Essential and Dispensible WW2 aircraft.
Daryl Hunt wrote:
-snip-
Keeping it in the whatif department. Whatif they had installed decent
Turbos and Supers on the Allisons. What would that have done for even the
P-40. Afterall, later productions on the P-38 and the P-47 would have had
equal or more range and speed of the P-51C and the P-40 would have had near
identical performance and speed.
Dunno. The Merlin equipped P-40F was only about 10 mph faster than the
earlier Allison-fitted P-40E - although obviously better at altitute.
But it still was more than 50 mph short of the P-51B/C's top speed.
I doubt a "super-Allison" would have produced markedly superior results
or placed the P-40 in the P-51's performance class.
The P-40 was, after all, basically an up-engined Hawk 75 (P-36), a 1934
design and a full generation earlier than the P-51 airframe design.
Cheers
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