Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "Curious Droid"
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@standriggs2420
The Mustang was basically a British plane made by an American manufacturer for them. The British Air Ministry directed a six year old inexperienced company, North American Aviation, to the design points they wanted for their plane. British engineers assisted North American who drew it up, as a university lecturer would do in directing students to research various points in a project. The students run off do the research with the lecturer assessing what they did and how it fits into the project as a whole. The Mustang was a British plane made by an American company for them. There was no US forces involvement in the concept, specifications or design. Many Americans lose sight of these fundamental points.
The Rolls Royce Merlin engine made the Mustang perform superbly. The plane initially used an Allison engine, which was only good at low level, as RR could not meet the supply of Merlins at the time, so the Alison it had to be. The US were behind the British in engine supercharging with the Tizard Mission giving the USA details of advanced super charging. Also the cylinder head design of the Alison was not good enough for full supercharging. Stanley Hooker of RR developed the auto controlled twin-speed twin-charger supercharging technology which was given free to the USA. The first use of the Mustang by the US military was for ground attack because of the poor high level performance of the Allison engine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by4lH2whhjk
In the early stages of WW2, the U.S. government allowed the British & French to by-pass them, allowing direct approaches to U.S. aircraft makers, as would the British government approach say Hawker. The British needed all types of planes urgently, even the P-40 which was inferior to their own front line planes. But warplanes they were, being useful in certain theatres and for training.
In early February 1940 the British asked North American Aviation's President Dutch Kindelberger to supply P-40s made under licence from Curtiss, as Curtiss could not supply demand. Unlike Curtiss, North American's factory was far from operating at capacity. Kindelberger told the British, "I can build you a better airplane, and I can get it built fast". Contrary to popular belief in the USA, North American did not have a prototype ready design which the Brits just happened to have snapped up under the noses of the US military. The design was developed over many months with British engineers at the British Air MInistry's office in New York.
North American were first approached in Feb 1940, who had no "detailed drawings or plans". The British gave this young inexperienced company a chance but they would have to hold their hands. In May 1940 as France was falling, North American still never presented any detailed plans, mailing a design concept drawings to the British delegation in New York. This never had the famed laminar flow wings. After back and forth, the Air Ministry accepted the design starting the Mustang project. The British Air Ministry accepted the inferior Allison engine as Rolls Royce were working flat out 24/7 unable to meet demand for Merlins. New Merlin factories were being set up but not yet fully on-line.
In the interim from Feb to May, three months, the British Air Ministry were forming the fundamentals of the design concepts directing North American to Curtiss and NACA the developer of the laminar flow wings, to ensure a fighter with some leading edge design points, not produce another P-40 fly-alike wasting valuable time. The Air Ministry directed NAA to the Curtiss XP-46 experimental plane with all the leading edge design points of top European designs, with a few of their own, rolled into one.
NAA were ordered by the British Air Ministry to buy the plans and test results of the XP-46 plane from Curtiss and study them as they had never built a fighter, if they wanted the job, at a whopping $56,000, a lot of money at the time. Curtiss engineers always said the Mustang was their design. Not quite as the British Air Ministry had a lot to say in the leading design points - they were paying and calling the shots as it was their plane. There was a danger the Mustang may end up the same way as the XP-46 - a plane with leading edge points that never performed as expected in one package. The British Air Ministry took a major gamble with NAA so were active in approving the emerging design points.
The Ministry wanted something better than the poor P-40, being prepared to wait, but realistically never expected Spitfire performance. Initially that was the case with the first deliveries using the Allison engine - better than a P-40 but no Spitfire. The initial Allison engined Mustangs filled an RAF niche, so no problems for the British at that point. A niche the plane filled was that the RAF needed a long range reconnaissance plane that could also perform ground attack being able as a low level fighter if the need was there. The Spitfire was a short range fast interceptor. With the fall of France the RAF needed a plane with range to penetrate over the German border from English air bases.
Reading many US books on the Mustang you would think the concept of the plane was to escort US bombers. That is fanciful. The last thing the British Air Ministry were thinking of when laying down the points of the plane was US bomber doctrine. The US were not even in the war. Initially the US military overall didn't want to know the plane. The Mustang was not even in U.S. service when it was shooting down FW-190s by the RAF over France. The Air Ministry gave the U.S. military two planes which were left in the corner of a hangar for a long period, initially not assessing it. Quite amazing, as the USA never had a decent front line fighter at the time.
The excuse not to take up the plane by U.S. forces was that it was liquid cooled and vulnerable in frontal attack. This was a poor excuse to reject the plane because it wasn't theirs. What went over their heads was that the world's two best fighters locked horns in the Battle of Britain, both with liquid cooled engines. With British support, the Mustang finally was noticed by the U.S. Army Air Force. The US military had to go to England to fully assess the plane as it was finished off in Liverpool being flow by the RAF. They did eventually adopt the Mustang calling it the Apache and P-51 when in U.S. service.
UK and U.S. Mustangs for the European war theatre were finished off in Liverpool. They were test flown then delivered to the units by young English girls, many of them teenagers. The Mustang was built to British specification and design guidance without a doubt. They specified and paid for it. It never performed at all like the short range interceptor the Spitfire, not having the manoeuvrability of the Spitfire. It was 'fine' and reasonably fast at low altitude with the Allison engine. It could operate over France and even Germany at a push, escorting bombers because of the longer range that the British Air Ministry specified. The Mustang filled a niche role for the British. continued......
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....Continued...
North American were not working on installing a Merlin engine before Rolls Royce. Rolls engineers under Ron Harker went to North American to advise on what to do. They also gave advice from their work with the RR Mustang X. Rolls-Royce made the first proposal to North American about a Merlin 45 engine Mustang in 1940, after Stanley Hooker improved the power by 30%. This was before the plane was operational an still in the R&D stage. The RR Merlin now was greatly superior to the Alison engine, to what it was in February 1940 when North American were approached by the Air Ministry. The later Merlin 61 had the two-stage auto controlled supercharging developed again by Stanley Hooker. This gave an extra 70 mph and 15,000 feet of operation to the Merlin. A quantum leap. The pilot just went where he liked without degradation in performance.
RR sent three engineers led by James Ellor to supervise the adaption and manufacture of a Packard built Merlin 61, the same type that was already being considered for the Rolls Royce Mustang X experimental series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Mustang_Mk.X
On 9 June 1942, the first memos from W/C I.R. Campell-Orde of the RAF Air Fighting Development Unit at Duxford, reveal that an effort was being made to convince North American to adopt a Merlin-powered Mustang. Work in the US was setback due to an initial lack of interest and also to mechanical failures of the first Merlin engines built under licence by Packard. Both projects commenced at nearly the same time with the first Mustang X in the air about a month earlier than the North American XP-51B.
The RR Mustang-X programme was 5 or 6 airframes each with different experimentation. RR attempted to have North American accept British Merlin 61s (the two-stage superchargers) in American airframes, it is clear that the prime contractor (NAA) wanted to control the project as control was looking like it was to move over to the UK. NAA was essentially building production-standard aircraft rather than the experimental series that saw each of the RR Mustang Xs trying out new variations of design. An offshoot was the mid-engine RR Griffon engined Mustang that actually made it to the mock-up stage, albeit with a Merlin installed amidships. On the success of the RR Mustang-X built in Nottingham, the Air Ministry ordered hundreds from RR, who declined wanting to remain specialising in engines. NAA remained the prime contractor.
Rolls Royce mass produced Merlins in Crewe, Manchester and Glasgow, licensing Packard in the USA to make them supplying the Canadian aircraft factories - to avoid a two-way trans-Atlantic trip using idle US industry. An agreement was reached in September 1940, with the first Packard built Merlin engine running in August 1941.
Early in 1944 the P-38, P-51B Mustang and P-47C, were dived by the British for compressibility testing at the RAE Farnborough, England at the request of the USAAF. They had trouble when these planes dived onto attacking German fighters when providing top cover for the bombers. The results were that the Mach numbers, the manoeuvring limits, were Mach 0.68 for the P-38, Mach 0.71 for the P-47, and Mach 0.78 for the Mustang. The corresponding figures for the FW-190 and Me109 was Mach 0.75. The tests resulted in the Mustang being chosen for all escort duties.
- Page 70, Wings On My Sleeve by Eric Brown, who did the test.
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@myrtistaylor5759
He does not go into great detail. That is the idea, it is an overview. He does explain that a transistor can be:
1) An amplifier of a signal - making the signal stronger as it passes through. An example is that a weak radio signal can be made stronger to power a speaker.
2) A gate. A gate is just that, it stops the signal, as a light switch does, or allows the signal to go through, as a light switch does. Using it as a gate it is a relay. One circuit switches on and off another.
As the gate is either on or off, it is ideal for the binary numbering system which is 0 and 1 (base 2). We use in our everyday use base 10 because we have 10 fingers. This is a cumbersome way of using an electronic component as a device is switching on and off a signal, not having it continuous and moving all the way fast as in an analogue form - electricity moves at approx' 1,860 miles per second. It is inefficiently stopping and starting.
But here is what makes it feasible. Having 60 billion transistors in a device that can carry out two billion on and off switches per second, binary calculations can be performed amazingly quickly.
How does that make a modern digital electronic device work? A computer, computes, constantly calculating. That is what it is doing underneath. The so-called computer devices we use, the function is not computing for the end user - using a web browser on a smart phone is not adding up numbers. To achieve what the end user wants, an amazing level of calculations are performed underneath using the binary, base 2 system. All performed by the Central Processor Unit (CPU) and other components that contain transistors used as gates.
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@TroubleShooter1337
Supercharging is as old as the internal combustion engine. The British took supercharging to another level. After Stanley Hooker, a pilot just took his plane anywhere in the sky, with all flaps, supercharging speeds, etc, all done automatically. Before, a pilot had to open air flaps at various heights, etc. A massive difference. Hooker put another 15,000 feet and 70mph on the Merlin 61.
The first time FW-190s met the Spitfire Mk 9, with the Hooker supercharging, they were salaughtered.
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Mocsk
War Production:
• Germany was third behind the USA, then the
UK in GDP, in 1939.
• Germany = UK in capital goods production in 1939.
• UK economy grows 60% during WW2.
• Hitler says to Guderian, re: USSR, "had I known they
had so many tanks as that, I would have thought
twice before invading"
- World War Two, chapter War Production by Keegan.
"Combined GDP of the UK and France exceeded Germany & Italy by 60%."
- Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze, Preface, xxiii:
"It was poor because of the incomplete industrial and economic development of Germany".
- Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze, page 454.
"Soviet exceeded German GDP in 1940"
"The Allies won the war because their economies supported a greater volume of war production and military personnel in larger numbers. This was true of the war as a whole, and it was also true on the eastern front where the Soviet economy, of a similar size to Germany's but less developed and also seriously weakened by invasion, supplied more soldiers and weapons."
"the technological key to Soviet superiority in the output of weapons was mass production. At the outbreak of war Soviet industry as a whole was not larger and not more productive than German industry. The non-industrial resources on which Soviet industry could draw were larger than Germany's in the sense of territory and population, but of considerably lower quality, more far-flung, and less well integrated. Both countries had given considerable thought to industrial mobilisation preparations, but the results were of questionable efficacy. In both countries war production was poorly organised at first and productivity in the military-industrial sector had been falling for several years. The most important difference was that Soviet industry had made real strides towards mass production, while German industry was still locked into an artisan mode of production that placed a premium on quality and assortment rather than quantity. Soviet industry produced fewer models of each type of weapon, and subjected them to less modification, but produced them in far larger quantities. Thus the Soviet Union was able to make considerably more effective use of its limited industrial resources than Germany.
"Before the war Soviet defence industry was in a state of permanent technological reorganisation as new models of aircraft, tanks, and other weapons were introduced and old ones phased out at dizzying rate."
