Hi Hilts,
>I'd have to look at the charts, but the P-51 for example was down to around 900-1100 HP at 27K, so they weren't making enough boost to make heat or power up high.
Hm, I haven't looked it up yet either, but the P-51B first used a higher-geared supercharger and got quite impressive very high altitude performance from it. The Spitfire IX had a similarly high full throttle height at first, and both types were using intercoolers (or aftercoolers).
>Now that I understand exactly where you wanted to mount the intercooler, it has a better chance of working that way, but I doubt you can get enough air through it to make it efficient
Hm, I should be able to get the same amount of air through it as for the turbo-supercharger as all cross sections of the system remain unchanged, and the engine will not require any more air than before.
>I still don't think you could make the P-47 perform as well as it did without the turbocharger.
It's probably going to be a close thing, and I'm certainly going to lose some performance in the region between low gear and high gear full throttle height. A certain amount of performance loss would be acceptable to get the desired increase.
However, after Krusty posted the side-view that shows that the P-47D still had room for a good amount fuel without removing the turbo-supercharger, the mechanically-supercharger P-47 has lost some of its attractiveness since room for fuel was the main point of pulling the turbine.
>I just don't think you could put a big enough supercharger on it or spin a smaller one fast enough.
I believe size would not be a problem since the R-2800 has a much larger frontal area than the Merlin, and the Merlin manages to "hide" the supercharger almost completely. The R-2800 needs more air, but it's much larger, too.
However, something I hadn't thought of before: It might be that we don't have any suitable mechanical supercharger "off the shelf" in 1943. The R-2800 as used in the F6F and F4U is not sufficiently supercharged to compete with the turbine, and I don't know if there were larger superchargers available. As it takes some time to design and manufacture one, that might kill the project (unless we allow a longer lead time).
(With turbo-superchargers, it was not uncommon to mount two per engine, but that was greatly aided by the uncomplicated way of driving two turbines by simply piping half of the cylinders' exhaust to each. One could use two mechanically driven, smaller superchargers, but only at a cost of a complex drive train. I'm not aware of any actual application like that.)
>The carb fire got so bad that it burned a substantial section of the fuselage and parts of the wing, and it was in danger of spreading to the fuel system. The smoke got so bad in the cockpit that Lad said he could barely see or breathe.
That sounds worse than I imagined. Good thing he put it down before anything happened to the structure!
>LLoyds of London does not require that Steve Hinton be the only pilot in command of "Glacer Girl" just for fun.
Hm, reminds me of something John Deakin mentioned (or maybe I should say "preached"): With the passing away of the "old" generation who still have the professional skills to make Warbirds work (and fly them), it's getting harder and harder for the operators to keep the aircraft flying. It seems that despite all encouragement by the CAF and other organisations, they can't get enough enthusiasts to learn some of the required skills :-(
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)
