WesWorld

One thing I find interesting about that chart is the surprisingly good roll performance of the Kingcobra. A most undervalued aircraft...

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Originally posted by Swamphen
One thing I find interesting about that chart is the surprisingly good roll performance of the Kingcobra. A most undervalued aircraft...

The soviets didn't really like it. Don't know the reasons right now (And again, too lazy to search for them, lol), but those who flew the P-39 and the P-63 said the Airacobra felt better. I think it had something to do with the laminar flow wings degrading high-AoA maneouverability, but as I said, I don't really recall it right now.

Hmm, in a month I'm going to have access to a good library with plenty of aviation related books, unfortunately I'm going to have to wait a month.

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Not on general terms. A Bf109 had better aerodinamic efficiency. Which is the frontal area of the plane multiplied by the Aerodinamic coefficient.Then at high speeds induced drag also play a big part: the larger the wing is the higher the drag it produces. And the P51 had a quite bigger wing than many other fighter planes.

What the P-51 had was a very low drag for its size thanks to having a very low aerodinamic coefficient.

But as aerodinamic efficience go, smaller planes as the 190, 109, yak and La series were better because they had a much less frontal area even while some of them had a bigger aerodinamic coefficient. And tiny wings in comparison with the Mustang.

They had lower frontal area but the Mustang was the cleaner plane with less surface drag.

Induce drag is a related to the aspect ratio of the wings, higher aspect wings (ie longer) have lower induced drag. Hence I would expect the Mustang to have lower induced drag. Also induced drag only plays a part at low speeds, at higher speeds surface drag plays a more important role.

One of the things I always point out is that per HP the Mustang was always the faster plane. Take the Ta-152 for example, with a more powerful engine it was slower than the P-51H. Even smaller planes like the BF-109 and F8F, are slower per HP than the Mustang.

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in comparison, attacking an immobile target, even protected by Flak, is much much easier.

Results from Europe showed otherwise, 1,680 Mustangs lost vs Ground, 840 lost vs Air. Which was why the USAAF gave pilots credit for ground kills.

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Well the early berlin raid happened on march 1944 and there were a relatively small ammount of P51B involved. You fail to mention that out of the 700-strong fighter cover for the strike (12 fighter squadrons) only three flow Mustangs (around 130 machines).

But it was the Mustangs who bore the brunt of the fighting, the Germans where pretty skilled in bouncing the bombers as soon as the escorting P-47s had to break of for refuling.

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Another thing you have wrong is the number of german losses. By all accounts the Luftwaffe lost 68 machines that day, and of that number, around the half were twin engined night fighter used in the pulk-zërstorer role in which they were easy meat for the allied escorts.

The numbers did seem quite high. But also remember that most of the Mustangs in that occasion where carrying bombs.

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The german fighter cohesion at that time was at the very edge of the limit. What really destroyed the Jagdwaffe's abilty to fight back was the "big week" bombings on Luftwaffe and oil processing targets. The Luftwaffe lost three months worth of fighter production, an immense quantity of experienced fighter pilots, and almost 55% of the jagdwaffe's fuel production.

That offensive happened at the end of February, while there were only a handful of P-51Bs in england, and no -D version.

Yet those few Mustangs where critical, since the P-47Ds didn't have the range to go all the way.

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One thing I find interesting about that chart is the surprisingly good roll performance of the Kingcobra. A most undervalued aircraft...

Probably as a result of the mid mounted engine. It reduces roll inertia considerably, and given a decent engine the Cobras would have made great dogfighters. We might be discussing the P-63H vs Ta152 instead!

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They had lower frontal area but the Mustang was the cleaner plane with less surface drag.

that's the reason why the aerodinamic coefficient exists

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Induce drag is a related to the aspect ratio of the[ wings, higher aspect wings (ie longer) have lower induced drag. Hence I would expect the Mustang to have lower induced drag. Also induced drag only plays a part at low speeds, at higher speeds surface drag plays a more important role.

Nope, lets see

HIgher aspect ratio wings are not just longer. They are also less deep.

A longer wing only has lower drag than a smaller one if the wing area remains constant. Wing area plays a big part here and a big wing will always produce more induced drag than a clearly smaller one unless there are radical differences in the aspect ratio (which did not exist in the planes I compared)

A good example of this is easy to see and fits great within this topic: the Ta152H had an extremely high aspect ratio wing but had a big area. The Ta152C had a much lower aspect ratio wing, yet it had a much lower area.

