Warbird Information Exchange

We all know what the great U.S. fighters where capable of against axis fighters, but what about against each other? Think about it for a moment, P-38 vs P-47, or P-47 vs Corsair, or Hellcat vs Mustang? Has there, or was there ever a comparison along those lines? Give your thoughts on which scenario that you like and why?

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Negative Ghost Rider the pattern is full

The only viable method to accomplish individual comparison is an energy format at 50% fuel resulting in specific energy curves on each aircraft for overlay. With this in hand, the areas of advantage and disadvantage for each aircraft can be obtained. It is notable however that any comparison overlay leaves out one factor that when considering any fighter v fighter makes a HUGE difference regardless of where in each fighter's 3 dimensional maneuvering performance envelope any engagement takes place. That factor is the difference between the two cockpits related to pilot skills.
Thus, the old argument on "which one is best" goes on ad infinitum

Dudley Henriques

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Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship

There was an article in EAA Sport Aviation or was it the Warbirds magazine in the 80s where they attempted to match up four American fighters in a contest like this. IIRC they used the Kalamazoo F6F, FG-1D, P-47 and someone's Mustang.

Any such comparison using modern warbirds is of course greatly distorted by many things including lighter weights and other changes in the planes, habits and expectations of modern pilots, and the need to stay comfortably within each plane's envelope.

During the war at testing locations like Wright Field, friendly as well as captured enemy a/c were frequently wrung out against each other. The US and UK traded a few "evaluation" copies of most of the planes in their inventory for such purposes, which is the only reason that a Typhoon and a Spitfire Mk.VII still exist. With more stock airframes, greater risk tolerance, and a more serious purpose than we have now, those would have yielded more informative data. One occasionally reads a snippet or a few charts from such tests but not really a comprehensive treatment. If the reports are still around, they would be interesting to see compiled.

August

Some of the 56th FG guys I have interviewed that were based around the East Coast before shipping overseas mentioned that they would have impromptu dogfights with some of the Navy guys in their Corsairs. It seemed that the concensus was that whoever had the advantage to begin with (attacking out of sun or whatever the case may be) usually "won." This was of course before any of them had real dogfighting experience with bullets flying. It seems to me that it really boiled down to experience in the type, experience in combat, and pure aggressiveness in the air versus which aircraft was "best."

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Curator - EAA Aviation Museum, Oshkosh, WI
"Let No Story Go Untold!"
http://www.timelessvoices.org

Roll rate, climb rate, turn rate, firepower, armor, engine dependability and power, visibility, communications, situational awareness...so many variables, it is a hard thing to rate. Just remember, many aces believed that you should only enter a dogfight IF YOU had the advantage. Takes a lot of that "Which plane is better" out of the equation. If the enemy doesn't see you coming, YOUR plane is better!

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Aviation Illustration Website
http://shepartstudio.com/illustration/

I think I recall reading in Barrett Tillman's excellent book on the Corsair that the P-47 guys and Corsair guys on the east coast used to encounter each other quite frequently (as stated above) and the battles were also somewhat decided by the altitude at which the mock combats were fought....the Corsair was'nt designed along the same lines as the P-47 for high altitude bomber escort, so the P-47's held the edge above 25,000 feet whereas the Corsairs apparently won combats regularly against the Jugs below 25,000 feet...I remember a quote from the book wherein P-47 pilots would hold up their oxygen masks and point upwards, and a smart Corsair pilot would just shake his head 'no' and break off....

Great speculative stuff tho, I always love reading about these scenarios, or even ones that never happened, like the F4U vs the Focke Wulf 190....love to read more!

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Mark Morris

Back in the late 60's Corsairs duked it out against Corsairs and P-51s during the Soccer War between El Salvador and Honduras.
http://ctair-space.blogspot.com/2010/12/great-soccer-war.html

According to Wikpedia: A number of well-known American pilots with current experience on the P-51 Mustang were retained, including Chuck Lyford, Bob Love, Lynn Garrison, and Ben Hall. The Mercenaries hired by El Salvador did not do much figthing, choosing to fly away in confrontations. The actual dogfights, if any, were done purely between El Salvador pilots and Honduran pilots. The Salvadoran missions against the Honduran Vought F4U Corsairs marked the world's last combat between propeller driven aircraft.