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/publications/twerp603.pdf
The USSR had access to oil, more natural resources, and far more men. Giving them the ability to produce far greater than Germany, which actually happened.
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...Continued... Rolls Royce. Rolls engineers under Ron Harker went to North American to advise on how to install a Merlin engine in the Mustang. They also gave advice from their work with the RR Mustang X. Rolls-Royce made the first proposal to North American regarding a Merlin 45 engine Mustang in 1940, after Stanley Hooker improved the power by 30%. This was before the plane was operational an still in the R&D stage. The RR Merlin was superior to the Alison engine, also to what it was in February 1940 when North American were first approached by the Air Ministry. The later Merlin 61 had the two-stage auto controlled superchanging developed by again by Stanley Hooker. This gave an extra 70 mph and 15,000 feet of operation to the Merlin. A quantum leap. The pilot just went where he liked without degradation in performance.
RR sent three engineers led by James Ellor to supervise the adaption and manufacture of a Merlin 61, built under licence by Packard, the same type that was already being considered for the Rolls Royce Mustang X experimental series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Mustang_Mk.X
On 9 June 1942, the first memos from W/C I.R. Campell-Orde of the RAF Air Fighting Development Unit at Duxford, revealed that an effort was being made to convince North American to adopt a Merlin-powered Mustang. Work in the US was setback due to an initial lack of interest and also to mechanical failures of the first Merlin engines built under licence by Packard. Both projects commenced at nearly the same time with the first Mustang X in the air about a month earlier than the North American XP-51B.
The RR Mustang-X programme was 5 or 6 airframes each with different experimentation. RR attempted to have North American accept British Merlin 61s (the two-stage superchargers) in American airframes, it is clear that the prime contractor (NAA) wanted to control the project as control was looking like it was to move over to the UK. NAA was essentially building production-standard aircraft rather than the experimental series that saw each of the RR Mustang Xs trying out new variations of design. An offshoot was the mid-engine RR Griffon engined Mustang that actually made it to the mock-up stage, albeit with a Merlin installed amidships. On the success of the RR Mustang-X built in Nottingham, the Air Ministry ordered hundreds from RR, who declined wanting to remain specialising in engines. NAA remained the prime contractor.
Rolls Royce mass produced Merlins in Crewe, Manchester and Glasgow, also licensing Packard in the USA, using idle US industry. The US made Merlins were to supply the Canadian aircraft factories - to avoid a two-way trans-Atlantic trip and give extra manufacturing when the engine proved very popular with many airframe makers. An agreement was reached in September 1940, with the first Packard built Merlin engine running in August 1941.
Early in 1944 the P-38, P-51B Mustang and P-47C, were dived by the British for compressibility testing at the RAE Farnborough, England at the request of the USAAF. They had trouble when these planes dived onto attacking German fighters when providing top cover for the bombers. The results were that the Mach numbers, the manoeuvring limits, were Mach 0.68 for the P-38, Mach 0.71 for the P-47, and Mach 0.78 for the Mustang. The corresponding figures for the FW-190 and Me109 was Mach 0.75. The tests resulted in the Mustang being chosen for all escort duties. - Page 70, Wings On My Sleeve by Eric Brown, who did the test.
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The Mustang was basically a British plane made by an American manufacturer for them. The British Air Ministry directed a six year old inexperienced company, North American Aviation, to the design points they wanted for their plane. They assisted North American who drew it up, as a university lecturer would do in directing students to research various points in a project. The students run off do the research with the lecturer assessing what they did and how it fits into the project as a whole. The Mustang was a British plane made by an American company for them. There was no US forces involvement in the concept, specifications or design. Many Americans lose sight of these fundamental points.
The Rolls Royce Merlin engine made the Mustang perform superbly. The plane initially used an Allison engine, which was only good at low level, as RR could not meet the supply of Merlins at the time, so the Alison it had to be. The US were behind the British in engine supercharging with the Tizard Mission giving the USA details of advanced super charging. Also the cylinder head design of the Alison was not good enough for full supercharging. Stanley Hooker of RR developed the auto controlled twin-speed twin-charger supercharging technology which was given free to the USA. The first use of the Mustang by the US military was for ground attack because of the poor high level performance of the Allison engine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by4lH2whhjk
In the early stages of WW2, the U.S. government allowed the British & French to by-pass them allowing direct approaches to U.S. aircraft makers, as would the British government approach say Hawker. The British needed all types of planes urgently, even the P-40 which was inferior to their own front line planes. But warplanes they were being useful in certain theatres and for training.
In early February 1940 the British asked North American Aviation's President Dutch Kindelberger to supply P-40s made under licence from Curtiss, as Curtiss could not supply demand. Unlike Curtiss North American were far from near full capacity. Kindelberger told the British, without any detailed drawings or plans, "I can build you a better airplane, and I can get it built fast". Contrary to popular belief in the USA, North American did not have a prototype ready design which the Brits just happened to have snapped up under the noses of the US military.
North American were first approached in Feb 1940, who had no "detailed drawings or plans". The British gave this young inexperienced company a chance but they would have to hold their hands. In May 1940 as France was falling, North American still never presented any detailed plans, mailing a "design concept" to the British delegation in New York. This never had the famed laminar flow wings. The British Air Ministry accepted the inferior Allison engine as Rolls Royce were working flat out 24/7 unable to meet demand for Merlins. New Merlin factories were being set up but not yet fully on-line.
In the interim from Feb to May, three months, the British Air Ministry were forming the fundamentals of the design concepts directing North American to Curtiss and NACA the developer of the laminar flow wings, to ensure a fighter with some leading edge design points, not produce another P-40 fly-alike wasting valuable time. The Air Ministry directed NAA to the Curtiss XP-46 experimental plane with all the leading edge design points of top European designs, with a few of their own, rolled into one. It never worked as the individual points never complimented each other when merged into one complete whole.
NAA were ordered by the British Air Ministry to buy the plans and test results of the XP-46 plane from Curtiss if they wanted the job, at a whopping $52,000, a lot of money at the time. Curtiss engineers always said the Mustang was their design. Not quite as the British Air Ministry had a lot to say in the leading design points - they were paying and calling the shots as it was their plane. There was a danger the Mustang may end up the same way as the XP-46 - a plane with leading edge points that never performed as expected. The British Air Ministry took a major gamble with NAA so were active in approving the emerging design points.
The Ministry wanted something better than the poor P-40, being prepared to wait, but realistically never expected Spitfire performance. Initially that was the case with the first deliveries using the Allison engine - better than a P-40 but no Spitfire. The initial Allison engined Mustangs filled an RAF niche, so no problems for the British at that point. A niche the plane filled was that the RAF needed a long range reconnaissance plane that could also perform ground attack being able as a low level fighter if the need was there. The Spitfire was a short range fast interceptor. With the fall of France the RAF needed a plane with range to penetrate over the German border from English air bases.
Reading many US books on the Mustang you would think the concept of the plane was to escort US bombers. That is way off from the truth. The last thing the British Air Ministry were thinking of when laying down the points of the plane was US bomber doctrine. The US were not even in the war. Initially the US military overall didn't want to know the plane. The Mustang was not even in U.S. service when it was shooting down FW-190s by the RAF over France. The Air Ministry gave the U.S. military two planes which were left in the corner of a hangar for a long period. They initially never assessed it. Quite amazing, as the USA never had a decent front line fighter at the time.
The excuse not to take up the plane by U.S. forces was that it was liquid cooled and vulnerable in frontal attack. This was a poor excuse to reject the plane because it wasn't theirs. What went over their heads was that the world's two best fighters locked horns in the Battle of Britain, both with liquid cooled engines. With British support, the Mustang finally was noticed by the U.S. Army Air Force. The US military had to go to England to fully assess the plane as it was finished off in Liverpool being flow by the RAF. They did eventually adopt the plane calling it the Apache and P-51 when in U.S. service.
UK and U.S. Mustangs for the European war theatre were finished off in Liverpool. They were test flown then delivered to the units by young English girls, many of them teenagers. The Mustang was built to British specification and design guidance without a doubt. They specified and paid for it. It never performed at all like the short range interceptor the Spitfire, not having the manoeuvrability of the Spitfire. It was 'fine' and reasonably fast at low altitude with the Allison engine. It could operate over France and even Germany at a push escorting bombers because of the longer range that the British Air Ministry specified. The Mustang filled a niche role for the British. continued......
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@charleswesley9907 Ther USA asset stripped Britain. They made a profit on WW2. British and French orders pre and during WW2 got rid of American soup lines. The British owned a substantial parts of US industry - about 1/5 to 1/4. This had to be sold to US interests before material, finished or raw, would flow. Churchill said "Give us the tools and we will finish the job". He never asked for men. In December 1940 Roosevelt stated that Britain was the USAs first line of defence. Since Britain needed supplies to help protect American security, America wouldn't give anything without payment. In the first two years of war, Roosevelt had drained Britain dry, stripping her of all her assets in the USA, including real estate and industry. An example is, the British owned Viscose Company, worth £125 million and was liquidated with Britain receiving only £87 million.
Britain's £1,924 million investments in Canada were sold off to pay for raw materials bought in the United States. Roosevelt to ensure he got his money dispatched USS Louisville to British South African naval base at Simonstown to collect £42 million worth of British gold. This was Britain's last negotiable asset. This paid for American guns and ammunition. Not content with stripping Britain of her gold and assets, in return for 50 old World War I rusting destroyers (they were a political move), Roosevelt demanded that Britain transfer all her scientific and technological secrets to the USA - FREE. What price were these? He also demanded territory before supplying raw materials, but settled for 99 year leases on the islands of Newfoundland, Jamaica, Trinidad and Bermuda for establishing American military and naval bases in case Britain should fall.
Of the 50 old, leaking, rusting and hardly operational WW1 destroyers supplied to Britain, most were never used and those serviceable were given to the USSR, France and Poland and Norway.
Lend-Lease was designed to serve the USAs interests in fighting Germany without entering the war. In December 1940 Roosevelt asserted that England was America's first line of defense. Since Britain needed supplies to help protect American security.
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Guy Parris
Prof Adam Tooze, Wages of Destruction - The making and breaking of the Nazi economy:
Page 273
"If Hitler had wanted war on 1 October 1938, he could have had it. The French and British had reached the point at which they could make no further concessions. The armies of France and the Soviet Union had mobilized. The Royal Navy stood at full alert. On 9 September 1938 it was Hitler who stepped back not his opponents"
Page 274
"Hitler backed down and accepted the extraordinarily generous settlement on offer at the hastily convened conference in Munich. In so doing, he almost certainly saved his regime from disaster."
Hitler was more nervous at Munich in 1938. The USSR, France and the Royal Navy were at action stations. Hitler backed away from war - he could have had it if he wanted. However the Brits & French gave him too much in the negotiations making it look too much like appeasement.
If the British and French said a clear "no" to everything Hitler demanded over Czechoslovakia he would have backed down. Brinkmanship of course, but the cards were stacked against Germany.
Chamberlain actually declared war on Germany.
Niall Ferguson in The War of the World, page 332, states:
"the Americans were eager to appease Germany as anyone in Britain".
Roosevelt wanted to give the Polish corridor back to them. The USA just prior to WW2 increased exports dramatically to Germany.
On page 333, he states:
"In Asia, the USA had already established a pattern of calling on others to take stands against aggression, while pursuing its own economic interest". "When Roosevelt began to do the same in Europe too, Chamberlain concluded that Americans were "a nation of cads". He said "it is best and safest to count on nothing from the Americans except words".
Chamberlain, distrusted the Americans to a degree viewing them as economic opportunist. He wasn't far wrong as they made a profit on WW2..
