Hi Kweassa,
>I believe the Fw190 was actually the only fighter that had the "Kommandogerat"(a primitive computer which was incorporated for automatic adjustment of fuel mixture, propeller pitch, and supercharger shifting all in one touch of the throttle lever) style of automatic controls during the time of its introduction.
As an aside, I'd not really call the Kommandogerät primitive :-) It was a mechanical/hydraulical analogue computer with multiple sensors that took account of an amazing numbers of a parameters and control functions.
Since the Kommandogerät was specific to the BMW801, the Focke-Wulf series actually had two different engine control computers as Junkers had developed the Motorbediengerät for the Jumo 213. The Motorbediengerät was an advance over the earlier system (and the common simple regulators) in that it didn't limit the boost pressure at low altitude, but the mass of the charge, i. e. the amount of the oxygen provided to the engine.
This was significant since at low alittudes, the higher air temperatures meant that the charge density was lower, so that power fell off at constant pressure. That's why engines curves usually show that power at ground level is lower than power at low gear critical altitude. For the Jumo, this characteristic low-altitude power drop was absent, and it gained about 10% power by that.
It's interesting to note that the Germans weren't the only ones to implement single-lever engine controls in WW2 - the Dewoitine D.520 seems to have been one of the early examples: "It was powered by a 910 hp Hispano-Suiza 12Y liquid-cooled engine driving a three-bladed Ratier popeller with automatic rpm control for a given power setting, a sluggish system that led to overspeeding in dives" (from Eric Brown's "Testing for Combat").
By the way, the diving problem was solved for the BMW801 with a second control, the dive lever :-) So the Kommandogerät wasn't actually a single-lever control system! ;-)
Later-production Spitfire XIVs with their Griffon engines were also equipped with single-lever control systems, referred to as "interconnected throttle". The way I understand the Pilot's Notes, this gave a certain rpm setting for each boost setting and could only be overridden towards higher rpm by moving the (former) propeller speed lever (now called "override lever") forward. In the fully-back position, rpm were selected entirely automatically. Mixture control was automatic too, as was supercharger gear selection, but the latter was not coupled to the throttle lever. The gear changes were always performed as if the plane was under full combat power, so for economical flying the pilot had to go into override mode and select gears manually.
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)
