Some of the latest developments in propeller aircraft has fascinated
me. It also brought up an interesting hypothetical question; mostly
when reading about modern day warbird replicas.

With relatively easily available technology off the shelf (no rail
guns or laser cannon please). Lets say a reasonable development budget
of oh say $300 million. The question is are we capable of producing
superior prop aircraft than the great fighters of WWII and what
configuration would it take?

To keep the discussion relatively focused we'll put in a couple of
rules:

1. Mission: Air superiority/dominance during WWII. Land based. It
should be able to clear the skies of any and all opposition at all
ranges and altitudes.

2. Must be a propeller aircraft.

3. Only armanent allowed are guns/cannons. No guided missiles. I guess
dumb firing rockets will be ok since they were used during WWII.


With the above two exceptions all of modern technology is allowed to
be used for example composite materials, radars, titanium armour,
fly-by-wire (will dynamic instability benefit the agility of a prop
plane?) advanced aerodynamic configurations (rear mounted engines). To
make matters really intesting helicopters are fine. Just as long as
the driving force isn't a jet.

If we were to design a new prop, gun armed aircrafy would it
essentially look pretty similar to a carbon fibre, turbo-prop P-51
Mustang or would it be some bizzare split wing, dual rear engined
travesty?

regards,


Nev