Ferguson states that the UK and France in 1938 should have rolled over the German border instead of Chamberlain engaging in shuttle diplomacy over Czechoslovakia. The German militarily would not have stood a chance. Although this is this being more wise in hindsight by Ferguson. Churchill said that throwing a small state to the wolves to obtain peace was highly delusionary, supporting an advance into Germany in 1938.
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@Excellent226002
There is a myth that the Germans were way ahead of the British in jet engines and planes in WW2, when the opposite is true. The WW2 German jet engines were extremely unreliable with low performances and very high fuel consumption. The German axial-flow turbojets never worked as they wanted being developed up to 1953 by the French to obtain a usable engine. The French lost a lot of time playing around with the German engines, instead of working with the British. The French and Soviets after WW2 tried to improve the German axial-flow engines and largely failed.
The Germans did not invent the axial-flow turbojet, they based everything on Frank Whittle's patents. The British Metropolitan-Vickers F.1 axial-flow engine was running on a test bed in 1941. The F.2 was an axial-flow being an extremely advanced design using a nine-stage axial compressor, annular combustor, and a two-stage turbine. It powered a Meteor in November 1943. It was considered unreliable and never saw use during the war, hence why the British went for the reliability, controllability and quick development of the centrifugal turbojets. The Metro-Vick F.3 was the first ever turbofan in 1943. Metro-Vick developed the F.9 Sapphire, however left the jet business in 1947 giving all their designs to Armstrong Siddeley, who commercially produced the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire engine, which was licence built in the US as the J-65.
The British in order to get a usable and reliable jet engine, with the technology of the time, went for a centrifugal design rather than the troublesome axial-flow design. This design produced less thrust than an axial-flow but was quicker to develop and reliable outperforming the best piston engines planes at the time. It took 5 months to develop, while the first reliable axial-flow engine was the 1950 Rolls Royce Avon, which took 5 years to get right. The Avon is still in production as a ground based gas turbine, with the aero version in production for 30 years.
In 1945 the French made and tested some German designed turbo jets made with quality steel unavailable to German industry in WW2. They ran for 25 hours instead of the 10 hours of the Germans engines that used poorer quality steel. Not much better. The German axial-flow engines failed because of heavy design flaws. The centrifugal compressor used by the first British Meteor plane was fine and much more reliable, but unable to reach high compression ratios. This limited performances. Centrifugal compressors were used up to the 1960s.
In 1945 the team from the French ATAR laboratory plus some BMW and Junkers engineers, were engaged by the French SNECMA research bureau, with the objective to build a new reliable and performing axial-flow turbojet. The BMW 003/Jumo004 was considered unusable. It was tested on the first French jet aircraft, the 1946 So6000 Triton, overheating and exploding. The plane only flew with a Rolls Royce Nene centrifugal turbojet.
The ATAR project took 6 years to produce the first acceptable axial-flow turbojet (ATAR 101 B1), produced in 1953. So 8 years research and developments by the French using the German jet engines as the base. It was installed on the first French jet fighter, the Dassault Ouragan.
The French lost a lot of time because the German jets had poor efficiency and some concept fails. Essentially in the combustion chambers and fresh air circulation to reduce the external temperature of the engine. The BMW jet was known for overheat problems which precluded fuselage installation.
The question at the end of WW2 was: what is the most efficient way to produce jet fighters? The answer was clearly not adopting the German design of engine and fuselage. The build costs for a jet engine were much higher than a piston engine, with the fuel consumption near 3x. The centrifugal compressor the British adopted in some planes was the best choice with 1944-45 technology, more compression pressure was not an advantage when the hot turbine was unable to resist higher temperatures. The German turbojets had big overheat problems as the engine would not work in an enclosed fuselage for single engined fighters. This defect was immediately noted by the French on the 1946 "SO 6000 Triton" prototype, and by the Soviets on the 1946 Mig 9. The Soviets quickly replaced the BMW 004B2 by the centrifugal Rolls Royce Nene which worked without problems, dismissing the BMW engine for fighter planes. The Rolls Royce Nene was copied to the last nut by the USSR being installed in the MIG 15 being used effectively in the Korean war.
The Meteor was the first proper fully developed jet plane introduced operationally. The 262 was slightly faster than the Meteor F3, but extremely unreliable. The British would never put into the sky such an undeveloped plane as the me262. The British could have had a jet fighter operational in 1941, but it may have been as bad as the me262. The Germans advanced R&D on jets after they interrogated captured British RAF men. They learned the British were advanced in jet technology and flying prototype planes. Until then the Germans had no intention of mass producing jet planes.
The rushed together Me262 started claiming kills on 26 July 1944, the Meteor claimed its first V1 kill a few days later on the 4 August 1944. But the Meteor was a proper fully developed jet plane, not a thrown together desperate effort as the me262 was. The me262 fuselage was similar to a piston plane with the pilot over the wings obscuring downward vision, while the Meteor was a proper new design fuselage specifically for jet fighters with a forward of the wings pilot position giving superior pilot vision, as we see in planes today. The cockpit was very quiet. The sweptback wings of the me262 were to move the engines further back for better weight distribution, not for aerodynamic reasons as is thought the case. The me262's airframe was based on piston engine planes, even with an initial rear tail wheel. The fame had some problems with the rudder giving poor stability. The tricycle landing gear was only introduced when it was found the thrust of the jet engines would scorch the runway surface as the exhaust faced downwards. The Meteor's airframe was designed purely for jet propulsion even with a high tail to prevent thrust interfering with the tail which could affect control.
Centrifugal compressors were not obsolete being used in turboprops. Between a turbo jet and a turboprop, the only difference is the turbine, not the compressor. The last centrifugal compressor jet engine still in service on a handful of commercial aircraft like the Fokker 27, is the Rolls Royce Dart turboprop. A very reliable engine made in 27 versions, but with high fuel consumption to modern engines. The Rolls Royce Dart Turboprop turbo jet engine was produced the longest, being a comparable design turbojet to the likes the Rolls Royce Nene. The rugged engine was produced from 1946 up to 1987.
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@jacktattis
Some info from: Allison-Engined P-51 Mustang, 1 (Air Vanguard) by Martyn Chorlton (2012).
1939:British looking at Curtiss P-40 to purchase. Curtiss were working flat out unable to supply. The Air Ministry approached North American Aviation to build the P-40s. NAA said they could build them a plane to RAF specs in the time it took to tool up for a P-40. They had a concept, no more. No detailed design drawings existed. The Air Ministry took it further.
Jan - April 1940 (three months):
NAA and British engineers at the British Purchasing Commission's offices in NYC, doing design to RAF specifications. They used a lot of free-hand conceptual drawings.
Sir Henry Self, the head, had concerns that NAA had no experience of designing and making a fighter after initial talks with British engineers. Self told NAA to buy, at great cost, the drawings and wind-tunnel test results for the Curtiss Xp-46 experimental plane then study them. The British and NAA engineers were told to look at the laminar flow wings based on work by Briton Merville-Jones, which NACA said they had made progress on. They were told to use the British developed Meredith effect radiator used by Spitfires.
Atwood, head of the NAA team in NYC was relaying back to NAA details when fixed to get draftsmen moving. After three months with a design nailed down between them, NAA went away, returning with detailed design drawings. The Air Ministry approved the presented drawings.
4 May 1940:
The Mustang project started with the signing of the contract. British expertise was used like Ken Bowen from Yorkshire, who designed the progressive curvature principle used to build the Mustang fuselage. This was quick to form and easy to jig.
29 May 1940:
After three weeks of seeing NAA operate, the Air Ministry ordered 320 planes.
9 September 1940:
First prototype completed for evaluation by the Ministry.
26 October 1940:
First flight in front of NAA and Ministry engineers. There were several British designers and engineers on the committee besides Ken Bowen. Bev Shenstone, designer of the Spitfire's wing, was sent to the USA who shaved off 600lbs in weight and redesigned the wings and parts of the fuselage.
Installing the RR Merlin is another chapter in itself.
.
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@jacktattis .
1939:
British looking at Curtiss P-40 to purchase. Curtiss were working flat out unable to supply. The Air Ministry approached North American Aviation to build the P-40s. NAA said they could build them a plane to RAF specs in the time it took to tool up for a P-40. They had a concept, no more. No detailed design drawings existed. The Air Ministry took it further.
Jan - April 1940 (three months):
NAA and British engineers at the British Purchasing Commission's offices in NYC, doing design to RAF specifications. They used a lot of free-hand conceptual drawings.
Sir Henry Self, the head, had concerns that NAA had no experience of designing and making a fighter after initial talks with British engineers. Self told NAA to buy, at great cost, the drawings and wind-tunnel test results for the Curtiss Xp-46 experimental plane then study them. The British and NAA engineers were told to look at the laminar flow wings based on work by Briton Merville-Jones, which NACA said they had made progress on. They were told to use the British developed Meredith effect radiator used by Spitfires.
Atwood, head of the NAA team in NYC was relaying back to NAA details when fixed to get draftsmen moving. After three months with a design nailed down between them, NAA went away, returning with detailed design drawings. The Air Ministry approved the presented drawings.
4 May 1940:
The Mustang project started with the signing of the contract. British expertise was used like Ken Bowen from Yorkshire, who designed the progressive curvature principle used to build the Mustang fuselage. This was quick to form and easy to jig.
29 May 1940:
After three weeks of seeing NAA operate, the Air Ministry ordered 320 planes.
9 September 1940:
First prototype completed for evaluation by the Ministry.
26 October 1940:
First flight in front of NAA and Ministry engineers. There were several British designers and engineers on the committee besides Ken Bowen. Bev Shenstone, designer of the Spitfire's wing, was sent to the USA who shaved off 600lbs in weight and redesigned the wings and parts of the fuselage.
Installing the Rolls-Royce Merlin is another chapter.
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@jacktattis
Bev Shenstone from Supermarine had designed the Spitfire wings worked as an advisor for NAA regarding aerodynamics on the Mustang. He lightened the plane by 600lbs. He also used the British Meredith principle from the English inventor of the same name.
Sir Bennett Melvill-Jones of Cambridge University later of RAE laid down the low drag laminar flow wing principles taken up by NACA. His specialties were drag. Melvill-Jones later did the gyroscopic gun sight.
Ken Bowen from Hull, East Yorkshire designed the progressive curvature principle used to build the fuselage, which had the blessing of being quick to form as well as and easy to jig.
The Rolls Royce Merlin was substituted when the Allison was not working out.
The Mustang was born in co-operation with British money financing it, and the first to buy it and use it were the RAF. The USAAF had nothing to do with the specification. A triumph of an aeroplane and one of the most outstanding fighters of the war.
An Anglo-US designed and built collaborative project, but for those who claim it as an all-American aircraft that is fine. Apart from the specification, wings, intake, assembly jigs, gyroscopic gunsight, engine, canopy and to lighten it by 600lbs.
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@staffordduecker665
A Frenchman, Eugène Houdry, invented cracking low grade oil into high octane fuel in 1937. Standard aviation fuel in Britain in the 1930s was 87 octane.
After Houdry's invention, in the late 1930s the RAF began to investigate the use of 100 octane, starting purchases of supplies in late 1937. Standard Oil in the USA was the only company that quickly got production up in volume of high octane fuel, so the RAF stockpiled readily available fuel from them, before releasing it for use in March 1940.
The stockpile was added to by British refineries at: Heysham, Billingham and Stanlow near Liverpool (Stanlow only later in the war), who engaged in high octane fuel production. By early November 1940, just after the Battle of Britain that stockpile was 500,000 tons in the UK, with enough reserve sufficient for 80 weeks consumption at the then present levels.
Large amounts were imported from the US, the Caribbean and Middle East once the US entered the war being based in the UK. The British had refineries In Iran, Haifa and Suez to supply the forces more local.
