankfully he wasn’t injured. On lap twenty three Lauda spun off into retirement thanks to his carbon brakes locking continually, a result of the cool and wet conditions not allowing the pads to generate enough heat. The problem was also affecting Prost in the sister McLaren. The Toleman team reported that Senna's suspension was so damaged, Senna would have only lasted a handful more laps. Ayrton went to Monaco with confidence despite the fact that he would race in Monaco for the first time. Toleman had introduced the TG184 during the Grand Prix of France, the race preceding Monaco, a new design involving Rory Byrne and Pat Symonds. The car still used the 1,500 cc Straight 4 Heart engine. "This new car is really very good, very competitive and very fast. There are still some things missing, but I am sure this car will take us further", Senna said. In the chase of Keke Rosberg, Ayrton braked into the chicane. The chicane at the exit of the tunnel in 1984 had a different configuration to how it is today. The chicane in that year was smoother and faster. Ayrton bounced over the kerbs here which damaged his suspension. Senna believed he had been the deserving winner and didn’t hide his aversion to Prost after the race. Much later it emerged that Senna had damaged the car’s suspension earlier in the race by clattering a kerb; mechanics at Toleman estimated that the car may only have gone on for another four or five laps before the stress would have snapped the suspension completely. Senna’s Toleman had an overheating engine, as well as suspension damage that his mechanics said would have ended his race within a few laps. The truth about Senna's suspension is all over the place, I did not know about the overheating engine but Senna had slowed down over the last few laps and Bellof was catching up quite fast.
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  950.  @jasonclarke6194  I only just saw your reply, I wonder if you know about the raids on dams which were at night and very accurate. Or Transport. An outstandingly successful attack was made on the railway centre at Giessen on the night of 6 December. After two hundred Lancasters had been over in clear weather, craters studded the marshalling yards, engine sheds were wrecked, and other buildings destroyed; three weeks later the marshalling yards were still completely out of action. What about the canals? The reconstruction was completed by 21 November and on that day the canal was being filled with water. The same night 228 RAF bombers attacked again, scoring at least four direct hits on the aqueduct and breaching the embankment on both sides of the safety gates. Or oil production Bomber Command entered the oil campaign with an initial list of ten synthetic plants in the Ruhr. Here in the past few months the Americans had sustained fairly heavy casualties from flak, and the accuracy of their daylight attacks had been considerably reduced by the ever-present industrial haze; however, it was hoped that Bomber Command, with its new navigational aids, would be able to overcome this obstacle even though its attacks would be launched at night. The first RAF attack took place on the night of 12 June when some three hundred aircraft were sent to bomb the Nordstern plant at Gelsenkirchen, one of the largest in Germany. Bombing on markers dropped by Oboe-equipped pathfinders was very effective and photographic reconnaissance revealed widespread damage over the entire area of the plant. Most of the subsequent attacks were equally successful and by the end of September British crews had dropped 12,600 tons of bombs on all ten of their allotted targets.
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  1094.  @dukecraig2402  Nothing but a myth. When Packard built Merlins arrived in England they were found to have defects and Rolls Royce set up a plant to correct Packard problems. NAA would not dismantle the engines, they were not engine makers. And hopefully by the time the Merlin engine went into the P 51 Packard had managed to get it right. Packard never designed a single aero engine and no they were not making aero engines in 1915. Apart from you who is confused about Merlin engines, I know exactly which Merlin engine s went into which Spitfire, Battle of Britain the Spitfire Mk I had the Merlin III and the Spitfire Mk II had the Merlin XII. They were single stage supercharged engines just like the engine in the Wildcat as delivered to England in late 1940 which could not be used as a front line fighter. I am quite happy to compare a Spitfire Mk V to a P 51 in 1942 even though the Spitfire Mk IX was in service in 1942 with a Merlin 61 engine. Rolls Royce developed the two stage supercharger in 1941 first for a high altitude version of the wellington bomber and then put it into a Spitfire and given to Packard to Packard to copy. Packard made no improvements or developments, Packard was paid by Rolls royce to make copies of the Merlin engine. The P 51 was not designed for ground attack but was used as such because it was a useless fighter with the hopeless Allison engine. The P 38 shows how bad the Allison was, if more powerful means much slower and not able to go as high then fine. How the Merlin 61 made less power at low altitude than the Merlin 45 yet the Spitfire Mk IX was faster at any level than the Spitfire Mk V. If the Liberty in 1919 was the first high altitude engine how come the world altitude record in 1919 was over 30,000 feet and that was set by the French in a Nieuport. Oops you prove how little you know all the time. You really should go back to school or read the right books written by aviation authors who really know what they are writing abought. Unfortunately for you I have ben researching aircraft and aero engines for many years and never rely on comics or Hollywood for facts.
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  1095.  @dukecraig2402  Really little boy so Henry Ford built a factory to make bombers for bombing Germany before anyone in USA knew that USA was going to fight Germany ever. just like your claim about US and high altitude aero engines. In 1940 Henry Ford was happily supplying Nazi Germany and he had a Bust of Hitler on his desk. Your previous comment that Rolls Royce made aero engines after Packard is another case of you being wrong. Packard’s early efforts with aero engines was to make some of the successful Liberty V12, which arrived several months after the United States’ April 1917 entry into World War I. Rolls-Royce began producing its Eagle V12 in early 1915. You really do not understand hand fitting which was done to much better tolerances than anything from Packard and Rolls Royce had already made changes for mass production before Packard made a single Merlin engine to Rolls Royce design specifications. "The received wisdom, at least in America, usually runs along the lines of: If Rolls-Royce birthed a stupendous engine, Packard brought American mass-manufacturing know-how to the equation, perfecting the design and mechanizing production. I was told very matter-of-factly (and by a Brit, if that makes any difference) that Rolls built a more precisely fitted, finely tuned engine that had higher performance potential for a given unit. Packard, by contrast, built one that was ultimately easier to construct consistently and overhaul at specified intervals—and that one of the ways Packard accomplished this was by building Merlins with looser tolerances than its counterpart on the other side of the Atlantic. You could always take notice of Robert J Neal who wrote the following "" The British did not specify tolerances and fits, and Packard had to take parts from an existing engine and make measurements to determine these specifications as best as they could, using engineering judgement where necessary." All of this seems to back up the claim that Packard went its own way when building the Merlin, at least when it came to tolerances. This is a little misleading: The Merlin II service manual, released May 1938 (you can get a PDF copy), lists exacting fits and tolerances for the engine and every subsystem on it. Neal and others must be referring to the fit and tolerances of the parts produced, rather than as-installed—a distinction that will make more sense as we explore Rolls-Royce's prewar manufacturing methods. I really should not need to go on but there is so much more that makes nonsense of the writings of Neal and others who try to perpetuate the US myth. Also if Rolls Royce did not use mass production how do you explain Rolls Royce making many more engines. Your so called facts have only been established in the minds of anti British morons like you. Rolls Royce were not film makers and unlike you I have worked with a Rolls Royce engineer who I am sure would know far more than you, he showed me how to hand fit bearings. and it was very accurate work, time consuming but far more accurate than anything Packard could do with the bearings supplied to them. The difference is the bearings are made to a standard and by hand fitting you are working to a higher standard. looser tolerances might be before hand fitting. You do realize Rolls Royce were and still are the best engine makers in the world and Packard were going broke until Rolls Royce paid them very well and once Rolls Royce stopped paying Packard soon went bust.
