Fastest WWII piston enginedaircraft...
I got a bit bored over the 'holiday season', so got out the ancient 'Aircraft of the Fighting Powers' (Vols 6 and 7) to try to get some answers to this post.
I put together an excel spreadsheet of the data from AFP. I've converted all speeds into knots, since that makes more sense for us today, but I am not sure how to convert these speeds to compensate for the different altitudes they are recorded at. I'm assuming that these are TAS rather than IAS but stand to be corrected.
Therefore I come up with this table for the fastest piston-engined fighters to fly OPERATIONALLY in the Second World War:
Aircraft Speed (kts) at Altitude (ft)
Focke Wulf TA152H 409.88 41,000
Focke Wulf FW190D 393.39 37,000
Supermarine Spitfire Mk XIV 390.78 "operating height"
North American P51E Mustang 390.78 "operating height"
Yak 3 (with M107A engine) 388.17 18,865
Focke Wulf FW190D 382.10 15,600
Hawker Tempest V 377.75 "operating height"
DH Mosquito Mk 34 369.07 30,500
Republic P47D Thunderbolt 356.04 "operating height"
Clearly there is an altitude issue here, so my guess is that the answer to this question is that the Spit 14 and the P51 probably more or less lied with the FW190. Perhaps this is not very surprising news?
Now for which was the fastest non-operational type. There are some for which I do not have data, such as the Do335 or the P47N, but for those I do the table looks like this:
Aircraft Speed (kts) at Altitude (ft)
Supermarine Spiteful 412.49 26,000
Supermarine Seafang 412.49 21,000
DH Hornet I & III 410.75 22,000
Vought XF4U-5 Corsair 401.20 31,400
North American P51H Mustang 399.46 "operating height"
Martin Baker MB5 399.46 20,000
Supermarine Spitfire Mk 22 394.25 26,000
Commonwealth CA15 390.78 "operating height"
Northrop Reporter 382.10 17,000
Hawker Sea Fury 382.10 21,000
DH Hornet I & III 380.36 10,000
Blohm und Voss BV155B 371.68 54,000
Of course this data is somewhat exposed to a 'Brit' bias, but I think it is interesting in showing a 20 knot-odd additional speed obtained by the Spiteful and the Hornet.
Can I throw this thread open again to others to query this data or add other data (if available) for these aircraft and for others...
Also, we need to try to make estimate TAS's at a common altitude, say 20,000?