And german Rechlin tests definitely probe that the Ta152C suffered from much lower induced drag than the Ta152H.

About the speeds, you are right, its late and I mixed induced with parasitic drag .

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One of the things I always point out is that per HP the Mustang was always the faster plane.

Not true. for several reasons. First: Yak-3s with 1350hp were able to reach very high speeds a P-51D could only dream of achieving at the same power setup. Same go for the rest of the latewar Yak9 series aswell as for the La7.

Bf-109 case is also not true...well, it IS true depending on the version. 109G6 and G14 series with bulged cowling, yeah, you are right. G10 and K4 versions with smooth cowling, it's not.

The Fw190D9 without ladedruckhohung nor MW50 (rated power: 1725hp@takeoff) was good for 427mph, not very far from the P51D's top speed. The Fw190A series had to deal with the disadvantage the radial engine meant, and with the blunt nose of the annular cowling in the D series. Yes-they were slightly worse. No, the difference wasn't great.


Finally you have to keep in mind that an estimated 7% of the top speed of the P51D came because of the jet exhaust created by the radiator. (Soviet top-speed tests done on P51Ds with closed radiator gave a top speed of 405mph, that's 32mph less than it's published top speed-with open radiator) That's not aerodynamic efficience, that's smart engineering, and makes the P51D look as having a much better aerodinamic than it really had (and it was very good).


Anyway: It's all a matter of looking at engine performance curves and comparing them with the speed curves. This has been done before in Aces High website. At the heights where the Bf109K4 and P51D speeds matched, the DB605DB engine delivered less power than the P51D Merlin. Meaning: the 109K4 had a better aerodynamic than the P51D.

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Take the Ta-152 for example, with a more powerful engine it was slower than the P-51H. Even smaller planes like the BF-109 and F8F, are slower per HP than the Mustang.

the engine of the Ta-152H was a three speed two stage supercharged Jumo213 that delivered 2050hp@sea level with MW50, that's in the same league as the P51H. The Ta152H had a bigger frontal area than the Fw190 proper. The C was slightly smaller, yet still bigger than the 190 series. Not a proper comparison, really.

The BF-109 I already spoke about-depends on the version and on the cowling.

The F8F was a radial and had to deal with a much bigger parasitic drag due to the airflow going through the engine. It's an inherent disadvantage of the radial engine configuration compared with an inline, I always try to keep that in mind when comparing aerodinamic performances.

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Results from Europe showed otherwise, 1,680 Mustangs lost vs Ground, 840 lost vs Air. Which was why the USAAF gave pilots credit for ground kills.

given that the P51 really started appearing in really big numbers over Europe starting from July '44 (before then there were quite more P47s and 38s than 51s), and that by July '44 the luftwaffe fighter force was already mostly broken except for a handful of experienced fighter pilots, I find this hardly surprising, and completely irrelevant when trying to extract conclussions about the air-to-air capability of the P51D.

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But it was the Mustangs who bore the brunt of the fighting, the Germans where pretty skilled in bouncing the bombers as soon as the escorting P-47s had to break of for refuling.

Under any light possible, the P51D hunted at will that day. The germans completely ignored them, as their standing orders called them to do. It was not until the summer of 1944 that the orders were changed and the Bf109 Jagdgeschwaders got the task of engaging the fighter cover while the Fw190s concentrated on the bomber formations.

By that point the jagdwaffe was well past its prime.

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The numbers did seem quite high. But also remember that most of the Mustangs in that occasion where carrying bombs.

During the berlin raid? bombs? the Mustang?...I'd like to see the documentation that says that. The P51B wasn't able to fly over berlin without using droptanks. The internal fuel didn't allow them to go all the way there and back to England.

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Yet those few Mustangs where critical, since the P-47Ds didn't have the range to go all the way.

No ,not to berlin, not at that moment. But they already could reach most of the industrial cities of Germany. By march 1944 the P47s were perfectly able to reach and escort bombers all the way to the Hamburg-Magdeburg-Erfurt line. And indeed, they did it during the Big Week bombing offensive.

Those 47s already carried wing piping for wing drop tanks. The days of the Jug escorting only to the german frontiers were well in the past (at the time the P-47 could only load one small drop tank under their belly).

Three months later with the introduction of bigger drop tanks the P47s were potentially able to escort any raid up to the polish frontier. Meaning: it had the same range as the P51D. The air war against germany would've been won anyway. The jagdwaffe was mortally wounded in the last weeks of February an since then it was bleeding to death. The P51D did nothing the P47 wouldn't have done anyway in the same lapse of time.