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  1144. When you grow up and start to learn you might just get somewhere. The first Bf 109 used a RR Kestrel engine and the last Bf 109`s made in Spain used the Merlin engine. The Kestrel was a reliable well liked engine, the Merlin also was well liked and reliable before WW II started. The Merlin as used in the Spitfire and Hurricane in the Battle of Britain weighed about the same as the DB 601 A but the Merlin gave more power. 100 octane fuel was not so rare that the RAF had enough for the Battle of Britain. The Bf 109 had a problem for take off and landing, there were quite a lot of accidents. High speed the Bf 109 E in the Battle of Britain was not good, the Spitfire was better and the Spitfire turned better. Early on when the Spitfire had the original 2 blade prop the Bf 109 had an advantage but the 3 blade constant speed prop and using + 12 lbs boost the Spitfire would leave the Bf 109 in a climb. The Spitfire had no great problem with the props, maybe Bf 109 pilots could not hit the right areas. There are always claims but the only way to get an accurate picture is for the same pilot to fly both planes as several pilots did, the result is that most if not all prefered the Spitfire over any other fighter at the time. Fuel tanks did not explode, the fuel caught fire. Fuel would not stream out into the face of a Spitfire pilot since the fuel tanks were in front of the firewall and also the cockpit was protected by a thick asbestos sheet. The Luftwaffe pilot sitting on top of the fuel tank was more likely to get burnt as did happen quite often, the de Wilde bullets had that effect. The 15 mm was ok and so were the 0.303, both worked and if the Spitfiore was as bad as you try to make out the Luftwaffe should have won the Battle of Britain and again Malta, Sicily, Italy and any time they met in combat. Pilots did not just flip the plane when making an emergency landing, if they got it wrong and ground looped which the Bf 109 was prone to do then they would not have time. So many trapped? not that many in Spitfires as the figures show. The Merlin being smaller gave more power, more drag and yet the spitfire was faster. These Captured Spitfires re engined with DB`s were which Spitfire Mk and which DB were they re engined with? To re engine a 1940 Spitfire with a 1942 engine maybe. The weight of a Bf 109E was about 200 kg less than a Spitfire Mk I, yet the Spitfire had better climb performance. Less drag should mean faster,that was not the case. You have a strange attitude, maybe you are just a disgruntled pro Nazi who hates it that you lost the war.
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  1150. Britain was making self sealing fuel tanks for the Defiant, Spitfire and Hurricane before the Battle of Britain. I would not say many pilots were burnt to death, some were in Spitfires and Hurricanes but so were some in Bf 109`s. Early Bf 109`s would not reach 800 kmh. The Bf 109 G was limited to a maximum of 750 kmh IAS at low altitude, reducing to 450 kmh IAS at 29,000 feet. The early Spitfire was limited to 450 mph IAS as a safe limit, many pilots exceeded that and the Spitfire was recognized as the fastest plane in a dive in the war At low speeds the aileron control is very good, being similar to that of the Curtiss H-75 ; there is a positive " feel ", there being a definite resistance to stick movement, and response is brisk. In these respects the Me.109 ailerons are better than those of the Spitfire, which become so light at low speeds that they lose all " feel ". As the speed is increased the ailerons gradually become heavier, but response remains excellent. They are at their best between 150 m.p.h. and 200 m.p.h., and are described as " an ideal control " over this speed range. Above 200 m.p.h. they start becoming unpleasantly heavy, and at 300 m.p.h. are far too heavy for comfortable maneuvering. Between 300 m.p.h. and 400 m.p.h. the ailerons are described as " solid " ; at 400 m.p.h. a pilot, exerting all his strength, cannot apply more than about fifth-aileron. That is just rate of roll, turning is another matter. Comparative Turning Performance of Me.109 and Spitfire. – During the dog-fights against the Hurricane and Spitfire, it became apparent that our fighters could out-turn the Me.109 with ease when flown by determined pilots. Since the minimum radius of turn without height loss depends largely on stalling speed, and hence on wing loading, the poor turning performance of the Me.109 may be ascribed to its high wing loading, 32.2 lb./sq. ft. compared with 24.8 lb./sq. ft. on the Spitfire. It was thought of interest to go into the matter a little more deeply, and to calculate the relative performances of these aircraft in circling flight, so that the sacrifice of turning performance entailed by the Me. 109's high wing loading could be assessed qualitatively. The Spitfire and Hurricane both have about the same turning performance.
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  1152. Poor Fabian. You seem so stuck on your anti British stance. The Yak 1 in 1941 was rather slow, poorly armed and did not climb so well, it was the best Russian fighter at low level but very out classed by the Bf 109 and more so by the Spitfire. In 1944 the Yak 3 was slow and lacked climbing ability. 1 20 mm and 1 0.5`s being nothing much to write home about. The Yak 7 about as fast as a Spitfire Mk I with a worse climb rate. The rear fuel tank was a poor point since it was very vulnerable. The Yak 9 was not much faster. The Yaks being prone to rot was not such a good point. The Bf 109 F was not superior to the Spitfire Mk V, as for the Bf 109 G how was that even equal to the Spitfire Mk IX? Not in top speed and certainly not in climb, many Luftwaffe pilots preferred the F to the G. Armament no winners, Except the Spitfire did have the guns to do the job and they were not low velocity 20 mm like the Luftwaffe, by 1941 the Hispano 20 mm was reliable and very effective. There is a very good reason I rate the Spitfire as the best fighter, it started life before the war and it did take on the Bf 109 even when the Luftwaffe pilots were more experienced in the Battle of Britain, the Spitfire went on through the war and was still capable of taking on any fighter at the end of the war and well after. The Spitfire was used for many tasks other than just air superiority which it did very well. photo reconnaissance, fighter/bomber, dive bomber, shooting down V 1`s, attacking V 1 and V 2 launching sites, fighter reconnaissance, escort fighter, Even used as a good carrier fighter. Israel had the Czech built Bf 109, the P 51 and the Spitfire, their pilots rated the Spitfire best, USAAF pilots who flew the Spitfire rated it better than any American fighter, Luftwaffe pilots rated the Spitfire as the only fighter they really feared.