This is an excellent recount of all the aircraft involved.
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_156.shtml

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Andrew King
Air Museum Director with no Museum to Direct
Open to Suggestions

There was a mock fight with Sopwith Camel and Hurricane involved. The Camel went out strongly with many more confirmed 'hits'. The question arises, how the hell Camel pilot would have been able to enter a dog fight with a Hurrie, and what would have happen if the biplane absorbed, let's say, two second burst from eight Brownings?
British and German had a chance to test enemy fighters before Battle of Britain. Both sides of the conflict decided their own crafts had adventage over the enemy. German fighter pilots even stated the Spitfire should be disqualified as a combat aircraft, having not been able to accept unknown to them nagative G carburator troubles.
There have been, or almost have been a few confrontations of american fighter planes. The most famous, perhaps, is the P-47 PR fight performed by Neal Kearby against some 5AF P-38 ace, whose identity is rather unknown. I've heard of three names and a story of hangover of the loosing P-38 pilot. Well, it is even possible the duell never had a place.
Another story is the tale of Gerald Johnson preparing his P-40 to perform training fights with new pilots flying Lightnings. He wanted to show them how fragile could be an equipment adventage in a fight against experienced fighter. The P-40was stripped of paint, armour plates and MGs to make the teaching easier.
The 'almost' part goes for the challenges produced from time to time by angry Mustang pilots, calling those darn P-47 guys to meet them over the Channel, after being mistaken as Bf-109 and atacked in anger with deadly even if called 'friendly fire'.

In my opinion it is safe to assume the top constructions of the time were somehow similar, no matter of the country of production. If you need to know which fighter is better anyway, you need to add 'for what' to your question. It's like this P-47 - F4U comparison. Their R-2800s have been designed for completely different tasks, not to mention the carrier ops requirements actual only for one of them. And still, comparing for example P-47 and P-51 of the end of the war do not forget to look at the costs of both: production and operational use of the plane.

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One of the first things I ever read about warbirds was the account by Mike Dillon of trying to settle the Bearcat versus Mustang argument in the skies over California. Dillon flew the Bearcat. The problem was his opponent was veteran Mustang pilot and fighter ace Bob Love. Every time Dillon looked back there was a Mustang on his tail.

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

Some above average responses to a perennial card-game here!

The only person that I'm aware of who was a skilled, qualified test pilot who flew all the W.W.II main Allied and Axis (maritime and land) fighters during (and under) W.W.II conditions was Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown. His quantified brief analysis of all those types is collected in his suite of books, five on types, one autobiography, and is a core collection for anyone serious about this question, and related pool questions. IIRC, 'Testing for Combat' specifically addresses some of these queries. Others have offered invaluable experience and insight (and still do, in some cases) but there's only one who can genuinely claim to be a personal 'common denominator'.

He's still going, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Brown_%28pilot%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ai ... e%22_Brown

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Off topic, but it's important that this is part of the record.

Although the US mercenaries in the 1969 war didn't tangle in any of the air to air engagements, it's certainly NOT because they avoided confrontation.

Side note: I've done a lot of research about these guys, and never heard of Lynn Garrison. Wikipedia standard.

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IMHO, these are the most important quotes of the thread so far.

Since the OP specifically asked "what the great U.S. fighters where capable of", and thankfully NOT the much-debated "who would win" question, it's actually a relatively simple question to frame.

As Dudley mentioned, the "modern" fighter pilot uses Energy-Maneuverability charts, invented in it's modern form by John Boyd and developed for specific aircraft by engineers and test pilots, to actually yardstick performance capabilities in dogfights. E-M diagrams show the performance measures that matter in a 1 v 1 dogfight: turn rate, turn radius, speed, and ability to maintain those turns given the airplane's available power.

Although it's tough to read, here's an E-M diagram for a T-38 just so those who have never heard of one can see it:


Overlaying the E-M diagrams of two aircraft can show areas of the performance envelope where one aircraft would have the advantage over the other.

Even then, though, the E-M performance is just one of MANY factors in the equation. This is why the "who would win" question/argument is such a futile one. In real life, the most important factors in determining the winner of a dogfight are luck/timing and pilot skill (as other posters have alluded to but not explicitly stated). Many times in documented history has an aircraft that is significantly lessor on paper bested it's opponent because of these two factors.

Bottom line is this: it is simply impossible to perform a comparison like this on paper and determine a "winner"...but you certainly CAN determine which aircraft performed better in measurable factors.

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