Text 12387, 152 rader
Skriven 2014-02-06 16:58:19 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
  Kommentar till text 12385 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
Ärende: Merlin
==============
 Brer Ward Dossche wrote to Brer Roy Witt about Re: Merlin:

 RW>> 55,873 of the 168,040 copies of the RR Merlin were produced by
 RW>> Packard in the US from 1940 on...

 WD> See where the discussion came from ...

 WD> *********************************************************************
 WD> ****** ** Many of the designs and tools used to build war aircraft by
 WD> Canada and Brittian were *American*.
 WD> *********************************************************************
 WD> ****** **

 WD> We started with "the designs were American" ... do not change the
 WD> subject

He did specify designs of tools, not aircraft or their engines. i.e. A
Tool and Die Maker during that era was draft classified as 3A, which meant
that he had an exemption from the draft to work on tooling for the war
effort. As a young tool & die maker myself in the mid-60s, I recall some
very interesting conversations with veteran T&D makers who worked for the
war effort during that era. A lot of what they worked on in the 30s and
early 40s went to Canada and England to support their war effort. A lot
more of it went to US military facilities to increase our war effort,
before we entered the war.

 WD> .... the Lancaster, Mosquite, Beaufighter, etc etc were totally
 WD> British "designs".

But most of those never used the RR engine. The first two did, but there
weren't many 'etc, etc' that did.

 WD> The Rolls Royce Merlin was a British "design".

Originally. It was redesigned by a lot of people, both from Britain and
America.

 WD> And what the Packard company produced was called a "V-1650" which
 WD> made the P51 Mustang an interesting airplane.

The P51 was rushed to production to aide the Brits in the Battle of
Britain...it was a little underpowered with it's orignial Allison engine,
but did the job asked of it just the same. Later equipped with the 1650
'American' design, it out performed the Spitfire and the 109s because of
it's aerodynamics.

The 1650 was an upgraded version of the original, using 4 valves/cyl
heads vs the 2 valve orginal design and higher compression ratio, which
gave it 1175HP vs the Brits 1000HP. The dual compressor used to feed
compressed air to the engine was also an American design. America may not
have originated the RR engine, but it sure had a great deal to do with
improving that design.

PS - the use of that new compressor design also made it possible for the
engine to burn 100 octane fuel rather than the 87 octane that the Brits
were using.

 RW>> During the Battle of Britain in 1940, the British government decided
 RW>> to provide licensed production plans to the Americans in the event
 RW>> of defeat.

 WD> Wrong. Because their own production capacity wasn't high enough.
 WD> Licensing is not exactly the word, they merely outsourced.

A business manager would disagree with you, calling your outsource
provider a contracted source.

 RW>> When was the Battle of Britain over again?

 WD> October 31 1940.

I'd say October 7th, but close enough. On Sept 14, Hitler concluded that
air superiority had not been achieved over the RAF and postponed
indefinitely, operation Sea Lion, which was a plan for ground via water
invasion of England.

 RW>> The only two British aircraft that could withstand the performance
 RW>> of this engine were the Hurricane and the Spitfire and later the US
 RW>> P-40 and P-51 fighters.

 WD> Lancasters were fitted with Merlins ...

No info found to support that claim. But then, Lancasters were bombers,
not fighters. Being such, they didn't need the increased HP required for
high speed and high altitude manuvering.

 RW>> The US oil industry was the only fuel manufacturer that could
 RW>> produce the essential 100 octane vs the British 87 octane of the day
 RW>> to attain the power needed to overcome the ME-109's increased
 RW>> displacement engines.

 WD> Actually, the UK was completely self-sufficient during the war for
 WD> its oil supplies.

Supplies, maybe. Refining, no. The US had refineries all up and down the
east coast, gulf coast and west coast. They could produce more fuel than
Britain ever thought of producing. Besides, any North Sea oil wells were
in dire jeopardy from German bombing by air and Submarine attack, if not
by regular ships.

 WD> Never heard about the Sherwood Forest oil drilling at Eakring? Little
 WD> known but the US were not sending tankers to Britain who had all the
 WD> oil they needed.

The UK got a fair amount of oil from the Persian Gulf area and from
Trinidad; but over half from the USA, which was a net exporter of oil
right up to the 1950's (strange as that may seem) and of course the USA
had the Pennsylvania, Texas, Oklahoma and Gulf fields that kept everyone
rolling along. By 1943 we had built over 500 tankers (ships) to carry the
stuff everywhere from Australia to England

 WD> A standard production Merlin simply will not run that well on 87, I
 WD> thought 92 was the lowest available even for cars. Britain had no
 WD> problem producing the 100 octane.

The Brits couldn't produce it fast enough. We've had 100+ octane for
decades, including WW2. Small aircraft used 112 octane about that time,
then that was reduced to 105 by the time I was able to drive. 102 Octane
was readily available at the gas station pumps in the 1950s into the late
1960s. Then along came unleaded fuel and the octane rating has dropped to
93 octane here in Texas. My Z28 must use a minimum of 92 octane per
factory ratings and it will run on 89, but you can't use the potential hp
that it produces on 93 octane.

 RW>> This engine also powered the US P-40s and P-51s, which were a better
 RW>> match for the ME 109 than the Spitfire.

 WD> Little known but the Battle of Britain was actually won by
 WD> Hurricanes, Spitfires merely got the credit. And the FW-190 was a
 WD> better plane than the ME109.

The BoB was actually won by attrition. The Germans lost more aircraft and
pilots than GB, not to mention that the Germans didn't have the manpower
available to replace lost pilots, let alone aircraft.

Hitler underestimated the size of the RAF and the Luftwaffe' fool went
along with that.


         R\%/itt - K5RXT

"It is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and
 if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain."
     Bram Stoker (1847-1912)

 Thus, we have "Climate Change Science" - which isn't capable of
 explaining anything.


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