In 1943 the British began producing 100/150 octane fuel, going into full scale production in 1944. This fuel was only produced in Britain. The USA had plans to produce 115/145 during the war, but the demand on production of 100/130 meant that 115/145 was sidelined during the war.
It is wrong to say that the British got high octane fuel only from the USA in the early part of the war, although mist did come from the USA. Later in the war the British were producing higher octane fuel than the USA. The RAF was the first to exploit widely the use of high octane fuel.
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The Brits did. Germany's biggest mistake was declaring war in the first place. Once they waged war when was the point they could not win? That was when the British refused to make peace in June 1940. With Britain still in the war the Royal Navy blockade starved Germany, and the Axis, of vital resources, including food (animal & human) and oil. Britain was even buying up rare metals from Turkey to ensure the Germans did not have them. The Royal Navy controlled and freely sailed the eastern Atlantic and the eastern Mediterranean, and controlled both entrances to the Mediterranean. They even had Malta all through WW2, on the doorstep of Axis Italy. Britain's land forces were from Turkey to Libya. Essentially the British surrounded Europe, controlling the sea lanes.
The Royal Navy ensured the conflict with Germany would continue. Germany could not win from June 1940 onwards. Being a largely landlocked country, Germany's forces were heavily based on its army, while Britain's was heavily based on its navy and air force with a small highly mobile army. Germany could not remove Britain from the war having pretty well no surface fleet to Britain having the largest navy in the world.
Britain's approach was that every operation was to bleed Germany of resources, especially oil. Operations in Norway and Greece forced the Germans to deploy troops to these areas but also its surface fleet, which mainly was destroyed in Norway. The German occupied countries were also under the blockade, which were also a drain of German resources.
The British, because of its armed forces structure of massive navy, large air force and small highly mobile army were unable to engage the Germans on the European land mass, on which Germany had a massive army. Apart from the air, the two countries could not get at each other. Britain's war then was partially an economic war. Every German operation against the British had to be decisive whereas the British could lose to the Germans while still asserting economic pressure in its favour. This was the British way of war being very good at it. Britain used similar tactics against Germany in WW1 to devastating effects. This approach was used against the French on multiple occasions over 200 years. Smaller nations in Europe would follow Pax Britannica due British naval dominance. Britain could dictate any war's outcome by blocking trade and resources to one side or another.
The Germans like most of Europe relied on imported oil, raw materials and food (animal & human). For the Germans these resources can only come from two regions - the USSR or the rest of the world. By removing the rest of the world from the grasp of the Axis, the British forced the Germans to acquire Soviet oil - Romania did not produce enough. Hitler had no choice but to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941 because of the resources situation. He needed the resources of the USSR to fight the coming air war with Britain. In May 1940 Roosevelt stated the USA would produce 50,000 planes per year. Most of these would be directed towards Germany with British production on top.
Germany greatly expanded its U-Boat fleet. The popular view was that this fleet was to starve Britain into submission. That was valid but a high hope, however, it was also to divert and lock up Royal Navy resources in convoy protection and U-Boat hunting, allowing merchant ships to enter Germany and the occupied countries more freely.
Germany had been forced into a situation by the British that they knew they could not escape from. Even if Germany had seized the Caucuses' oil fields intact (the Soviets sabotaged them to the point new deep bore holes would need to be drilled) the British would have focused them for their bombing campaign operating from the Middle East - there were plans to bomb them as Britain held nearby Iraq and occupied Iran. This was to drain Germany of vital oil. Every British victory in Africa was decisive and every German victory was not, even if Germany won an operation, they were still being bled. Unless Germany could seize the Suez Canal and beyond, the British could just come back year after year and counter attack with new tanks and new men, with resources not being a problem for them.
Germany knew that they could not invade Britain as the Royal Navy was just too powerful. The RAF could replace losses far quicker than they could, as they found out in the air Battle of Britain. Germany could not put their large army on British soil.
After June 1940 Germany has an enemy it can’t defeat not entertaining peace, economically throttling the Germans every day of the war. Germany never had time, the British did. The German invasion of the USSR with an army short of resources due to the Royal Navy blockade, may have quickened the war's end for Germany, however it was not the point that Germany was doomed. Germany had already lost the war it was just a matter of time when Germany collapsed.
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Hydrogen fuel cell/electric traction technology is used in trains right now. A hydrogen fuel cell train is in fare paying service in Germany, with a trial scheduled to be on the Liverpool to Chester line. The Dept for Transport has put on hold expensive electrification of rail lines, as hydrogen trains is seen as the answer in replacing dirty, slow diesel trains on surface lines - with also zero emissions being far cheaper overall with no ugly overhead wire gantries.
The expense of wiring up thousands of miles of track, plus the ongoing maintenance costs, is more than introducing hydrogen trains where the hydrogen is produced in the train stabling depot by electricity, so no transport costs of the hydrogen. Buying the trains, setting up the hydrogen producing plant and building (or renting) wind turbines, is cheaper than full 3rd rail or overhead wires. The turbines do not have to be near the hydrogen production plant at the train depots. They can be offshore then fed into the grid. How much the turbines produce then feed into the grid, and how much the plant consumes from the grid, is easily metered.
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@PistonAvatarGuy
At the time the Alison engine was not worth playing about with, wasting time, hoping it will be improved (not guaranteed) when an engine is available that is proven and reliable that does the business. An engine which could also be easily and greatly improved.
Ford made an engine to compete with the Merlin, which was a decent engine when in prototype form. It got nowhere because it was a me-too engine. They wanted Ford to not waste their time, wanting them to spend valuable time, expertise, and energy developing other engines that were urgently needed, like proper tank engines and the likes.
The US forces still persisted with the Merlin way after WW2, not moving towards an improved Alison. Packard stopped making Merlins under licence after around 1952. Posr WW2 Packatds production only went to the USA, even after RR greatly upped the licence fee for each engine after WW2, meaning Merlin prices to Uncle Sam jumped through the ceiling.
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@PistonAvatarGuy
The British assessed the P-38 Lightening rejecting the plane. The British gave it the name Lightening. After Battle of Britain experiences the plane was not up to it. From an initial order of over 650 planes, incorporating the French orders, they cancelled the lot bar three.
That was one of the reasons why the British got North American to build the Mustang for them, giving them the specs and requirements for a new plane. The British Air Ministry agreed to have the Alison engine fitted in the Mustang, as production was not up enough for the Merlin. Shadow factories were being built with Packard in the USA not even approached yet. Under R&D of the Mustang, Roy Harker of RR approached North American regarding a Merlin installation capability.
The plane was plagued with high altitude and turbo problems. In The Lockheed P-38 Lightning by Warren Bodie, he states that there was pressure in the USA to install a Merlin 61 in the Lightening. Nationalistic and company pressures scuppered that. Graham in Allied Aircraft Piston Engines of World War II: History and Development of Frontline Aircraft Piston Engines, stated that pressure from Allison to the USAAF stopped the Merlin being fitted into the Lightening.
They could not produce enough Merlins. Getting production up would have taken time, time the military departments never had. Allison could have made the RR Merlin under licence, as Packard did, but that would have been too much for them. When Packard took up the RR contract, only the janitor and his cat were in the factory.
So a plane that promised so much never realised its potential.
The supercharged Allison had abysmal reliability when mounted in the P-82.
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@PistonAvatarGuy wrote:
" my point is that it was a better design with more potential."
The Allison engine design was OK. The engine was designed from the outset for the military while the Merlin came from a civilian racing engine lineage, being adopted by the military pre WW2. The Merlin's ability to be uprated was a great asset to the military. During WW2 the Allison's potential was limited as it could not easily take the "two-stage, two-speed supercharging.
"I think that you fail to consider that the US was still suffering through the great depression going into WW2"
RR and the British in general got rid of many of the US soup lines dipping into idle US industry to play catchup with Germany, who militarised before the British and French.
No one will take you seriously if you keep barking on that the Alison was superior to the Merlin, which it was not. The Allison never came to the levels of performance the Merlin could give. And BTW, the Merlin was superseded during WW2, with all later Spitfires and Bombers using the Griffon, which was operationally used up until 1991. After WW2 about the only buyer of new Merlins was the US military (apart from the detuned tank version, the Meteor). RR had a section to recon Merlins set up during the war, which continued after. There was enough Merlins about to recon after the war.
The Griffon was used in the Martin Baker MB-5. This plane was faster and more manoeuvrable than a Spitfire or Mustang, reaching 460mph. It was quick, easy and cheap to make having a modular construction of mainly square sections and four cannons. It was ready by early 1944 and could have been operational in months. Jets were coming so it was dropped, as was the Spitfire successor the Spiteful.
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@PistonAvatarGuy
This guy is one Yankee obsessed nut!
He is that mad he thinks the Allison engine was better than the Merlin and Griffon. He keeps repeating the same mantra.
♦ In aviation in WW2 the British outstripped the rest. No one made a plane like Mosquito, or Tempest. No one. The US never had a decent fighter until they adopted the British Mustang with an RR engine.
♦ The British made the first proper dedicated jet fighter,. the Meteor, which just after WW2 set air speed records.
♦ Post war, again the British stripped all others in aviation. No one made a plane like the Harrier or the TRSR2, V bombers, etc.
♦ The British invented the modern turbo jet as well. Read on.....
♦ Whittle's reverse flow design is the basis for almost all turboprop engines in production;
♦ Britain had axial-flow engines running in 1941 - the same time that Geman engineer Franz had his Jumo running. The Metrovick F.2 flew in a Meteor in 1943. The F.2 transpired into the Sapphire which the US built under licence as the J-65 and then modified it as the J-47;
♦ Westinghouse in the US was given a Whittle engine, and plans for improvements. They made such a hash of it that Whittle had to go to the US to assist. The US government gave the project to GE who made the I-16 which transpired into the first US built jet engine. The US licensed the Ghost for the P-80/T-33 and the RR Nene. The Nene was used by the Soviets in the MIG 15;
♦ German engineer Ohain's engine was not produced being shelved by 1943. No engine was built using his design;
♦ Whittle also R&D'd axial-flow engines. The metallurgy was not advanced enough at the time. Whittle's engines produced far more thrust than the German axial-flows and far more reliable;
♦ The PT-6, PWC 100/150 are derivatives of Whittle's designs being still produced;
♦ Whittle's centrifugal-flow engines were built under licence in the US after WW2 - the J-33, J-42 and J-48;
♦ The Olympus was the world's first 2 shaft turbojet and the first to exceed 10,000 pounds of thrust;
♦ The 1950 Avon was the first reliable axial-flow engine. Also the longest produced gas turbine in history being still in production as a land based generator;
♦ The RR Conway was the world's first turbofan;
♦ The RB-211 was the world's first 3 shaft turbofan;
♦ The Rolls Royce Trent was the world's first turboprop to fly;
♦ British axial-flows led the post war world in technology and power;
♦ The axial-flow Sapphire was built in the US as the J-65. The GE J-47 was based on the Sapphire.
Frank Whittle invented the modern turbojet.
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@PistonAvatarGuy
Just for our resident nutball. I doubt any of it will sink in..
There is a myth that the Germans were way ahead of the British in jet engines and planes in WW2, when the opposite is true. The WW2 German jet engines were extremely unreliable with low performances and very high fuel consumption. The German axial-flow turbojets never worked as they wanted being developed up to 1953 by the French to obtain a usable engine. The French lost a lot of time playing around with the German engines, instead of working with the British. The French and Soviets after WW2 tried to improve the German axial-flow engines and largely failed.