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  1158. Actually twice as many Hurricanes shot down less than twice as many Luftwaffe planes, especially fighters and more than twice as many Hurricanes were shot down than Spitfires. so the Spitfire had a better record and after the Battle of Britain the Hurricane was at the end of it`s development, the Spitfire was able to be developed to fly almost 100 mph faster than the 1940 Spitfire which was faster than the Hurricane and more than keep up with any other fighter right through the war. In Malta the Spitfire took over from the Hurricane and defeated the Italian and .German air forces there, in North Africa the Spitfire took over from the Hurricane and P 40, the Spitfire provided air superiority for every major action right through the war. To get back to the topic, the early Merlin engine was more efficient than the larger German engines, the carburetor gave more power. Sir Stanley Hooker knew about fuel injection and the problems that had as well. The Hurricane used the same Merlin at the time, same problem. The Merlin had the well known problem of a momentary cut out when negative G was encountered but the RAF pilots did not just nose over into a dive, they rolled over into a dive which meant no cut out and they could keep the Bf 109 in sight and catch up in the dive. A Spitfire pilot would not bunt into a dive to escape, he could simply do a climbing turn and the Bf 109 could not follow. If the Spitfire was so bad, why was it that there were more Spitfires and less Bf 109`s at the end of the Battle of Britain than at the start?
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  1177. fishbrain. You are a complete moron and have never given anything to support the many lies you tell. Luftwaffe pilots did fear the Spitfire and it shows by what they had to say. Adolf Galland liked the Bf 109 but as he said the Spitfire was better for the job it had which was attacking the bombers than the Bf 109 was for the job it had defending bombers. Writer Jerry Scutts, quoting German pilots in his book JG 54: "The Jagflieger had to keep a wary eye out for enemy fighters, particularly Spitfires, a type JG 54's pilots had developed a particular aversion to...Pilot reflections do not, surprisingly enough, reflect over-much respect for the Mustang or Lightning. Karl Stein who flew Fw 190`s said Spitfires were the planes they most feared. Galland was shot down 3 times by Spitfires. Even American pilots liked the Spitfire, they must have since they used them so often. William Dunn (US fighter ace who flew Spitfires, P-51s, Hurricanes, and P-47s): “ The Spitfire was a thing of beauty to behold, in the air or on the ground, with the graceful lines of its slim fuselage, its elliptical wing and tail plane. It looked like a fighter and certainly proved to be just that in the fullest meaning of the term. It was an aircraft with a personality all of its own – docile at times, swift and deadly at others – a fighting machine par excellence. One must have really known the Spitfire in flight to fully understand and appreciate its thoroughbred characteristics. It was the finest and in its days of glory, provided the answer to the fighter pilots dream – a perfect combination of all the good qualities required in a truly outstanding fighter aircraft. Once you`ve flown a Spitfire, it spoils you for all other fighters. Every other aircraft seems imperfect in one way or another.” USAAF 31st FG War Diary (when transferring from Spitfires to P-51s): "Although pilots think that the P-51 is the best American fighter, they think the Spitfire VIII is the best fighter in the air." USAAF pilot Charles McCorkle (who flew both in combat), reporting on a mock combat between a Spitfire and Mustang in 1944: "Now we could see which was the better aircraft...a Mustang and a Spit took off for a scheduled 'combat', flown by two top young flight commanders. When the fighters returned, the pilots had to agree that the Spitfire had won the joust. The Spit could easily outclimb, out-accelerate, and outmaneuver its opponent...
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  1194.  @wilburfinnigan2142  The Germans continued to produce trucks with the engines and many other parts from USA. Why do you think, if Ford or GM had nothing to do with their German companies, that both sued the US government for the bombing of their factories by the USAAF. Charles Higham. "I had been born to a patriotic British family. My father had raised the first battalions of volunteers against Germany in World War I, and had built the Star and Garter Hospital at Richmond, Surrey, for ex-servicemen. He had been knighted by King George V for his services to the Crown and had been a member of Parliament and a Cabinet member. I feel a strong sense of loyalty to Britain, as well as to my adopted country, the United States of America. Moreover, I am part Jewish. Auschwitz is a word stamped on my heart forever. It thus came as a severe shock to learn that several of the greatest American corporate leaders were in league with Nazi corporations before and after Pearl Harbor, including I.G. Farben, the colossal Nazi industrial trust that created Auschwitz. Those leaders interlocked through an association I have dubbed The Fraternity. Each of these business leaders was entangled with the others through interlocking directorates or financial sources. All were represented internationally by the National City Bank or by the Chase National Bank and by the Nazi attorneys Gerhardt Westrick and Dr. Heinrich Albert. All had connections to that crucial Nazi economist, Emil Puhl, of Hitler's Reichsbank and the Bank for International Settlements. The tycoons were linked by an ideology: the ideology of Business as Usual. Bound by identical reactionary ideas, the members sought a common future in fascist domination, regardless of which world leader might further that ambition. Several members not only sought a continuing alliance of interests for the duration of World War II but supported the idea of a negotiated peace with Germany that would bar any reorganization of Europe along liberal lines. It would leave as its residue a police state that would place The Fraternity in postwar possession of financial, industrial, and political autonomy. When it was clear that Germany was losing the war the businessmen became notably more "loyal." Then, when war was over, the survivors pushed into Germany, protected their assets, restored Nazi friends to high office, helped provoke the Cold War, and insured the permanent future of The Fraternity. " That is just a very small bit but he has done extensive research as have some others and the results are not very pleasant reading for ignorant people like you.
