To me the report WW posted clearly states that the improved fuels were only to be produced if that would not affect the quantities of 130 grade production. The situation looked good because it was seen that 130 grade fuel production objectives were going to be exceeded. However, later on in the document they saw that in the future there would be problems with aircraft gasoline production so would that actually mean that demands for 130 grade "basic" fuel would over-ride the needs for 145 grade fuel. Notice: 145 grade fuel, not 150. The 150 was seen a desirable product but it was not to be produced as was 145 grader. What is interesting is that the later document in thread only refer to 150 octane. IF the reference actually means 115/145 octane the early tests and their results done with real 150 grade fuel would be a different matter. What is the 150 grade referred in performance documents? Is it actually 145 grader or is it actual 150 grade fuel? What would be supplied to operational units? Or is the first report erroneous in a sense that the US gasoline production actually was able to produce sufficient amounts of "real" 120/150 grade fuel later on?
Quality?
The increase of tetraethyl was obviously giving leeway to 130 gasoline quality process and it could be used to keep the octane rating high and thus increasing production numbers. How did this reflect to 145 grade production? Or 104/150 as opposed to 120/150 octane? Is the 104/150 better distilled product and is the 120/150 done merely by increasing tetraethyl thus also boosting the lean mixture rating but causing also more problems in form of lead deposits when aircraft is flown in partial power. It seems that the toxicity claim and anecdotal evidence of pilots would support this. It also seems that 115/145 fuel was quite tetraethyl rich. If you do a performance test with better distilled 150 grade fuel would the performance be the same with poorer distilled 150 boosted merely with tetraethyl?
Production and consumption?
164 000 000 barrels of 130 grade in 1944 (1barrel=42gallons?) equals 6 888 000 000 gallons. Of course it has to be kept in mind that if half of the airforce would be bombers and half fighters the bombers would still have four or two motors so the share of total going fighters is quite small.
If we estimate a normal daily fuel usage of a P-51 to be around 250 gallons a 20 plane unit would fly a week with the amount of fuel stated in the latter document IF they flew every day tanks full. Just to give a perspective of what 35 000 gallons operationally means, roughly that is. (In practice there would be various amounts of fuel left in tanks after flights but then again fuel wasted in drop tanks or with lost aircraft etc etc.)
-C+