The Germans did not invent the axial-flow turbojet, they based everything on Frank Whittle's patents. The British Metropolitan-Vickers F.1 axial-flow engine was running on a test bed in 1941. The F.2 was an axial-flow being an extremely advanced design using a nine-stage axial compressor, annular combustor, and a two-stage turbine. It powered a Meteor in November 1943. It was considered unreliable and never saw use during the war, hence why the British went for the reliability, controllability and quick development of the centrifugal turbojets. The Metro-Vick F.3 was the first ever turbofan in 1943. Metro-Vick developed the F.9 Sapphire, however left the jet business in 1947 giving all their designs to Armstrong Siddeley, who commercially produced the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire engine, which was licence built in the US as the J-65.
The British in order to get a usable and reliable jet engine, with the technology of the time, went for a centrifugal design rather than the troublesome axial-flow design. This design produced less thrust than an axial-flow but was quicker to develop and reliable outperforming the best piston engines planes at the time. It took 5 months to develop, while the first reliable axial-flow engine was the 1950 Rolls Royce Avon, which took 5 years to get right. The Avon is still in production as a ground based gas turbine, with the aero version in production for 30 years.
In 1945 the French made and tested some German designed turbo jets made with quality steel unavailable to German industry in WW2. They ran for 25 hours instead of the 10 hours of the Germans engines that used poorer quality steel. Not much better. The German axial-flow engines failed because of heavy design flaws. The centrifugal compressor used by the first British Meteor plane was fine and much more reliable, but unable to reach high compression ratios. This limited performances. Centrifugal compressors were used up to the 1960s.
In 1945 the team from the French ATAR laboratory plus some BMW and Junkers engineers, were engaged by the French SNECMA research bureau, with the objective to build a new reliable and performing axial-flow turbojet. The BMW 003/Jumo004 was considered unusable. It was tested on the first French jet aircraft, the 1946 So6000 Triton, overheating and exploding. The plane only flew with a Rolls Royce Nene centrifugal turbojet.
The ATAR project took 6 years to produce the first acceptable axial-flow turbojet (ATAR 101 B1), produced in 1953. So 8 years research and developments by the French using the German jet engines as the base. It was installed on the first French jet fighter, the Dassault Ouragan.
The French lost a lot of time because the German jets had poor efficiency and some concept fails. Essentially in the combustion chambers and fresh air circulation to reduce the external temperature of the engine. The BMW jet was known for overheat problems which precluded fuselage installation.
The question at the end of WW2 was: what is the most efficient way to produce jet fighters? The answer was clearly not adopting the German design of engine and fuselage. The build costs for a jet engine were much higher than a piston engine, with the fuel consumption near 4x. The centrifugal compressor the British adopted in some planes was the best choice with 1944-45 technology, more compression pressure was not an advantage when the hot turbine was unable to resist higher temperatures. The German turbojets had big overheat problems as the engine would not work in an enclosed fuselage for single engined fighters. This defect was immediately noted by the French on the 1946 "SO 6000 Triton" prototype, and by the Soviets on the 1946 Mig 9. The Soviets quickly replaced the BMW 004B2 by the centrifugal Rolls Royce Nene which worked without problems, dismissing the BMW engine for fighter planes. The Rolls Royce Nene was copied to the last nut by the USSR being installed in the Mig 15 being used effectively in the Korean war.
The Meteor was the first proper fully developed jet plane introduced operationally. The 262 was slightly faster than the Meteor F3, but extremely unreliable. The British would never put into the sky such an undeveloped plane as the me262. The British could have had a jet fighter operational in 1941, but it may have been as bad as the me262. The Germans advanced R&D on jets after they interrogated captured British RAF men. They learned the British were advanced in jet technology and flying prototype planes. Until then the Germans had no intention of mass producing jet planes.
The rushed together Me262 started claiming kills on 26 July 1944, the Meteor claimed its first V1 kill a few days later on the 4 August 1944. But the Meteor was a proper fully developed jet plane, not a thrown together desperate effort as the me262 was. The me262 fuselage was similar to a piston plane with the pilot over the wings obscuring downward vision, while the Meteor was a proper new design fuselage specifically for jet fighters with a forward of the wings pilot position giving superior pilot vision, as we see in planes today. The cockpit was very quiet. The sweptback wings of the me262 were to move the engines further back for better weight distribution, not for aerodynamic reasons as is thought the case. The me262's airframe was based on piston engine planes, even with an initial rear tail wheel. The tricycle landing gear was only introduced when it was found the thrust of the jet engines would scorch the runway surface as the exhaust faced downwards.
The Meteor's airframe was designed purely for jet propulsion even with a high tail to prevent thrust interfering with the tail which could affect control.
Centrifugal compressors were not obsolete being used in turboprops. Between a turbo jet and a turboprop, the only difference is the turbine, not the compressor. The last centrifugal compressor jet engine still in service on a handful of commercial aircraft like the Fokker 27, is the Rolls Royce Dart turboprop. A very reliable engine made in 27 versions, but with high fuel consumption to modern engines. The Rolls Royce Dart Turboprop turbo jet engine was produced the longest, being a comparable design turbojet to the likes the Rolls Royce Nene. The rugged engine was produced from 1946 up to 1987.
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@wilburfinnigan2142
Again for you. Move your lips as you read as it will make it better for you.
The Mustang was basically a British plane made by an American factory for them. The British Air Ministry directed a six year old inexperienced company, North American Aviation, to the design points they wanted for their plane. They assisted North American who drew it up. As a university lecturer would do in directing students to research various points in a project. The students run off do the research with the lecturer assessing what they did and how it fits into the project as a whole. The Mustang was a British plane made by an American company for them. There was no US forces involvement in the concept, specifications or design. Americans lose sight of these fundamental points.
The Rolls Royce Merlin engine made the Mustang perform superbly. The plane initially used an Allison engine, which was only good at low level, as RR could not meet the supply of Merlins, so the Alison it had to be. The US were behind the British in engine supercharging with Tizard Mission giving the USA details of advanced super charging. Also the cylinder head design of the Alison was not good enough for full supercharging. Stanley Hooker of RR developed the auto controlled twin-speed twin-charger supercharging technology which was given free to the USA. The first use of the Mustang by the US military was for ground attack because of the poor high level performance of the Allison engine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by4lH2whhjk
In the early stages of WW2, the U.S. government allowed the British & French to bi-pass them allowing direct approaches to U.S. aircraft makers, as would the British government approach say Hawker. The British needed all types of planes urgently, even the P-40 which was inferior to their own front line planes. But warplanes they were being useful in certain theatres and for training. In early February 1940 the British asked North American Aviation's President Dutch Kindelberger to supply P-40s made under licence from Curtiss, as Curtiss could not supply demand. Unlike Curtiss North American were far from near full capacity. Kindelberger told the British, without any detailed drawings or plans, "I can build you a better airplane, and I can get it built fast". Contrary to popular belief in the USA, North American did not have a prototype ready design which the British just happened to have snapped up under the noses of the US military.
North American were first approached in Feb 1940, who had no "detailed drawings or plans". The British gave this young inexperienced company a chance but they would have to hold their hands. In May 1940 as France was falling, North American still never presented any detailed plans, mailing a "design concept" to the British delegation in New York. This never had the famed laminar flow wings. The British Air Ministry accepted the inferior Allison engine as Rolls Royce were working flat out 24/7 unable to meet demand for Merlins. New Merlin factories were being set up but not yet fully on-line. In the interim from Feb to May, three months, the British Air Ministry were forming the fundamentals of the design concepts directing North American to Curtiss and the NACA the developer of the laminar flow wings, to ensure a fighter with some leading edge design points, not produce another P-40 fly-alike wasting valuable time. The Air Ministry directed NAA to the Curtiss XP-46 experimental plane which had all the leading edge design points of top European designs, with a few of their own, rolled into one. It never worked as the individual points never complimented each other when merged into one complete whole.
NAA were ordered by the British Air Ministry to buy the plans and test results of the XP-46 plane from Curtiss if they wanted the job, at a whopping $52,000, a lot of money at the time. Curtiss engineers always said the Mustang was their design. Not quite as the British Air Ministry had a lot to say in the leading design points - they were paying and calling the shots as it was their plane. There was a danger the Mustang may end up the same way as the XP-46 - a plane with leading edge points that never performed as expected. The British Air Ministry took a major gamble with NAA so were active in approving the emerging design points.
The Ministry wanted something better than the poor P-40, being prepared to wait, but realistically never expected Spitfire performance. Initially that was the case with the first deliveries using the Allison engine - better than a P-40 but no Spitfire. The initial Allison engined Mustangs filled an RAF niche, so no problems for the British at that point. A niche the plane filled was that the RAF needed a long range reconnaissance plane that could also perform ground attack being able as a low level fighter if the need was there. The Spitfire was a short range fast interceptor. With the fall of France the RAF needed a plane with range to penetrate over the German border from English air bases.
Reading many US books on the Mustang you would think the concept of the plane was to escort US bombers. That is way off from the truth. The last thing the British Air Ministry were thinking of when laying down the points of the plane was US bomber doctrine. The US were not even in the war. Initially the US military overall didn't want to know the plane. The Mustang was not even in U.S. service when it was shooting down FW-190s by the RAF over France. The Air Ministry gave the U.S. military two planes which were left in the corner of a hangar for a long period. They initially never assessed it. Quite amazing, as the USA never had a decent front line fighter at the time.
The excuse not to take up the plane by U.S. forces was that it was liquid cooled being vulnerable to frontal attack. This was a poor excuse to reject the plane because it wasn't theirs. What went over their heads was that the world's two best fighters locked horns in the Battle of Britain, both with liquid cooled engines. With British support, the Mustang finally was noticed by the U.S. Army Air Force. The US military had to go to England to fully assess the plane as it was finished off in Liverpool being flow by the RAF.
The US military did eventually adopt the plane calling it the Apache and P-51 when in U.S. service. UK and U.S. Mustangs for the European war theatre were finished off in Liverpool. They were test flown then delivered to the units by young English girls, many of them teenagers. The Mustang was built to British specification and design guidance without a doubt. They specified and paid for it. It never performed at all like the short range interceptor the Spitfire, not having the manoeuvrability of the Spitfire. It was 'fine' and reasonably fast at low altitude with the Allison engine. It could operate over France and even Germany at a push escorting bombers because of the longer range that the British Air Ministry specified. The Mustang filled a niche role for the British. continued......
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I advise many to read the ultimate authority on WW2 aero engines, The Great Horsepower Race by Callum Douglas, who is an F1 engine designer and WW2 engine historian. No other book comes close.
Callum Douglas...
"Surely everyone just KNOWS that the good old stories about FORD laughing at the Merlin drawings and that Rolls-Royce engines were all hand built must be true ! Well this document, plus the fact there is a huge parts interchange manual which tells you which Packard part number you need to get to replace a certain Rolls-Royce part in either engine and visa versa.Of course not all parts were interchangeable, Packard did their own supercharger drive gearbox system, and used American sourced accessories like cabin air compressors and magnetos.
But the British bumpkins in sheds with flat caps and files is far too much fun so it is generally preferred over pesky "archive data" to this very day."
Douglas gives the USA credit in supplying the machine tools. But they shared manufacturing out in WW2. The agreement was the USA provide machine tools for the USSR and UK, so as not to duplicate.
New high production Merlin shadow factories were set up by the Air Ministry in Glasgow, Crewe and Manchester. They also used existing plant in Detroit. Douglas again...
Very few people know that Ford [in Manchester] had very little to do with the engineering production setup, the factory was not a Ford factory and was not full of Ford staff, the factory was built brand new for the Merlin, and funded by the Air Ministry, Ford were contracted to organize and run the new plant.
"Hooker wrote half his Autobiography on his death-bed in hospital decades after the war, and I don't think the remark has been very well interpreted. One manufacturing engineer who follows me here on twitter believes that the remark was far more likely to refer to tolerances on things like casting pickup practises and so on, rather than things like the precision of grinding and finishing on the high-precision internal components.I feel that this type of explanation is very likely to be correct."