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  1285. jagder. Since the Mk XIV had a top speed of 448 mph and it reached that in 1943 with a fully equipped fighter, even the older Spitfire Mk IX and the Vii and VIII would easily top 400 mph. The Fw 190 D when it entered service over 6 months after the Spitfire Mk XIV, did not have MW injection and only had a top speed of 360 mph according to Hans hartig. Even with the MW it could not catch the Spitfire in top speed, climb or acceleration. As for range, the Spitfire had enough to chase, catch and shoot down the few fw 190 D`s that were there, the Luftwaffe were still relying heavily on the old Fw 190 A. The Spitfire Mk XIV had greater range than the Fw 190 D. Even German flight tests of the Fw 190 D 9 do not show the 440 mph which I have seen elsewhere until 1945, 413 mph at 6,150 metres, or about the same as an older Spitfire Mk IX and much slower than the Spitfire Mk XIV. of quite a few flight tests and engine or supercharger failures the Fw 190 D9 did eventually manage 437 mph in a flight test with MW 50. Also with C 3 fuel it managed just 441 mph in March 1945, that does not compare well to 448 mph in 1943. Adolf Galland who was there at the time and rated Spitfires very highly had this to say about the Spitfire mk XIV. "The Griffon-powered Spitfire fighters were so lethal that the best thing about the Spitfire Mk XIV was that there were so few of them". Since the Spitfire had a cruise speed of close to 400 mph, it would not take long to catch up, it certainly accounted for quite a few Fw 190`s as well as Me 262`s. The Spitfire Mk XIX which the RAF still had was not a static display, it had been in use for THUM. and it was ready for flight when in 1957 the RAF wanted to see how to combat the P 51, the Spitfire having better performance and maneuverability was a good choice since if the Lightning could beat the Spitfire a slower P 51 which did not turn or climb like a Spitfire would be easy. Why get a non working P 51 and have to get it airworthy when the Spitfire already was.
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  1286. jagder. Hans Hartig was right the Fw 190 D did not have MW 50 when first put into service. It took some time to get the MW 50 working, even the flight trials showed that they had poor reliability and lacked performance until well into 1945 or much later than the Spitfire was doing 448 mph. Galland commanded an Me 262 squadron with 16 Me 262`s, they did meet Spitfires including the Mk XIV. The Spitfire used for the trials had been withdrawn from active service in 1957 but kept in flying condition as part of the RAF historic aircraft flight. No need to replace it since it had no mechanical issues. Your point is just silly. If you want to see how to combat a fighter which has a top speed of 437 mph and a climb rate of 3,200 feet/ min. then why not test the planes against a more agile fighter with better performance, if the Lightning could take on the Spitfire it certainly could take on the P 51, why try to get hold of a P 51 that is less likely to be reliable and takes time to get to Britain and make airworthy, far more time than an airworthy Spitfire already there. The exercise showed how the Lightning could combat the Spitfire, having done that it would easily do the same to the P 51. The P 51 top speed 437 mph, Spitfire 450 mph, Lightning 1,500 mph. P 51 rate of climb 3,200 ft/min, Spitfire 5,040 ft/min, Lightning over 50,000 ft/min. The Spitfire turned over 200 feet smaller radius than the P 51 and pulled more G. If a P 51 pilot tried to maneuver with a Spitfire the wings would come off.
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  1316. Many Luftwaffe claims were just not true. Kurt Welter claimed many more DH Mosquitos than were lost at the time. Marseille claimed a Spitfire on a day when there were no Spitfires there at the time, he claimed 2 hurricames on a day only 1 was lost, he claimed 6 P 40's out of 10 claimed by his unit and only 5 in total were lost. "In the 1990s, the German archives made microfilm rolls of wartime records, not seen since January 1945, available to the public. These showed that while in theory the Luftwaffe did not accept a kill without a witness, which was considered only a probable, in practice some units habitually submitted unwitnessed claims and these sometimes made it through the verification process, particularly if they were made by pilots with already established records." "In 1943 the daily OKW communiques (Wehrmachtbericht) of this period habitually overstated American bomber losses by a factor of two or more. Defenders of German fighter pilots have always maintained that these were reduced during the confirmation process. But the microfilms prove this not to be the case. " A certain Mike Gee who is rather well known for lying said "people claim the spitfire was so great BUT the Germans shot down MORE Spitfires (especially in the Battle of Britain) than spitfires did german bf109s and FW190s..." Not too intelligent this Mike Gee, the Fw shot down nothing in the Battle of Britain, it was not in service until late 1941, he also does not know how many Spitfires there were in the Battle of Britain or that there were Hurricanes there too, he also does not know the RAF were more interested in shooting down bombers and some of the losses of both Spitfire and Hurricane were to bombers.
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  1391. I know more about Europe, and I know more about the Spitfire than you do. If that makes me British then my knowing more about the P 51 than you do makes me what? As for you know more about the Pacific, you have not shown much knowledge so far,. Did you know that up to 1944 britain had more forces fighting the Japanese than USA did. Did you know that during the latter half of 1944, the Seafire became a part of the aerial component of the British Pacific Fleet, where it quickly proved to be a capable interceptor against the feared kamikaze attacks by Japanese pilots which had become increasingly common during the final years of the Pacific War. Did you know that Battleships and aircraft from the British Pacific Fleet also attacked the Japanese home islands. The battleship King George V bombarded naval installations at Hamamatsu, near Toyohashi; the last time a British battleship fired in action. Meanwhile, carrier strikes by British naval aircraft were carried out against land and harbour targets including, notably, against two Japanese escort carriers Shimane Maru which was sunk and the Kaiyō which was disabled. Although, during the assaults on Japan, the British commanders had accepted that the BPF should become a component element of the US 3rd Fleet, the US fleet commander, William Halsey, excluded British forces from a raid on Kure naval base on political grounds. Halsey later wrote, in his memoirs: "it was imperative that we forestall a possible postwar claim by Britain that she had delivered even a part of the final blow that demolished the Japanese fleet.... an exclusively American attack was therefore in American interests." The BPF would have played a major part in a proposed invasion of the Japanese home islands, known as Operation Downfall, which was cancelled after Japan surrendered. The last naval air action in World War II was on VJ-Day when British Seafires shot down Japanese Zero fighters. Hollywood leaves out a lot.