BTW, at the same time the P51 started to be present in real numbers in europe, the P38's problems with freezing turbosuperchargers were solved. The P38 got out of the escorting role because the P51 reached the front lines, but at that moment the Lightning finally got the reliability it needed to escort bombers.

as I said, had the Mustang never existed, the history of the air war offensive over Germany would've been almost identic.

I have a good sized Aircraft library but unfortunately it's mainly general information. Is there a good website with all the Ta-152 variants?

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During the berlin raid? bombs? the Mustang?...I'd like to see the documentation that says that. The P51B wasn't able to fly over berlin without using droptanks. The internal fuel didn't allow them to go all the way there and back to England.

Not the Berlin raids, on the November '44 battle where 200 Mustangs ran into 750 German fighters. I can't remember the target but it was in norther Germany near Poland (or maybe it was in Poland?)

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No, not to berlin, not at that moment. But they already could reach most of the industrial cities of Germany. By march 1944 the P47s were perfectly able to reach and escort bombers all the way to the Hamburg-Magdeburg-Erfurt line. And indeed, they did it during the Big Week bombing offensive.

But it was over Berlin where the back of the Luftwaffe was broken, and only there could the Mustang go.

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Three months later with the introduction of bigger drop tanks the P47s were potentially able to escort any raid up to the polish frontier. Meaning: it had the same range as the P51D. The air war against germany would've been won anyway. The jagdwaffe was mortally wounded in the last weeks of February an since then it was bleeding to death. The P51D did nothing the P47 wouldn't have done anyway in the same lapse of time.

Yet the Mustang was prefered by pilots for escort missions, only Zemke's Wolfpack (56th) kept their Jugs, and even Zemke criticised this move.

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as I said, had the Mustang never existed, the history of the air war offensive over Germany would've been almost identic.

Maybe so, but a delay could have been expensive, a few more Me-262 might not have change the course of the war but would have given the 8th AF a bigger headache and some more losses.

The Mustang also played a part in the Pacific, being the only fighter capable of flights over Japan until the P-47N arrived. If Iwo or Okinawa hadn't been taken the Mustang could have flown from carriers instead.

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Originally posted by Desertfox
I have a good sized Aircraft library but unfortunately it's mainly general information. Is there a good website with all the Ta-152 variants?

There weren't many: the C-1 and C-3 mid-altitude fighters, and the H-1 high-altitude fighter. The Ta-152H had very long wings, and GM-1 nitrous oxide boost, and could operate at well over 40,000+ feet. The Ta-152 H-1 carried 1 30mm MK-108 firing through the propellor hub and 2 20mm MG-151/20s in the wing roots. The Ta-152C models were designed for medium-altitude operations and had a normal FW-190 style wing. The C-1 had the same propellor hub armament as the H-1, but had MG-151/20s (2 on the nose deck and 2 more in the wing roots), while the C-3 replaced the Mk-108 in the engine with a 30mm MK-103 (same projectiles, just going almost twice as fast from a much heavier gun). Both the H and the C models were fitted with MW-50 methanol-water injection systems for low-to-mid-altitude power boosts.

Desertfox:

The fights over east germany in the late '44 happened with a Luftwaffe that was alreay well past the day it exhausted itself. Again I insist, the consequences of the allied Big Week were tremendous for the Jagdwaffe's effort to stop the strategic bombing campaign. It was mortally wounded with a big hemorrage that slowly drained it dry. By november 1944 it was a shadow of what it was until early 1944. The mustang arrived too late to win the air war. The air war was already won.

The 200 fighters you mention flew in formation together. The 750 fighters the german threw against the bombers didn't attack as a huge wing, but in separate elements.

And out of those 750 fighters only 40% fought air-to-air against the P51s. The Fw190s had standing orders to go for the bombers and ignore the escort. The Bf109s were the ones to engage the escort fighters.

Anyway: for November 1944 the P47 was able to take the ride to berlin and back from England. Again, had the P51 not been there the escorts would've been jugs, and they would've done exactly the same good job the Mustang did.

all in all, the perspective doesn't look as good for the germans now, isnt it? .


About pilot opinions: they were many and of many tastes. but the P51D was the main escort fighter of the 8th air force, most of the P47D pilots who flew in WW2 did few of those missions, concentrating on air to ground duties, a task which the mustang pilot heartily disliked because of the atrocious vulnerability of the P51 against ground fire. Those pilots who flew pure escorting duties with both planes preferred the P47D. More firepower, better high altitude performances and way more survability.

