Originally posted by Gomer:
Thank you all Shedding light on the subject... Nice post badboy..
While I was considering the F4U v Spit IX comparison, I did a couple of "What if" configurations and it turns out that in what is still some way from a worst case scenario for Spit, the F4U can indeed out turn it.
Imagine, the admittedly unlikely situation where a Spitfire with 100% internal fuel meets an F4U that is down to the last 3%. The situation would be as shown below, where the F4U would have a sustained turn rate advantage over the entire envelope. In that situation, the Spitfire would get a very nasty surprise, providing the F4U driver could get the kill before running out of fuel. With only 3% that would be unlikely.
Notice that their maximum sustained turn rates are almost identical and that the Spitfire has a slight turn radius advantage. However, the slightly higher sustained turn rate of the F4U over the rest of the envelope would equalize the situation.
For practical purposes however, the differences in this overlay are too small to make any difference, other than to demonstrate that sometimes our expectations of what an aircraft should or shouldn't be able to do, can let us down.
Badboy