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  1448. Beware of Boeing. In 2015, an auditor with the Federal Aviation Administration discovered a Boeing subcontractor was falsifying certifications on cargo doors for hundreds of 777s and had been doing so for years, according to interviews and government documents. Boeing mechanics were leaving tools inside plane wings, precariously close to the cables that control their movements. Workers also were improperly installing wires in 787s, which could increase the risk of shorts or fires, FAA officials found. Repeatedly, safety lapses were identified, and Boeing would agree to fix them, then fail to do so, the FAA said. The agency launched or was considering more than a dozen legal enforcement cases against the company for failing to comply with safety regulations, a review of FAA records shows, with fines that could have totaled tens of millions of dollars. So FAA officials tried a new approach. Rather than pursue each violation separately, agency officials bundled them together and negotiated a broader deal. In 2015, the FAA decided to try to get Boeing to meet, then go beyond, federal safety requirements by addressing broader corporate culture and governance issues, including what agency officials considered a lack of transparency. The week before Christmas of that year, Boeing and the FAA signed a five-year settlement agreement that was unprecedented in scope. The company paid a modest $12 million penalty, but it agreed to make significant changes in its internal safety systems and practices for “ensuring compliance” with regulations. In the days after the agreement was signed, top U.S. officials cast it as a powerful reminder that every company, no matter its size, must comply with minimum safety standards. But Boeing’s profits after signing the deal topped $20 billion by the end of September 2018, making the company’s $12 million penalty easy to gloss over despite occasional press reports of the firm’s shortcomings. The company committed to improving the quality and timeliness of information it provides to the FAA. But in the case of the 737 Max, the FAA said, it took Boeing more than a year to notify it about a software problem that disabled a crucial warning light connected to the automated system at the center of the tragedies.
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  1482.  @w8stral  I do ignore the hysterical, but what else should we expect from people who don't have a clue? At any speed the Spitfire turned better than most fighters certainly the P 51, P 47 and P 38 but also better than the Bf 109 and Fw 190, wing loading did increase for the Spitfire but that applies to all fighters of WW II and the Spitfire late in the war was still light compared to other fighters. No real pilots were so stupid that they didn't use their fighter to it's best advantage and that included getting into a turning fight. The very strong Spitfire wing was far better than most if not all. The funny thing is that Supermarine in 1940 flew the Spitfire Mk III which among other changes had a smaller wingspan, the fact that the Mk III didn't go into production but the Mk V did and the simple matter of removing the wing tip and fitting a short or long wingtip was the work of a few minutes. I don't pretend anything, the Mk IX was based on the Mk V, in fact they came from the same production lines, the Mk IX with the same wings but changes to the fuselage worked extremely well and just like later Spitfires still turned very well, this is from a squadron of Spitfire Mk XIV's which were heavier and had the more powerful Griffon engine, they were attacking a train when set upon by late versions of the Bf 109 " they really caught us this time but using our stunning turn and climb we easily evaded them even taking a couple of them for no loss. What about a USAAF squadron which was given new P 51's to replace their old Spitfires, we sent up two top pilots for a mock combat, they took turns, first one getting onto the tail of the other, afterwards bot pilots agreed that while the P 51 couldn't stay with the Spitfire the Spitfire could stay with the P 51 no matter what the P 51 pilot tried to do. The reason why Spitfires only had partly flush rivets was that it was found that it made no difference in much of the aircraft. IN 1947 there was an air race in USA, all of the aircraft were much modified except for one, it was an ex RCAF Spitfire Mk XIV, all they did was remove the guns and radio and paint it, nothing else, the funny thing is it came 3rd overall. Highly modified P 51's and whatever else they had but only two beat the Spitfire and not by much. The Spitfire was still the top fighter at the end of the war, in fact it was truly the fighter that took us from the biplane age to the jet age, they defeated Me 262's quite easily.
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  1498. Lately I have been getting phone calls about suspicious activity on my online trading account, the last one was that they are investigating my case, the funny thing is that they clame to know everything but can't tell me anything much, he wanted to know how much I have invested or lost, I sounded rather vague saying I don't know, he started hinting at numbers $10,000 or $20,000 and said we can get your money back, So I said why not more, he said $60,000 or $80,000, I said $ 100,000 is a nice round number, he then said you have lost $100,000? I said you should know, you know everything, he said we only know the profit they have made on your money, it is $ 132,000. I said fine continue to investigate then send me the money, I really don't see why you need me to tell you anything, he kept insisting I tell him how much, I said about two fifty, he said $250 and sounded a bit unhsppy at the low amount, I said no, $2.50. he said $250, I said no, $2.50. he hung up. Some of these scammers are not very good at it, I recently had a call from the NSA which I know is the National Security Agency in USA, but he was using a UK number to call me in New Zealand so I said where are you? he said USA, I said where am I? he said New Zealand, so I said then why are you using a fake UK number? he said because it is cheaper. That didn't work and I told him that is stupid. I had another call from UK, A girl who said she was in the Serious Fraud Office, I said I am very frightened, next you will tell me I have suspicious activity on my online account, she said yes, I said and next you will tell me that I am in big trouble and it will cost me to get you to sort it out. She hesitated so I said but in reality you are in a scam call centre and the voices I can hear in the background are others like you trying to steal money, She sounded rather frightened and said how do you know this, I said because I know all about your scam call centre and my real name is then after a short pause in a deeper voice Ji, Browning, she went silent then hung up. Obviously she was a bit rattled that I knew her script. . I have been doing this for some time and I use different tactics each time, once I said OK to everything, that upset the scammer, another said I want to ask a few question and the answer will be yes or no to each question, big mistake because before she got to the questions she asked what suburb do you live in, I said No, she asked what is your post code, I said no, she tried again, same result, then she got very angry but she did tell me to say yes or no. Funny how so many of them sound Indian, I had one using a fake New Zealand number but I was a bit busy so I asked what is the weather like in India today, he said it is raining a bit, a short pause then he said why do you think I am in India? I said now I know you are.
