P-80A Shooting Star

[ghostdancer]

The F-86 Sabre, which saw lots of action in Korea, had 6 x .50s. So I wouldn't say that 6 .50s suck on a jet or prove ineffective on a jet.

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

6 50's would suck in a jet fighter.... closure rate is to fast. That's why the 262 has 30mm's
 

Actually, the higher rate of fire of the Browning M2 and M3 50BMG is an advantage over the slower cannons in high speed attacks. And as posted above, the F-86 Sabre, equipped with 6 Browning 50's did very well against cannon equipped MiG's in Korea.

[Enker]

Actually, the higher rate of fire of the Browning M2 and M3 50BMG is an advantage over the slower cannons in high speed attacks. And as posted above, the F-86 Sabre, equipped with 6 Browning 50's did very well against cannon equipped MiG's in Korea.

Agreed, although in the book Sabres Over Mig Alley: The F-86 and The Battle for Air Superiority in Korea, by Kenneth P. Warrell, it speaks of the downside to having 6 .50s on the F-86 as being that the incendiary rounds did not ignite properly above 35k-ish feet, and thus were merely lead slamming into the Migs and not doing very major damage. That is why there were attempts to see if it were possible to mount the Sabre with four twenty millimeter cannons. Unfortunately, this project was cancelled due to the excess gun exhaust clogging and killing the engine with *no way to restart it.

*The part after the asterisk might not be true, just working mostly from memory here.

[B4Buster]

Has the OP ever seen a P-80??

[Dream Child]

6 50's would suck in a jet fighter.... closure rate is to fast. That's why the 262 has 30mm's
 

The 30mm's the 262 used were really terrible guns to try to hit anything with in real life. Due to the low velocity of the round, they had something like 50 foot of drop at 800 yards, compared to approximately 16 foot of drop for the .50 BMG at the same distance. Muzzle velocity was 1600 fps compared to just under 3000 fps for the .50 BMG. The velocity, or really the lack of velocity, of those 30mm shells made it hard to lead a comparable fighter aircraft. When the USAF did upgrade, it went with 20mm cannon that had good velocity (think Hispano), not some low velocity piece of garbage.

[Dream Child]

Agreed, although in the book Sabres Over Mig Alley: The F-86 and The Battle for Air Superiority in Korea, by Kenneth P. Warrell, it speaks of the downside to having 6 .50s on the F-86 as being that the incendiary rounds did not ignite properly above 35k-ish feet, and thus were merely lead slamming into the Migs and not doing very major damage. That is why there were attempts to see if it were possible to mount the Sabre with four twenty millimeter cannons. Unfortunately, this project was cancelled due to the excess gun exhaust clogging and killing the engine with *no way to restart it.

*The part after the asterisk might not be true, just working mostly from memory here.

This can't be quite right. The guns on a F-86 sit outside and way behind the jet air intake. There must be something else missing here.

[Rino]

     The Canadians used F-86s with 4 20mm, and I believe a slightly
more powerful engine.

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

That bird has the gun ports for the 6 50BMG gun package.

[Shifty]

6 50's would suck in a jet fighter.... closure rate is to fast. That's why the 262 has 30mm's
 

Jebus 

[Shifty]

Has the OP ever seen a P-80??

Just curious what you meant by this question. Are you saying the looks of the aircraft make a difference on it's combat performance?



Just my opinion... The P-80 was a beautiful bird and would have accounted well for herself in combat against the ME-262.

[Dream Child]

Just curious what you meant by this question. Are you saying the looks of the aircraft make a difference on it's combat performance?

I think he's asking the person who originated this thread what he meant when he said "...it was basically designed like the ME-262 but had 6 50 cals on the nose..." While the performance was similar, the design isn't.

[Shifty]

I think he's asking the person who originated this thread what he meant when he said "...it was basically designed like the ME-262 but had 6 50 cals on the nose..." While the performance was similar, the design isn't.

Ahh that explains it.  After Ace's comment on 50 cals nit working in jets I kind of forgot about the OP's comments.
Thanks

[Dantoo]

Adding to the hijack - the Australian version of the Sabre was equipped with 2 30mm Aden guns.  The gases from the cannon caused compressor stalls in the Avon engines that were fitted to this model.  The problem was overcome by redesign.