- Calum Douglas
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@c.d.baumann7286
The Mustang was basically a British plane made by an American manufacturer for them. The British Air Ministry directed a six year old inexperienced company, North American Aviation, to the design points they wanted for their plane. British engineers assisted North American who drew it up, as a university lecturer would do in directing students to research various points in a project. The students run off do the research with the lecturer assessing what they did and how it fits into the project as a whole. The Mustang was a British plane made by an American company for them. There was no US forces involvement in the concept, specifications or design. Many Americans lose sight of these fundamental points.
The Rolls Royce Merlin engine made the Mustang perform superbly. The plane initially used an Allison engine, which was only good at low level, as RR could not meet the supply of Merlins at the time, so the Alison it had to be. The US were behind the British in engine supercharging with the Tizard Mission giving the USA details of advanced super charging. Also the cylinder head design of the Alison was not good enough for full supercharging. Stanley Hooker of RR developed the auto controlled twin-speed twin-charger supercharging technology which was given free to the USA. The first use of the Mustang by the US military was for ground attack because of the poor high level performance of the Allison engine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by4lH2whhjk
In the early stages of WW2, the U.S. government allowed the British & French to by-pass them, allowing direct approaches to U.S. aircraft makers, as would the British government approach say Hawker. The British needed all types of planes urgently, even the P-40 which was inferior to their own front line planes. But warplanes they were, being useful in certain theatres and for training.
In early February 1940 the British asked North American Aviation's President Dutch Kindelberger to supply P-40s made under licence from Curtiss, as Curtiss could not supply demand. Unlike Curtiss, North American's factory was far from operating at capacity. Kindelberger told the British, without any "I can build you a better airplane, and I can get it built fast". Contrary to popular belief in the USA, North American did not have a prototype ready design which the Brits just happened to have snapped up under the noses of the US military. The design was developed over many months with British engineers at the British Air MInistry's office in New York.
North American were first approached in Feb 1940, who had no "detailed drawings or plans". The British gave this young inexperienced company a chance but they would have to hold their hands. In May 1940 as France was falling, North American still never presented any detailed plans, mailing a design concept drawings to the British delegation in New York. This never had the famed laminar flow wings. The Air MInistry accepted the design starting the Mustang project. The British Air Ministry accepted the inferior Allison engine as Rolls Royce were working flat out 24/7 unable to meet demand for Merlins. New Merlin factories were being set up but not yet fully on-line.
In the interim from Feb to May, three months, the British Air Ministry were forming the fundamentals of the design concepts directing North American to Curtiss and NACA the developer of the laminar flow wings, to ensure a fighter with some leading edge design points, not produce another P-40 fly-alike wasting valuable time. The Air Ministry directed NAA to the Curtiss XP-46 experimental plane with all the leading edge design points of top European designs, with a few of their own, rolled into one.
NAA were ordered by the British Air Ministry to buy the plans and test results of the XP-46 plane from Curtiss and study them as they had never built a fighter, if they wanted the job, at a whopping $56,000, a lot of money at the time. Curtiss engineers always said the Mustang was their design. Not quite as the British Air Ministry had a lot to say in the leading design points - they were paying and calling the shots as it was their plane. There was a danger the Mustang may end up the same way as the XP-46 - a plane with leading edge points that never performed as expected. The British Air Ministry took a major gamble with NAA so were active in approving the emerging design points.
The Ministry wanted something better than the poor P-40, being prepared to wait, but realistically never expected Spitfire performance. Initially that was the case with the first deliveries using the Allison engine - better than a P-40 but no Spitfire. The initial Allison engined Mustangs filled an RAF niche, so no problems for the British at that point. A niche the plane filled was that the RAF needed a long range reconnaissance plane that could also perform ground attack being able as a low level fighter if the need was there. The Spitfire was a short range fast interceptor. With the fall of France the RAF needed a plane with range to penetrate over the German border from English air bases.
Reading many US books on the Mustang you would think the concept of the plane was to escort US bombers. That is way off from the truth. The last thing the British Air Ministry were thinking of when laying down the points of the plane was US bomber doctrine. The US were not even in the war. Initially the US military overall didn't want to know the plane. The Mustang was not even in U.S. service when it was shooting down FW-190s by the RAF over France. The Air Ministry gave the U.S. military two planes which were left in the corner of a hangar for a long period, initially not assessed it. Quite amazing, as the USA never had a decent front line fighter at the time.
The excuse not to take up the plane by U.S. forces was that it was liquid cooled and vulnerable in frontal attack. This was a poor excuse to reject the plane because it wasn't theirs. What went over their heads was that the world's two best fighters locked horns in the Battle of Britain, both with liquid cooled engines. With British support, the Mustang finally was noticed by the U.S. Army Air Force. The US military had to go to England to fully assess the plane as it was finished off in Liverpool being flow by the RAF. They did eventually adopt the plane calling it the Apache and P-51 when in U.S. service.
UK and U.S. Mustangs for the European war theatre were finished off in Liverpool. They were test flown then delivered to the units by young English girls, many of them teenagers. The Mustang was built to British specification and design guidance without a doubt. They specified and paid for it. It never performed at all like the short range interceptor the Spitfire, not having the manoeuvrability of the Spitfire. It was 'fine' and reasonably fast at low altitude with the Allison engine. It could operate over France and even Germany at a push, escorting bombers because of the longer range that the British Air Ministry specified. The Mustang filled a niche role for the British. continued......
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...Continued... Rolls Royce. Rolls engineers under Ron Harker went to North American to advise on how to install a Merlin engine in the Mustang. They also gave advice from their work with the RR Mustang X. Rolls-Royce made the first proposal to North American regarding a Merlin 45 engine Mustang in 1940, after Stanley Hooker improved the power by 30%. This was before the plane was operational an still in the R&D stage. The RR Merlin was superior to the Alison engine, also to what it was in February 1940 when North American were first approached by the Air Ministry. The later Merlin 61 had the two-stage auto controlled superchanging developed by again by Stanley Hooker. This gave an extra 70 mph and 15,000 feet of operation to the Merlin. A quantum leap. The pilot just went where he liked without degradation in performance.
RR sent three engineers led by James Ellor to supervise the adaption and manufacture of a Merlin 61, built under licence by Packard, the same type that was already being considered for the Rolls Royce Mustang X experimental series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Mustang_Mk.X
On 9 June 1942, the first memos from W/C I.R. Campell-Orde of the RAF Air Fighting Development Unit at Duxford, revealed that an effort was being made to convince North American to adopt a Merlin-powered Mustang. Work in the US was setback due to an initial lack of interest and also to mechanical failures of the first Merlin engines built under licence by Packard. Both projects commenced at nearly the same time with the first Mustang X in the air about a month earlier than the North American XP-51B.
The RR Mustang-X programme was 5 or 6 airframes each with different experimentation. RR attempted to have North American accept British Merlin 61s (the two-stage superchargers) in American airframes, it is clear that the prime contractor (NAA) wanted to control the project as control was looking like it was to move over to the UK. NAA was essentially building production-standard aircraft rather than the experimental series that saw each of the RR Mustang Xs trying out new variations of design. An offshoot was the mid-engine RR Griffon engined Mustang that actually made it to the mock-up stage, albeit with a Merlin installed amidships. On the success of the RR Mustang-X built in Nottingham, the Air Ministry ordered hundreds from RR, who declined wanting to remain specialising in engines. NAA remained the prime contractor.
Rolls Royce mass produced Merlins in Crewe, Manchester and Glasgow, also licensing Packard in the USA, using idle US industry. The US made Merlins were to supply the Canadian aircraft factories - to avoid a two-way trans-Atlantic trip and give extra manufacturing when the engine proved very popular with many airframe makers. An agreement was reached in September 1940, with the first Packard built Merlin engine running in August 1941.
Early in 1944 the P-38, P-51B Mustang and P-47C, were dived by the British for compressibility testing at the RAE Farnborough, England at the request of the USAAF. They had trouble when these planes dived onto attacking German fighters when providing top cover for the bombers. The results were that the Mach numbers, the manoeuvring limits, were Mach 0.68 for the P-38, Mach 0.71 for the P-47, and Mach 0.78 for the Mustang. The corresponding figures for the FW-190 and Me109 was Mach 0.75. The tests resulted in the Mustang being chosen for all escort duties. - Page 70, Wings On My Sleeve by Eric Brown, who did the test.
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@dougb1152
The USA thought so.
Germany's biggest mistake was declaring war in the first place. Once they waged war when was the point they could not win? That was when the British refused to make peace in June 1940. With Britain still in the war the Royal Navy blockade starved Germany, and the Axis, of vital resources, including food (animal & human) and oil. Britain was even buying up rare metals from Turkey to ensure the Germans did not have them. The Royal Navy surrounded Europe, controlled freely sailing the eastern Atlantic and the eastern Mediterranean, and controlled both entrances to the Mediterranean. They even held Malta all through WW2, on the doorstep of Axis Italy, halfway from Gibraltar and Suez. Britain's land forces were from the Turkish border to the Libyan border. Essentially the British surrounded Europe, controlling the sea lanes.
The Royal Navy ensured the conflict with Germany would continue. Germany could not win from June 1940 onwards. Being a largely landlocked country, Germany's forces were heavily based on its army, while Britain's was heavily based on its navy and air force with a small highly mobile army. Germany could not remove Britain from the war having pretty well no surface fleet to Britain having the largest navy in the world.
Britain's approach was that every operation was to bleed Germany of resources, especially oil. Operations in Norway and Greece forced the Germans to deploy troops to these areas but also its surface fleet, which mainly was destroyed in Norway. The German occupied countries were also under the blockade, which were also a drain of German resources.
The British, because of its armed forces structure of massive navy, large air force and small highly mobile army were unable to engage the Germans on the European land mass, on which Germany had a massive army. Apart from the air, the two countries could not get at each other. Britain's war then was partially an economic war.
Every German operation against the British had to be decisive whereas the British could lose to the Germans while still asserting economic pressure in its favour. This was the British way of war being very good at it. Britain used similar tactics against Germany in WW1 to devastating effects. This approach was used against the French on multiple occasions over 200 years. Smaller nations in Europe would follow Pax Britannica due British naval dominance. Britain could dictate any war's outcome by blocking trade and resources to one side or another.
The Germans like most of Europe relied on imported oil, raw materials and food (animal & human). For the Germans these resources can only come from two regions - the USSR or the rest of the world. By removing the rest of the world from Axis access, the British forced the Germans to look east to acquire Soviet oil - Romania did not produce enough. Even having access to Soviet and Romanian oil, before the June 1941 attack on the USSR and before the USA was in WW2, the Italian fleet could not be put to sea due to oil shortages, such was the grip of the Royal Navy.
Hitler had no choice but to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941 because of the resources situation. He desperately needed the resources of the USSR to fight the coming air war with Britain. In May 1940 Roosevelt stated the USA would produce 50,000 planes per year. Most of these would be directed towards Germany with British production, which was surpassing Germanys, on top, piloted by British pilots - the British produced more planes than Germany in WW2. In 1941 the British were building more aircraft than Germany, Japan and Italy combined, 5,000 more than the USSR and 5,000 less than the USA.
Germany greatly expanded its U-Boat fleet. The popular, and valid, view was that this fleet was to starve Britain into submission, however a high hope. It was also to divert and lock up Royal Navy resources in convoy protection and U-Boat hunting, allowing merchant ships to enter Germany and the occupied countries more freely providing the vital resources.