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  1850.  @peterson7082  True not just in Normandy but also for the rest of the war. Lorraine which was after Normandy and Patton faced a very weak German force with almost no tanks. Patton’s Third Army was almost always where the best German divisions in the west were NOT. Who did the 3rd Army defeat? In the Lorraine 3rd Army faced a rabble. Even the German commander of Army Group G in the Lorraine, Herman Black, who took over in September 1944 said: “I have never been in command of such irregularly assembled and ill-equipped troops. The fact that we have been able to straighten out the situation again..... can only be attributed to the bad and hesitating command of the Americans. Within my zone, the Americans never once exploited a success. Often Von Mellenthin, my chief of staff and I, would stand in front of the map and say “Patton is helping us: he failed to exploit another success”. Then at the Battle of the Bulge Patton was neither on the advance nor being heavily engaged at the time he turned north to Bastogne when the Germans pounded through the US lines. The Us 1st and 9th had to be put under Montgomery’s control. The 9th stayed under his control until the end of the war. US Air Force units were put under RAF command-Coningham. Only when Patton got near to Bastogne did he face some German armour but it wasn’t a great deal of German armour. The Fuhrer Grenadier Brigade wasn’t one of the best armoured units, while the 26th Volks-Grenadier had only a dozen Hetzers, and the tiny element of Panzer Lehr (Kampfgruppe 901) left behind only a small group of tanks operational. It’s not as if Patton had to smash through full Panzer divisions or Tiger battalions on his way to Bastogne. Patton’s armoured forces outnumbered the Germans by at least 6 to 1. Patton faced comparatively very little German armour when he broke through to Bastogne the vast majority of the German 5th Panzer Army had already left Bastogne, moving westwards to the River Meuse, where they were still engaging forces under Montgomery’s 21st Army group. Leading German elements were engaging the Americans and British under Montgomery’s command near Dinant by the Meuse.
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  1923.  @747heavyboeing3  There is a problem on some, it is fixable and unlike Boeing not a killer of passengers. In 2015, an auditor with the Federal Aviation Administration discovered a Boeing subcontractor was falsifying certifications on cargo doors for hundreds of 777s and had been doing so for years, according to interviews and government documents. Boeing mechanics were leaving tools inside plane wings, precariously close to the cables that control their movements. Workers also were improperly installing wires in 787s, which could increase the risk of shorts or fires, FAA officials found. Repeatedly, safety lapses were identified, and Boeing would agree to fix them, then fail to do so, the FAA said. The agency launched or was considering more than a dozen legal enforcement cases against the company for failing to comply with safety regulations, a review of FAA records shows, with fines that could have totaled tens of millions of dollars. So FAA officials tried a new approach. Rather than pursue each violation separately, agency officials bundled them together and negotiated a broader deal. In 2015, the FAA decided to try to get Boeing to meet, then go beyond, federal safety requirements by addressing broader corporate culture and governance issues, including what agency officials considered a lack of transparency. The week before Christmas of that year, Boeing and the FAA signed a five-year settlement agreement that was unprecedented in scope. The company paid a modest $12 million penalty, but it agreed to make significant changes in its internal safety systems and practices for “ensuring compliance” with regulations. In the days after the agreement was signed, top U.S. officials cast it as a powerful reminder that every company, no matter its size, must comply with minimum safety standards. But Boeing’s profits after signing the deal topped $20 billion by the end of September 2018, making the company’s $12 million penalty easy to gloss over despite occasional press reports of the firm’s shortcomings. The company committed to improving the quality and timeliness of information it provides to the FAA. But in the case of the 737 Max, the FAA said, it took Boeing more than a year to notify it about a software problem that disabled a crucial warning light connected to the automated system at the center of the tragedies.
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  1988. Wrong, 1 ; taking off and landing was easy in a Spitfire, the not so narrow track compared to a Bf 109 was just fine. 2, Many planes would overheat if they were standing still for long, it was a worse problem on the P 47. 3, The wings were complex but very strong and they were the secret of the high speed the Spitfire could reach in a dive, the fastest plane of the war. 4, The RAF knew that the machine gun was not as good as the 20 mm that is why they used 8 until cannons were ready, the Bf 109 had cannons but they did not work well, low muzzle velocity meant less accuracy and range. The Hurricane had the same 8 guns as the Spitfire and no RAF pilots ever said that, especially since the spitfire had a higher kill ratio and lower loss ratio. The popularity of the spitfire was that it was better than the Hurricane, faster, better climb and went higher. Spitfires were more often sent after the fighters leaving the slower Hurricane to deal with the bombers, Spitfires got 20 mm cannon before the Hurricane since the Hurricane needed the more powerful engine they got late in 1940 before they could carry 20 mm. The Typhoon was not good at first, it took time to sort out some of the problems and it still did not climb like a Spitfire or go as high, the Typhoon eventually made a good ground attack plane to take over fro Hurricanes which were used for ground attack while the Spitfire was still the air superiority fighter. Many Germans did say they had been shot down by a Spitfire and not all of them were but quite a lot were. There is a reason that the Eurofightr Typhoon is called a Typhoon just as there was a reason the Panavia Tornado was called Tornado, if they eventually make a replacement for the Typhoon they may call it Tempest. No reflection on the Spitfire, the best fighter of the war.
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  2043.  @steveperreira5850  If it was a myth rather than fact that Montgomery took on Rommel and beat him. Montgomery was the ONLY commander in North Africa who had the brains and savvy to realize that you do NOT outrun your supply lines by advancing too quickly. It wasn’t the lack of supplies that was the problem for Rommel. It was the fact that he moved too quickly, over extended himself and made his advances vulnerable to counter-attack. The British made exactly the same mistakes during Operation Crusader. Montgomery never played into Rommel’s hands. From ‘Eight Army’s Greatest Victories’ (Adrian Stewart): Such was Rommel’s own view. ‘Montgomery’ he states, had attempted no large- scale attack to retake the southern part of his line; and would probably have failed if he had. He had relied instead on the effect of his enormously powerful artillery and air force. Added to this, our lines of communication had been subjected to continual harassment attacks by the 7th Armoured Division. There is no doubt that the British commander’s handling of this action had been absolutely right and well suited to the occasion, for it had enabled him to inflict very heavy damage on us in relation to his own losses, and to retain the striking power of his own force. On 1 September, Field Marshal Kesslerling visited the battle-area and Rommel poured out his troubles to him, declaring angrily that: ‘The swine isn’t attacking!’ The ‘swine’ of course was Montgomery. As soon as Montgomery entered the picture in North Africa he only advanced one way. Forward and never backwards. He made sure he NEVER over extended his supply lines in a North Africa as the distances were huge and extremely problematic.
