Yeah, would really have been weird if the Pony out climbed the Dora. If you fancy another go, try the Pony at 25% fuel and the Dora at 50% or 75%. I think the Dora would still edge out the Pony, but you never know with the huge gas tank on the Pony...
Been an interesting thread about climb performance, but one thing that should be done to accurately reflect the climb rate is this: take off in the ponie, select aux tank, run it dry, land, then takeoff, establish a auto climb confg, then enter dot speed 152, then I think you will see the true climb performance of the 51D.
If you test the FW and the ponie with different ords load outs, the FW will probably out perform the 51 because of the different type of engine. The radial engines of that era were stronger, produced quicker torque, and handle weight a lot better than the in line engines. Grumman knew what they were doing when they produced all those great aircraft with radial engines instead of in lines.
The Allison and Packered inline engines were designed for one thing and one thing only, SPEED, which they did very well. I think I read somewhere, can't remember where, that Grumman tried a V-1650 in a F6F at one time, but can't remember results.