Germany had been forced into a situation by the British that they knew they could not escape from. Even if Germany had seized the Caucasus' oil fields intact (the Soviets sabotaged them to the point new deep bore holes would need to be drilled) the British would have focused them for their bombing campaign operating from the Middle East - there were plans to bomb them as Britain held nearby Iraq, Syria and Iran. The British could even attack the Germans from the east.
This was to drain Germany of vital resources, especially oil. Every British victory in Africa was decisive with every German victory not. Even if Germany won an operation, they were still being bled. Unless Germany could seize the Suez Canal and beyond, the British could just come back year after year and counter attack with new tanks and new men, with resources not being a problem for them.
Germany knew that they could not invade Britain as the Royal Navy was just too powerful. The RAF could replace losses far quicker than they could, as they found out in the air Battle of Britain. Germany could not put their large army on British soil.
After June 1940 Germany has an enemy it can’t defeat, not entertaining peace and economically throttling Germany every day of the war. Germany never had time, the British did. The German invasion of the USSR with an army short of resources due to the Royal Navy blockade, may have quickened the war's end for Germany, however it was not the point that Germany could not win. Germany had already lost the war, it was just a matter of time before Germany collapsed.
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...Continued... Rolls Royce. Rolls engineers under Ron Harker went to North American to advise on how to install a Merlin engine in the Mustang. They also gave advice from their work with the RR Mustang X. Rolls-Royce made the first proposal to North American regarding a Merlin 45 engine Mustang in 1940, after Stanley Hooker improved the power by 30%. This was before the plane was operational an still in the R&D stage. The RR Merlin was superior to the Alison engine, also to what it was in February 1940 when North American were first approached by the Air Ministry. The later Merlin 61 had the two-stage auto controlled superchanging developed by again by Stanley Hooker. This gave an extra 70 mph and 15,000 feet of operation to the Merlin. A quantum leap. The pilot just went where he liked without degradation in performance.
RR sent three engineers led by James Ellor to supervise the adaption and manufacture of a Merlin 61, built under licence by Packard, the same type that was already being considered for the Rolls Royce Mustang X experimental series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Mustang_Mk.X
On 9 June 1942, the first memos from W/C I.R. Campell-Orde of the RAF Air Fighting Development Unit at Duxford, revealed that an effort was being made to convince North American to adopt a Merlin-powered Mustang. Work in the US was setback due to an initial lack of interest and also to mechanical failures of the first Merlin engines built under licence by Packard. Both projects commenced at nearly the same time with the first Mustang X in the air about a month earlier than the North American XP-51B.
The RR Mustang-X programme was 5 or 6 airframes each with different experimentation. RR attempted to have North American accept British Merlin 61s (the two-stage superchargers) in American airframes, it is clear that the prime contractor (NAA) wanted to control the project as control was looking like it was to move over to the UK. NAA was essentially building production-standard aircraft rather than the experimental series that saw each of the RR Mustang Xs trying out new variations of design. An offshoot was the mid-engine RR Griffon engined Mustang that actually made it to the mock-up stage, albeit with a Merlin installed amidships. On the success of the RR Mustang-X built in Nottingham, the Air Ministry ordered hundreds from RR, who declined wanting to remain specialising in engines. NAA remained the prime contractor.
Rolls Royce mass produced Merlins in Crewe, Manchester and Glasgow, also licensing Packard in the USA, using idle US industry. The US made Merlins were to supply the Canadian aircraft factories - to avoid a two-way trans-Atlantic trip and give extra manufacturing when the engine proved very popular with many airframe makers. An agreement was reached in September 1940, with the first Packard built Merlin engine running in August 1941.
Early in 1944 the P-38, P-51B Mustang and P-47C, were dived by the British for compressibility testing at the RAE Farnborough, England at the request of the USAAF. They had trouble when these planes dived onto attacking German fighters when providing top cover for the bombers. The results were that the Mach numbers, the manoeuvring limits, were Mach 0.68 for the P-38, Mach 0.71 for the P-47, and Mach 0.78 for the Mustang. The corresponding figures for the FW-190 and Me109 was Mach 0.75. The tests resulted in the Mustang being chosen for all escort duties. - Page 70, Wings On My Sleeve by Eric Brown, who did the test.
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The Mustang was basically a British plane made by the Americans for them. The British Air Ministry directed a six year old inexperienced company, North American Aviation, to the design points they wanted for their plane. They assisted North American who drew it up. As a university lecturer would do in directing students to research various points in a project. The students run off do the research with the lecturer assessing what they did and how it fits into the project as a whole. The Mustang was a British plane made by an American company for them. There was no US forces involvement in the concept, specifications or design. Americans lose sight of these fundamental points.
The Rolls Royce Merlin engine made the Mustang perform superbly. The plane initially used an Allison engine, which was only good at low level, as RR could not meet the supply of Merlins, so the Alison it had to be. The US were behind the British in engine supercharging with Tizard Mission giving the USA details of advanced super charging. Also the cylinder head design of the Alison was not good enough for full supercharging. Stanley Hooker of RR developed the auto controlled twin-speed twin-charger supercharging technology which was given free to the USA. The first use of the Mustang by the US military was for ground attack because of the poor high level performance of the Allison engine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by4lH2whhjk
In the early stages of WW2, the U.S. government allowed the British & French to bi-pass them allowing direct approaches to U.S. aircraft makers, as would the British government approach say Hawker. The British needed all types of planes urgently, even the P-40 which was inferior to their own front line planes. But warplanes they were being useful in certain theatres and for training. In early February 1940 the British asked North American Aviation's President Dutch Kindelberger to supply P-40s made under licence from Curtiss, as Curtiss could not supply demand. Unlike Curtiss North American were far from near full capacity. Kindelberger told the British, without any detailed drawings or plans, "I can build you a better airplane, and I can get it built fast". Contrary to popular belief in the USA, North American did not have a prototype ready design which the Brits just happened to have snapped up under the noses of the US military.
North American were first approached in Feb 1940, who had no "detailed drawings or plans". The British gave this young inexperienced company a chance but they would have to hold their hands. In May 1940 as France was falling, North American still never presented any detailed plans, mailing a "design concept" to the British delegation in New York. This never had the famed laminar flow wings. The British Air Ministry accepted the inferior Allison engine as Rolls Royce were working flat out 24/7 unable to meet demand for Merlins. New Merlin factories were being set up but not yet fully on-line. In the interim from Feb to May, three months, the British Air Ministry were forming the fundamentals of the design concepts directing North American to Curtiss and the NACA the developer of the laminar flow wings, to ensure a fighter with some leading edge design points, not produce another P-40 fly-alike wasting valuable time. The Air Ministry directed NAA to the Curtiss XP-46 experimental plane with all the leading edge design points of top European designs, with a few of their own, rolled into one. It never worked as the individual points never complimented each other when merged into one complete whole.
NAA were ordered by the British Air Ministry to buy the plans and test results of the XP-46 plane from Curtiss if they wanted the job, at a whopping $52,000, a lot of money at the time. Curtiss engineers always said the Mustang was their design. Not quite as the British Air Ministry had a lot to say in the leading design points - they were paying and calling the shots as it was their plane. There was a danger the Mustang may end up the same way as the XP-46 - a plane with leading edge points that never performed as expected. The British Air Ministry took a major gamble with NAA so were active in approving the emerging design points.
The Ministry wanted something better than the poor P-40, being prepared to wait, but realistically never expected Spitfire performance. Initially that was the case with the first deliveries using the Allison engine - better than a P-40 but no Spitfire. The initial Allison engined Mustangs filled an RAF niche, so no problems for the British at that point. A niche the plane filled was that the RAF needed a long range reconnaissance plane that could also perform ground attack being able as a low level fighter if the need was there. The Spitfire was a short range fast interceptor. With the fall of France the RAF needed a plane with range to penetrate over the German border from English air bases.
Reading many US books on the Mustang you would think the concept of the plane was to escort US bombers. That is way off from the truth. The last thing the British Air Ministry were thinking of when laying down the points of the plane was US bomber doctrine. The US were not even in the war. Initially the US military overall didn't want to know the plane. The Mustang was not even in U.S. service when it was shooting down FW-190s by the RAF over France. The Air Ministry gave the U.S. military two planes which were left in the corner of a hangar for a long period. They initially never assessed it. Quite amazing, as the USA never had a decent front line fighter at the time.
The excuse not to take up the plane by U.S. forces was that it was liquid cooled and vulnerable in frontal attack. This was a poor excuse to reject the plane because it wasn't theirs. What went over their heads was that the world's two best fighters locked horns in the Battle of Britain, both with liquid cooled engines. With British support, the Mustang finally was noticed by the U.S. Army Air Force. The US military had to go to England to fully assess the plane as it was finished off in Liverpool being flow by the RAF. They did eventually adopt the plane calling it the Apache and P-51 when in U.S. service. UK and U.S. Mustangs for the European war theatre were finished off in Liverpool. They were test flown then delivered to the units by young English girls, many of them teenagers. The Mustang was built to British specification and design guidance without a doubt. They specified and paid for it. It never performed at all like the short range interceptor the Spitfire, not having the manoeuvrability of the Spitfire. It was 'fine' and reasonably fast at low altitude with the Allison engine. It could operate over France and even Germany at a push escorting bombers because of the longer range that the British Air Ministry specified. The Mustang filled a niche role for the British. continued......
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....Continued... North American were not working on installing a Merlin engine before Rolls Royce. Rolls engineers under Ron Harker went to North American to advise on what to do. They also gave advice from their work with the RR Mustang X. Rolls-Royce made the first proposal to North American about a Merlin 45 engine Mustang in 1940, after Stanley Hooker improved the power by 30%. This was before the plane was operational an still in the R&D stage. The RR Merlin now was greatly superior to the Alison engine, to what it was in February 1940 when North American were approached by the Air Ministry. The later Merlin 61 had the two-stage auto controlled superchanging developed by again by Stanley Hooker. This gave an extra 70 mph and 15,000 feet of operation to the Merlin. A quantum leap. The pilot just went where he liked without degradation in performance.
RR sent three engineers led by James Ellor to supervise the adaption and manufacture of a Packard built Merlin 61, the same type that was already being considered for the Rolls Royce Mustang X experimental series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Mustang_Mk.X
On 9 June 1942, the first memos from W/C I.R. Campell-Orde of the RAF Air Fighting Development Unit at Duxford, reveal that an effort was being made to convince North American to adopt a Merlin-powered Mustang. Work in the US was setback due to an initial lack of interest and also to mechanical failures of the first Merlin engines built under licence by Packard. Both projects commenced at nearly the same time with the first Mustang X in the air about a month earlier than the North American XP-51B.
The RR Mustang-X programme was 5 or 6 airframes each with different experimentation. RR attempted to have North American accept British Merlin 61s (the two-stage superchargers) in American airframes, it is clear that the prime contractor (NAA) wanted to control the project as control was looking like it was to move over to the UK. NAA was essentially building production-standard aircraft rather than the experimental series that saw each of the RR Mustang Xs trying out new variations of design. An offshoot was the mid-engine RR Griffon engined Mustang that actually made it to the mock-up stage, albeit with a Merlin installed amidships. On the success of the RR Mustang-X built in Nottingham, the Air Ministry ordered hundreds from RR, who declined wanting to remain specialising in engines. NAA remained the prime contractor.
Rolls Royce mass produced Merlins in Crewe, Manchester and Glasgow, licensing Packard in the USA to make them supplying the Canadian aircraft factories - to avoid a two-way trans-Atlantic trip using idle US industry. An agreement was reached in September 1940, with the first Packard built Merlin engine running in August 1941. Early in 1944 the P-38, P-51B Mustang and P-47C, were dived by the British for compressibility testing at the RAE Farnborough, England at the request of the USAAF. They had trouble when these planes dived onto attacking German fighters when providing top cover for the bombers. The results were that the Mach numbers, the manoeuvring limits, were Mach 0.68 for the P-38, Mach 0.71 for the P-47, and Mach 0.78 for the Mustang. The corresponding figures for the FW-190 and Me109 was Mach 0.75. The tests resulted in the Mustang being chosen for all escort duties. - Page 70, Wings On My Sleeve by Eric Brown, who did the test.