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  2091. The Spitfire wing gave the highest dive speed of any aircraft until well after the war. The mystery of Rolls Royce using a carburetor has been fully explained by people who know about fuel systems and Rolls Royce used the carburetor because it was more efficient than fuel injection. The fact is that Stanley Hooker was far from a schoolboy and he knew that the carburetor was more efficient and gave more power. Fuel injection was not great until electronics was able to improve it, that is why it was not adopted on most cars until the 1980's. There was a very good reason to use 0.303, the RAF tested various weapons and they did not use 0.5 which was heavier, they did want to go to 20 mm but it needed development, in the meantime 8 x 0.303 was very good. Britain did already have the 20 mm Hispano and it was fitted to some fighters, 4 in a Westland Whirlwind and 2 on some Spitfires, the Hurricane had to wait for the Mk II with a more powerful Merlin XX to take 4 x 20 mm while the Spitfire wing meant the Hispano had to be modified to work properly although a Luftwaffe aircraft was shot down in early 1940 by a cannon armed Spitfire. The 0.303 was an excellent choice as used in rifles and machine guns for decades, plenty of ammunition and light weight. There was even a Spitfire tested with 6 cannon but 4 or even 2 was plenty. The German 20 mm cannon had low muzzle velocity which hampered its performance and only having enough ammunition for 6 seconds then having to rely on 2 machine guns vs 8 on a Spitfire or Hurricane. It seems that the British were not as stupid as you make out.
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  2092.  @crustyoldfart  I see the British being slow to make changes, they had the best radar and aircraft control system in the war, hardly slow there, they kept developing the best fighters of the war, hardly slow there, they even had the Gloster Meteor in operational service in July 1944, it took Germany until late 1944 before the Me 262 was in an operational squadron. Britain had four 20 mm cannon in use in the Westland Whirlwind in 1938, at the time the heaviest armed fighter in the world there was a problem fitting the same gun in a Spitfire but when turned on its side and with a change to belt fed ammunition it worked very well. Again not really slow. The Hurricane wing could take the cannon but it was not until the use of the Merlin XX in late 1940 that they had enough power. The reason Rolls Royce used the carburetor was that it gave the smaller Merlin engine more power. the fact that the engine did not stall, at most a momentary cut out which RAF pilots got around quite easily, Rolls Royce had solved the problem completely in 1941. If fuel injection worked then it would have been used sooner, as it was the German engines had more than their fair share of problems, not least unreliability caused by the fuel injection. If the team at Rolls Royce did not continuously work along with SU on improving carburetors and not desperately but methodically and SU came up with a speed density carburetor which was given to the US, then went onto a system using an injection pump which injected fuel under pressure into a throttle body or as some call it an injection carburetor. You seem stuck on the idea that the British were too busy sat around drinking tea to do any development, I give you radar, the jet engine, the Merlin and Griffon engines continuously developed to give more power while remaining reliable and much more.
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  2093.  @crustyoldfart  You seem to be stuck in ignorance. Is slow to change developing the best control system for fighters? is slow to change developing some of the best most effective weapons of the war? SU and many other companies made carburetors, amazing that they did that as to would a carburetor manufacturer change to making less efficient and less reliable fuel injection? Not bloody likely. Would that same company go on in a short time to make a working reliable injection system,? They did and it was in use on Spitfires. I recall 0.303 bullets going right through enemy aircraft and many Luftwaffe bombers going home full of holes, as for bouncing off the thin metal fuselage or wing surface hardly likely at all. You do not like to admit that the British used 20 mm in fighters before the Luftwaffe, the Bf 109 started out with just two light machine guns and they started to increase their number of guns, first to three after they saw the RAF had eight in the Hurricane and Spitfire. I know people like you who claim to be engineers but show the knowledge of someone who does not get past sweeping floors has trouble understanding anything to do with technology or how things were developed. You have failed to show how the British who were in reality at the front of technology in most fields during the war and how they quickly developed some of the most devastating weapons of the war. While Germany was desperate to come up with some wonder weapon to save them Britain developed what worked and still beat Germany and USA in most areas including jet engine design. As a real engineer I used to work with a rather lovely young German lady and it was a standing joke between us when we were deciding what to do. " Lets have a cuppa tea" She is no longer there having left to go to another job but is still a friend and no our friendship is based on mutual respect and since I am too old and we are both married there is nothing more than a good friendship.
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  2244. In 2015, an auditor with the Federal Aviation Administration discovered a Boeing subcontractor was falsifying certifications on cargo doors for hundreds of 777s and had been doing so for years, according to interviews and government documents. Boeing mechanics were leaving tools inside plane wings, precariously close to the cables that control their movements. Workers also were improperly installing wires in 787s, which could increase the risk of shorts or fires, FAA officials found. Repeatedly, safety lapses were identified, and Boeing would agree to fix them, then fail to do so, the FAA said. The agency launched or was considering more than a dozen legal enforcement cases against the company for failing to comply with safety regulations, a review of FAA records shows, with fines that could have totaled tens of millions of dollars. So FAA officials tried a new approach. Rather than pursue each violation separately, agency officials bundled them together and negotiated a broader deal. In 2015, the FAA decided to try to get Boeing to meet, then go beyond, federal safety requirements by addressing broader corporate culture and governance issues, including what agency officials considered a lack of transparency. The week before Christmas of that year, Boeing and the FAA signed a five-year settlement agreement that was unprecedented in scope. The company paid a modest $12 million penalty, but it agreed to make significant changes in its internal safety systems and practices for “ensuring compliance” with regulations. In the days after the agreement was signed, top U.S. officials cast it as a powerful reminder that every company, no matter its size, must comply with minimum safety standards. But Boeing’s profits after signing the deal topped $20 billion by the end of September 2018, making the company’s $12 million penalty easy to gloss over despite occasional press reports of the firm’s shortcomings. The company committed to improving the quality and timeliness of information it provides to the FAA. But in the case of the 737 Max, the FAA said, it took Boeing more than a year to notify it about a software problem that disabled a crucial warning light connected to the automated system at the center of the tragedies.
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  2441. I got a call last night supposedly from NSI, about my online account, it seems that there was illegal activity on my account, I don't have an onlie trading account so I said I know, there probably is, that didn't go down too well, he said there either is or isn't. So I said OK, noow you are going to tell me you can get my money back and you only want a small percentage, he said we don't want any money so I said well what do you want? he said we have all of your information, full name, email and phone, so I said what is my name, he got it wrong and the email wrong so I said wrong, try again, he was getting angry and he said if it is wrong you deliberately gave the wrong information and we can report you for that, I said go ahead report me, I don't care, this went on for a bit until he hung up, I guess he didn't like being called a scammer, the funny thing is he said at the start that NSI is a US organisation and has branches in Australia and New Zealand, he didn't say which country he was in but since he used a UK phone number and I an in New Zealand, I knew he was a scammer and not in UK, Australia or New Zealand, funny how he sounded like an Indian. There is an NSI in New Zealand but it is different from NSI in USA. In New Zealand it is National Student Index while in USA NSI is a partnership among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement that establishes a national capacity for gathering, documenting, processing, analyzing, and sharing SAR information—also referred to as the SAR process—in a manner that rigorously protects the privacy and civil liberties of Americans.
