Fastest of the lot
 

Hi!

Can anyone tell me wich production single-engine piston fighter was the fastest in WW2.

Got a case of Winhoek Special riding on this.

Thanx

SS

The P47J. The J was fitted with a high output P&W R-2800-57. This made 2,800 hp @ 2,800 rpm at 35,000 feet. This is in War Emergency Power. The aircraft actually attained 507 mph at an altitude of 34,300 feet. (2,800 hp is 133% of rated power.) At military power (100%), the XP-47J could sustain 470 mph.

You will need to qualify the question with

1. Straight and level
2. Cruise of full bore
3 In a dive
4. What altitude?


There will be different contenders under different conditions.

Concur with Orac.

Good luck,

Conan

Fastest piston packer ever - in case you're interested - is Lyle Shelton's Bearcat "Rare Bear" which achieved something over 528mph at Las Vegas in 1989. Mind you, it's got some serious airframe clean ups and there is an R3350 lurking under the cowling which turns a modified P-3 prop I believe!

Mustang "Dago Red" - now retired apparently - has a 15km closed circuit record of 517mph, so might have been a contended to mount a challenge....

Rare Bear vs. P47J
 

What makes those P-47J figures so impressive to me is that Rare Bear has 4200 HP.

Not deliberately trying to be vague but didn't the Germans have a "push/pull" piston engine prototype aircraft that was extremely fast towards the end of WW2??

It is "earlyish" in the morning and both memory cells havent received their requisite dose of caffeine yet :D

Guess you mean the Dornier 335 Pfeil (arrow)

Does the P47J count as a production aircraft.

I would suggest the Hawker Tempest.


400 or so produced. Various websites say level flight top speed of around 470mph for the development version, 440mph @ 18,000ft for the "stock" ones.

Think the P-47J was actually, the XP-47J and did not go into series production. Correct me somebody please :-)

Regards,

Conan

BRE 901 - thanks for the link.

Conan is right. The X-series were not production aircraft.

XP-47J - still impressive numbers - what would Shelton/Greenamyer/Hinton/et al have achieved with it?

Always a delight to see Brian Smith or Stu Goldspink arrive molto rapido Stage Right at Duxford in TFC's P-47D....

Maybe the worst thing nowadays, is that it might have been reduced into beer cans only a few months after achieving such performance. Ho hum....


Conan

"The XP-47M proved to be nearly as fast as the XP-47J. 488 mph was obtained on at least one flight. The official maximum speed is 470 mph. However, over-boosting the engine could tweek another 15 to 20 mph out of the big fighter. There is adequate evidence to indicate that some of the more resourceful crew chiefs in the 56th Fighter Group, managed to hotrod the P-47M to the point that some reliable pilots were reporting 500 mph at altitude in level flight."

P-47M

The P-51 and P-47 were designed to escort high altitude bombers, the Tempest was optimised for low/medium level. The P-51H reached 487 m.p.h.at 25,000 ft. The Tempest V reached 435mph at 17,000ft.

My copies of 'Aircraft of The Fighting Powers' point to another candidate: DH Hornet - 473 mph @ 22,000 ft.

The Do 335 is quoted as 477 mph @ 21,000 ft. The same publication quotes the Tempest V as 435 mph at 'operating height' and the P47N as 'greatly augmented' compared with earlier models but 'not released'.

Yes, I had thought of the Hornet too. However, the query was as to the fastest single......my money would have been on the Tempest; `tis a good job I`m no gambler.

My first thought was that the MB5 would be a contender, but it did not go into production.

While I was checking the performance numbers for that aircraft I came across this page which has some interesting comparisons.
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevo...er/mb5-02.html
There is a link to the MB5 at the bottom of the page,

Like Milt, I would add a rider or 2:

Are you talking "regularly achievable" speeds or the sort that overstressed the airframe and that the pilot may or may not have survived?

There are several examples during WW2 of different aircraft types being dived into the ground at high M numbers - both in combat and not - where (it is surmised) the pilot discovered compressibility effects too late to do anything about it.

SD

I would have imagined level flight to be the discerning factor here.

After all, the Spitfire was involved in a lot of test flying with terminal dives to discover mach limiting speeds etc. and got over 600mph I was once told. The pilot, a Sqn Ldr Martindale, had the prop assy detach in one of these dives and still managed to get it back to Terra Firma. Brave man....


Conan