----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Barber" <rbarber41@hotmail.com>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 10:32 PM
Subject: Re: [MV] "Memphis Belle"
> Add to that the radar accursed flak over the target and you begin
> to understand why unescorted daylight bombing was a horror show of
> losses.
>
In fact only the undisturbed might of US industry and a huge population
could ever support such horrendous losses.
>That why the Brits gave up on it so fast. And we in our
> infinite bravado thought we could do it better..
>
Very worthy of note, Bob is one of the few Americans who has understood and
told it concisely as it is stripping away the glamour, myth and folk-lore, I
applaud you, sir.
Lets not forget the "infinite bravado" originated from safely ensconced
command desks to be actioned by the operational crews without question or
comment.
> It was because of the high losses that the long range fighter air
> craft were rushed thru development and into production to protect
> the bombers and get them through to do their job
>
Strangely at the time after an incredibly speedy prototype build and good
initial performance, the US in its wisdom accepted the P51 into service with
one tiny modification; no supercharger ! We had asked America to help out
with a Mustang and received a horse and cart, so wimpy was the officially
specified un-blown Allison that all early models were largely used,
correctly, as advanced trainers only, they would have been a liability in
combat.
Make no mistake, there was no official study or plan; (Sir) Stanley Hooker
(of RR) in an idle moment noticed the clean lines of the P51 and the visual
similarities of the Allison to a Merlin, from a mental moment of "what if ?"
he literally spirited one away to Derby to have the lads do a surreptitious,
custom, engine chop; the rest is indeed history.
We should not be too overawed by the popular myth of unsurpassed RR
excellence, some previous engines were pieces of unmitigated dross, the
successful Kestrel (RR largely used the names of birds of prey for piston
engines) led to the useless Goshawk steam cooled lump and the oddly named
Exe in early Manchester bombers, its name alluding to the X configuration of
two mated V12s, was so unreliable that the squadrons so equipped were
colloquially known as something like "The 1st Lancashire Foot" since the
aircraft rarely, if ever, left the ground.
The first Merlins themselves on test broke just about everything important
with spectacular test bed detonations having hot, oily internal bits
escaping into the daylight with monotonous regularity and falling far short
of anything approaching flight approval. It was necessarily developed out
of trouble in short order especially as the country depended on it, there
was no alternative.
Merlins were initially restricted in manoeuvre by the carburettor until Miss
Shilling of RAE Farnborough designed a simple float chamber baffle, known
then and now as Miss Shilling's Orifice, the Germans of course had a proven
and effective fuel injection system, the Daimler-Benz injection pump from a
downed aircraft was spirited away by the Polish resistance at the outset and
duly arrived in a brown paper bag at the Air Ministry a few days later.
There it stood on a clerics shelf as an mildly interesting ornament for the
duration.
Richard
Southampton - England
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 01 2000 - 21:37:52 PST