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Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson

There weren't many: the C-1 and C-3 mid-altitude fighters

actually those were never operational. Only the C-0 preproduction fighter saw operational use...and only one machine.

The C-1 and C-3 were prototypes by the end of the war, but had the war lasted one more month they would've been issued in more numbers.

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and the H-1 high-altitude fighter. The Ta-152H had very long wings, and GM-1 nitrous oxide boost, and could operate at well over 40,000+ feet.

Few of the Ta152Hs who saw service were H-1s. I think only 12 saw service. The rest of the 152s which saw service were the mentioned C-0 and the H-0 which was basically the same as the H-1 but without MW50 and GM-1 boosting.

The Ta152H-0s of JG300 gave a more numerous number of british Hawker Tempests a run for their money in a treetop level fight in april 1945 (well known fight because of the Willi Rechtke accounts of the fight).

Being an unboosted plane designed for very high altitude fights, the Ta-152H-0 demonstrated an amazing capability at very low level fights too. The H-1 with associated MW-50 and GM-1 systems was a terror.

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The C-1 had the same propellor hub armament as the H-1, but had MG-151/20s (2 on the nose deck and 2 more in the wing roots), while the C-3 replaced the Mk-108 in the engine with a 30mm MK-103 (same projectiles, just going almost twice as fast from a much heavier gun)

Accordingly the C-1 was the fighter version, the C-3 was to be a zerstörer specializated aircraft.

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Both the H and the C models were fitted with MW-50 methanol-water injection systems for low-to-mid-altitude power boosts.

most if not all standard production planes of Germany since 1944 were issued with MW-50. The only exception being the Fw190A5-A9, and the Fw190D9s. Those versions had a much simpler and more effective boost system requiring no additive, the Erhöhte notleistung (as it was called in the A-series 190) or Ladedruckhöhung (in the D-9 series)

Then over the Ladedruckhöhung the D-9 could carry a MW50 injection system (called Alcohol-Einspritzung) or a higher pressure C-3 injection system (simpler to use and adapt and offering a higher performance but only issued to D9 units which used C3 fuel instead of B4...which were very few)

Associated B4+ladedruckhöhung+alcohol Einspritzung Doras are the ones I've used in teh comparison I posted avobe.

Associated C3+ladedruckhöhung in its high pressure variant were true hotrods, so much it seems the germans had to change the second supercharger speed so it could be used at low altitudes to attain the manifold pressurs the engine could stand* (system which was referred to as "A-Lader als Bodenmotor" in the german Focke-wulf performance charts). C3 fuel was very very rare in latewar germany anyway so probably this hotrod version was used for the JV44 covering Fw190D9s only. Those planes had terrorific low altitude performances.

*there's no true proof of this modification actually took place, but the performance curves exist for the model so it's possible it actually existed. The germans certainly thought about doing it as the engine and the plane well could stand it. It's not known wether they actually did or not, though.


Both Ta152 versions, C and H were issued with MW50 (so it was the planned Ta153). But as I said very few Ta152Hs actually carried it (and the GM-1 system the H-1 also carried), and the only C which saw service didn't have the system fitted.

I don't know if this shows anything, but in the old Lucasarts "Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe" I'd always take the P-47 over a P-51 (unless I could get a P-38). But then I liked tougher aircraft and hitting ground targets on the way home if I had the chance.

But then in the earlier program "Battle of Brittain" I'd take a Bf110 over a Bf109 most days, but then I'm probably weird. (but always the Fw190 or Me262 over the Bf109 in the later era program...when not using the Go229 or Do335 that is.)

little performance comparison table for the TA152 variants (prototypes and preserial versions included)




and speed charts for the Fw190D9 showing B4+MW50 (curve 4) ,C3 (curve 2) and C3 with high pressure ladedruckhöhung (A-lader als Bodenmotor) (curve 3) speed performances:

Different sources report different numbers of Ta-152 subtypes. The Cs were not easily externally distinguishable from 190Ds, so their number is more questionable.

An interesting fact: the H-1 (the H-0 and H-1 differed in having wing fuel tanks, the H-1 had them, the H-0 didn't) that the Smithsonian Museum has is fitted with nose cannon mounts, but no openings for cannon in the nose and no sign cannon were ever fitted. So it appears that the airframe started as a C model, then (probably during production) became an H model.