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Germany's biggest mistake was declaring war in the first place. Once they waged war when was the point they could not win? That was when the British refused to make peace in June 1940. With Britain still in the war the Royal Navy blockade starved Germany, and the Axis, of vital resources, including food (animal & human) and oil. Britain was even buying up rare metals from Turkey to ensure the Germans did not have them. The Royal Navy controlled and freely sailed the eastern Atlantic and the eastern Mediterranean, and controlled both entrances to the Mediterranean. They even had Malta all through WW2, on the doorstep of Axis Italy. Britain's land forces were from Turkey to Libya. Essentially the British surrounded Europe, controlling the sea lanes.
The Royal Navy ensured the conflict with Germany would continue. Germany could not win from June 1940 onwards. Being a largely landlocked country, Germany's forces were heavily based on its army, while Britain's was heavily based on its navy and air force with a small highly mobile army. Germany could not remove Britain from the war having pretty well no surface fleet to Britain having the largest navy in the world.
Britain's approach was that every operation was to bleed Germany of resources, especially oil. Operations in Norway and Greece forced the Germans to deploy troops to these areas but also its surface fleet, which mainly was destroyed in Norway. The German occupied countries were also under the blockade, which were also a drain of German resources.
The British, because of its armed forces structure of massive navy, large air force and small highly mobile army were unable to engage the Germans on the European land mass, on which Germany had a massive army. Apart from the air, the two countries could not get at each other. Britain's war then was partially an economic war. Every German operation against the British had to be decisive whereas the British could lose to the Germans while still asserting economic pressure in its favour. This was the British way of war being very good at it. Britain used similar tactics against Germany in WW1 to devastating effects. This approach was used against the French on multiple occasions over 200 years. Smaller nations in Europe would follow Pax Britannica due British naval dominance. Britain could dictate any war's outcome by blocking trade and resources to one side or another.
The Germans like most of Europe relied on imported oil, raw materials and food (animal & human). For the Germans these resources can only come from two regions - the USSR or the rest of the world. By removing the rest of the world from the grasp of the Axis, the British forced the Germans to acquire Soviet oil - Romania did not produce enough. Hitler had no choice but to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941 because of the resources situation. He needed the resources of the USSR to fight the coming air war with Britain. In May 1940 Roosevelt stated the USA would produce 50,000 planes per year. Most of these would be directed towards Germany with British production on top.
Germany greatly expanded its U-Boat fleet. The popular view was that this fleet was to starve Britain into submission. That was valid but a high hope, however, it was also to divert and lock up Royal Navy resources in convoy protection and U-Boat hunting, allowing merchant ships to enter Germany and the occupied countries more freely.
Germany had been forced into a situation by the British that they knew they could not escape from. Even if Germany had seized the Caucuses' oil fields intact (the Soviets sabotaged them to the point new deep bore holes would need to be drilled) the British would have focused them for their bombing campaign operating from the Middle East - there were plans to bomb them as Britain held nearby Iraq and occupied Iran. This was to drain Germany of vital oil. Every British victory in Africa was decisive and every German victory was not, even if Germany won an operation, they were still being bled. Unless Germany could seize the Suez Canal and beyond, the British could just come back year after year and counter attack with new tanks and new men, with resources not being a problem for them.
Germany knew that they could not invade Britain as the Royal Navy was just too powerful. The RAF could replace losses far quicker than they could, as they found out in the air Battle of Britain. Germany could not put their large army on British soil.
After June 1940 Germany has an enemy it can’t defeat not entertaining peace, economically throttling the Germans every day of the war. Germany never had time, the British did. The German invasion of the USSR with an army short of resources due to the Royal Navy blockade, may have quickened the war's end for Germany, however it was not the point that Germany was doomed. Germany had already lost the war it was just a matter of time when Germany collapsed.
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@laurencethornblade1195
Roosevelt was duplicitous. Changing his mind, saying one thing and meaning another. He even demanded, and got, territory for supplying "aid" which was paid for. Unbelievable. He had no intention of committing the US to the war against Hitler. Britain went into WW2 on principle thinking the US should do the same. Britain was the only country that was not attacked or attacked anyone that went all through WW2. To Churchill it was obvious what Hitler wanted and was doing which the US could not get away from. Mein Kampf was full of bile towards the USA. Roosevelt was naïve in thinking the USA was immune. The Germans developed the Amerkia bomber specifically to attack the USA. A number were built.
British and French orders for raw materials and goods from the USA just before and in the early part of WW2 alleviated the US soup lines for sure. Both countries never re-armed quick enough, using USA industry as a cushion. Even though, only 80% of US industry was active in 1941. Postan in "British War Production", states that the French suggested to primarily use the massive and idle US industry for supplies, to common British & French specifications, and the British & French use their own men to fight. One man in a factory is one man less at the front. The idea never got far. Postan states that most of the "arms" supplied was mainly raw materials and machine tools. Much of these raw materials were normal trade in peace time.
The UK owned substantial parts of US industry and land with pre-war import much from the USA, like cereals. The UK used other continents for food as a hedge against famine. The Irish famine left a big mark. Most of Argentina's meat production was British owned - all the canned meats the British army used was from Argentinia. When war broke out this peace time trade was now the USA supplying Britain, in USA eyes. The US also made Britain sell many of these organisations at knock down prices as well.
Churchill was naive in relying on the USA too much, pre Dec 1941 they came across as opportunists - the demanding of territory should have made Churchill weary of the USA. Niall Ferguson in The War of the World, page 333, states:
"In Asia, the USA had already established a pattern of calling on others to take stands against aggression, while pursuing its own economic interest".
"When Roosevelt began to do the same in Europe too, Chamberlain concluded that Americans were "a nation of cads". He said "it is best and safest to count on nothing from the Americans except words".
Chamberlain, distrusted the Americans to a degree viewing them as economic opportunists. He wasn't far wrong as the USA made a profit on WW2, demanded territory and had the cheek to meddle in internal British Empire affairs, in order to get at the markets. Chamberlain was right in only words coming from the USA, as Roosevelt showed. The British did not insist that the USA give territory back to Mexico. Churchill would have been fully aware of Chamberlain's view, which was being enacted before him.
At Churchill's insistence, an American was supreme commander in NW Europe, as a lever by Churchill in order to get them to adopt Germany First, which was the correct strategy for the USA. The Americans were flattered. The Americans had zero experience at this level, which was an appalling suggestion by Churchill. The Americans naturally thought the British would be in charge as it was their own backyard. That was a poor move by Churchill, as progress post Normandy proved, with the US generals only being colonels when WW2 broke out. This was akin to the Germans putting an Italian in charge of the Afrika Korps.
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@laurencethornblade1195
Some facts for you. The British were the single biggest agents in the defeat of Nazi Germany. They were there from day one until the end. They did not enter because they attacked another country or were attacked. The so-called "invincible" Germans army tried and failed, with their allies, for two years in WW2 to defeat the British army in North Africa. The British drove the Axis out of North Africa.
The finest army in the world from mid 1942 onwards was the British. From Alem el Halfa it moved right up into Denmark, through nine countries, and not once suffered a reverse taking all in its path. Over 90% of German armour in the west was destroyed by the British. Montgomery had to give the US armies an infantry role as they were not equipped to engage massed German SS armour.
Montgomery stopped the Germans in every event they attacked him:
♦ August 1942 - Alem el Halfa
♦ October 1942 - El Alamein
♦ March 1943 - Medenine
♦ June 1944 - Normandy
♦ Sept/Oct 1944 - The Netherlands
♦ December 1944 - Battle of the Bulge
Not on one occasion were ground armies, British or US, under Monty's command pushed back into a retreat by the Germans. The US Army were struggling in 1944/45 retreating in the Ardennes. The Americans didn't perform well at all east of Aachen, then the Hurtgen Forest defeat with 33,000 casualties and Patton's Lorraine crawl of 10 miles in three months with over 50,000 casualties. The Battle of the Bulge took all the US effort, with Montgomery having top be put in command, and the British 21st Army Group, just to get back to the start line, with nearly 100,000 US casualties. The Germans took 20,000 US POWs in the Battle of The Bulge in Dec 1944. No other allied country had that many prisoners taken in the 1944-45 timeframe.
The USA retreat at the Bulge, again, the only allied army to be pushed back into a retreat in the 1944-45 timeframe. Montgomery was effectively in charge of the Bulge having to take control of the US First and Ninth armies. The US Third Army constantly stalled after coming up from the south. The Ninth stayed under Monty's control until the end of the war just about. The US armies were losing men at unsustainable rates due to poor generalship.
Normandy was planned and commanded by the British with Montgomery leading all ground forces, which was a great success coming in ahead of schedule with less casualties than predicted. The Royal Navy was command of all naval forces with the RAF all air forces.
The German armour in the west was wiped out by primarily the British - the US forces were impotent against the panzers. Monty assessed the US armies (he was in charge of them) having to give them a supporting infantry role, as they were just not equipped, or experienced, to fight concentrated tank v tank battles. On 3 Sept 1944 when Eisenhower took over overall allied command of ground forces everything went at a snail's pace. The fastest advance of any western army in Autumn/early 1945 was the 60 mile thrust by the British XXX Corps to the Rhine at Arnhem.
Then the ignored British naval blockade on the Axis economy, which was so successful the substantial Italian navy could not put to sea in full strength, or even at all on some occasions, because of a lack of oil. Then the British bomber offensive on the German economy, taking the war right into German cities, wiping out Hamburg in one night.
You need to give respect where it is due.
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Mocsk
The sources on the economies I gave are sound. A university, Keegan and Prof Adam Tooze. Tooze is correct. In 1939 Germany was inferior to all major nations, inc France (half the German tanks that attacked France only had machine guns). That is why people always referred to Hitler as a madman. The USSR wanted a pact with the UK and France. Mainly the UK said "no". So, to keep away Germany from Soviet land, as the USSR was not fully prepared for war at that time, after Stalin murdered all his officers, nice chap that he is, the USSR entered into one of the most unlikely pacts ever. The act suited the USSR, as they were not ready, and also Germany as they then could attack small nations without Soviet interference.
The pact gave Germany the freedom to attack almost any small country in Europe without USSR interference. Less than a year before the Royal Navy and the USSR were on a war footing during the Munch talks. Germany backed down as Chamberlain and the French diplomatically said you can have war if you want it.
Up until June 1941 Germany was not short of oil, as the Soviets supplied as much as they wanted - and even refined aviation fuel which was used against the British in the Battle of Britain.
The German-Soviet pact of 1939 accelerated the advance of German aggression. The pact gave the German war machine the oil and raw materials it needed while neutralising the USSR. The German attack on the USSR in June 1941 was brought on the Soviets. They only had themselves to blame.
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The octane myth.......
"One particular example is the claim that the US supplied 100-octane fuel to British fighters in the Battle of Britain, giving them a crucial edge: this is a double myth in that the impact of the new fuel was not as great as implied and because Britain had huge stocks of 100-octane, and supplies from many sources, mainly British."
"In 1940 it was estimated Britain would need, in the future, 850,000 tons of 100-octane fuel per annum. British-controlled resources, from plants in Britain, the Caribbean, Persia and the Dutch East Indies, would produce up to 500,000 tons, leaving a deficit of 350,000 tons. The new plants, it was hoped, would avoid the need to buy from the USA. Work on the first hydrogenation plant, at Heysham in Lancashire, started in the spring of 1939."
- Britain's War Machine by David Edgerton
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