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  2527. Quite simply the XP 47 J was not a fighter and according to some of the people there at the time it only did about 480 mph. The Bearcat when it entered service did 421 mph so far from fast. The Tempest I was not a failure, it didn't enter service because it had one of the optional engines and the Tempest V and Tempest II were used in service. The CAC Kangaroo in 1947 was as fast as the Spitfire Mk XIV in 1943, not really impressive. The Spitfire Mk 21 did enter ervice in early 1945, but the Spitfire Mk XIV which did 447 mph in 1943 and much more by 1944 should be counted especially since it was the fastest fighter in service during the war. The Ta 152 had issues and onky just saw combat, of the 7 claims one of the pilots was credited with 3 but he said that he never shot down a single aircraft when flying the Ta 152, 3 Ta 152's were shot down by Spitfires. One Tempest crashed in a fight but the pilot was inexperienced and 2 Ta 152's were lost in the same encounter. There was a Yak 3M 108 which with a light fuel load and no armament did 463 mph, does an unarmed aircraft count as a fighter? Also the engine overheating issues meant that only 1 hr and 17 minutes of flight testing was completed. The Shinden prototype looks like a copy of the Miles Libellula, but not a fighter. The speed for the F 4 U 4 seems a bit higher than was achieved in post war flight tests. The P 47 M may have achieved 470 mph but reliability was an issue and they were barely in the war when they had to be grounded for replacement engines, the speed with the new engines may well have been considerably lower but no one seems to know. The Hornet did enter sergvce after the war but was delayed due to DH being busy on other aircraft, the prototype achieved 485 mph during the war. The Do 335 had serious issues with overheating of the rear engine, they only got into a test squadron. The Spiteful was fast or an armed fighter so should count, Supermarine made the Attacker and the Swift which set the world air speed record but gets overshadowed by the Hawker Hunter. The P 51 H which had an estimated top speed of 487 mph but thid esd revised by NAA to 472 mph but in flight tests in 1946 and 1946 it barely did 450 mph, I am inclined to believe it could have done 472 mph if the water injection worked but Packard doesn't seem to have solved the issues. The XP 72 was another experimental aircraft so once more not a fighter. I don't count the Spiteful F XVI since it never went into production but that appliies to a number of other aircraft on this list.
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  2538.  @metoo3773  It would depend on the speed limit, how often can you do 200 km? In France on a highway heading towards Paris there was a 130 kmh speed limit which reduced to 110 kmh and then to 90 kmh, I did suffer range anxiety in the Toyota I was driving, in New Zealand the maximum open road speed limit is 100 kmh, in USA I have mostly seen 70 mph or about 110 kmh. Australia 100 kmh or 110 kmh. I doubt there are any petrol or diesel cars that can do 200 kmh for 800 kms, range goes down with speed once you go over 100 kmh. I drive a route of 500 kms and I stop at least three times, I usually drive the first 140 kms which I have done in 1 1/2 hours since it involves a lot of winding road and a bit of climbing, at that point I am ready for a break, remember the 1 1/2 hours I have done twice, once in a BMW, the other time in an MG Montego, I have driven the same route in Toyota, Nissan and Mazda and they have taken longer, probably about 1 3/4 hours. The range anxiety I have encountered in Mazda and Nissan on the return since the last 140 kmh there is only one garage and it is not always open, I have topped up with a 1/4 tank which should be enough to get home but are you going to say that you have never stopped for fuel when the tank had less than a 1/4 left? The test I mentioned was in Australia so they would have been doing about 100 kmh and both cars would have to stop at least once, the cars were from memory both Hyundai, being the same car but one the Kona EV and the other the petrol version, I believe the EV had to stop three times, the petrol just once for fuel but two of the stops for the EV were quite short, the petrol car driver had to stop at least three times so even if he had a range of 800 kms which he didn't he would still have to stop for food or a quick break. I have timed my journeys in petrol cars for this very reason and as long as I can do 160 kms realistic range which means stopping to charge at 20 % or so and maybe only charging to 80 % I could manage quite well without long stops, there are enough charging locations now to make it quite realistic, there are EV's which can top 300 kms quite easily.
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  2677.  @blackpowder4016  Packard made 0 changes to the engines they were given to copy, maybe Packard had trouble with their castings but what else is one to expect? No changes that Rolls Royce had not already incoroporated in their engines. I do not care if people in USA use the Packard conrod, probably because they are using the Packard engines. Packard did use a US supercharger which was heavier and less efficient. Packard also used locally available bearings only because they were locally available, for no other reason. RR did have the two speed supercharger for the Merlin engine it was being fitted to Merlins in 1941 and used on the production Merlin 60 series. Packard didn't make any copies of the merlin 60 until later. SU not a subsidiarry of Rolols Royce was approached by RR to see if they could make a larger version of the speed density carburetor which was very efficient, SU did and they worked together. After Miss Shilling and her team at RR had improved the negative G problem in 1940 they went on to fully solve it in 1941. They then went to SU and RR Used the Speed denisity carburetor on Merlin engines, RR also gave this to Bendix whocopied it and that is what went onto Packard Merlin engines but Bendix still called it a pressure carburetor. Now you really show how little you know RR used to take parts like Bearings and hand fit them, they used a practice which allowed for the bearings to be gently scraped to fit, it takes expertise which Packard never had, I know because i have done it when working with a retireed RR engineer many years ago. Packard just slapped any bearing in and hoped for the best. I managed to fit bearings to very fine tolerances after a little practice. The rest is pretty much US propaganda. So Ford of Britain did a good job, RR also did very well and not only many more Merlin engines but RR was also making all of the RR Grifffon engines, jet engines and other designs along with all of the development. Then there was the plant set up in Britain by RR just to fix problemson new Packard delivered engines. Your comic books do not tell you that do they? No wonder your rant ended up in my trash folder, I only just noticed it today.
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