Trouble was that it took rather a long time for the fuel to drop out of the three holes unles you open the nitrogen bottles. But then, that wasn't much talked about was it?

This was proposed, but the Allison-powered P-51 had no turbo-supercharger, which is why the Merlin improved its mid-high-altitude performance,.

The P-38 had turbo-superchargers for its Allisons, which gave excellent high-altitude performance. Thus, any gains would be much smaller, and as the change-over would cause a significant disruption on production rate, the idea was dropped.

This article has a discussion of the proposal, phrased in terms of the benefits... but glossing over the problems (it only discusses performance to 30,000 feet).
The P-38 Lightning
Note however, that the same article earlier says that the factory-set maximum manifold pressure ratings for the Allison engines were rarely followed by front-line units. They used significantly-higher manifold pressure settings (up to 60" vs the factory 40"-45"!

As a result, combat units regularly achieved higher climb rates and maximum speeds than the factory did. Thus the above Lockheed factory comparison short-changes the performance the Allison was capable of.



This article mentions one of the areas where performance would have dropped with the Merlin (it discusses performance above 30,000 feet):
Whatever Happened To The P-38K ?

Lockheed themselves looked at such a conversion at one point. Nevertheless, a P-38 was sent to Rolls Royce at Hucknall for a trial installation of Merlin XX engines. The program was initiated by the Americans as the P-38 was proving somewhat troublesome in the high altitude role over Europe. RR made a number of test flights in the unmodified state, but before conversion started an order came from Washington for the aircraft to be returned to the 8th Air Force immediately. The supposition is that, Allison having seen their P-51 business go up in smoke, were somewhat upset to see their P-38 business possibly following a similar fate, and applied the necessary political pressure.

FED

In the very early days of AAR, when we on 214 were doing the trials. Most of out tanking was done between our own Valiant's. Often fuel was passed from A/C 'A' to A/C 'B' and then A/C 'B' passed fuel to A/C 'A'. This was done several times.

When we started doing the night time transfers, and it was getting close to the bars closing, an A/C that had just passed fuel would often develop a snag that required it returning to base, leaving the recently topped up A/C to burn or ditch fuel so that it could land.:sad:

Jettisoning was sometimes very deliberate. Should an underwing tank pump fail and a receiver was short one could jettison and pass fuel at the same time.
The good tank pump would deliver at about 2,500 lbs a minute and the other tank would take three minutes to empty. As soon a big aircraft engaged it would be fed with fuel from one underwing and the fuel from the other would be jettisoned. The ailerons were powerful enough to take up to 6,000lbs imbalance and you could always jettison in stages.
Spectacular, and quite alarming, when you first did it on the receiving end.

We once found our aircraft which had been fuelled for a transit to Leuchars (c 40,000 lb) was u/s. My flight commander captain got us all to jump into the combat-readied Dragonfly aircraft which had 86,000 lb on board and as he was not willing to wait for it to be defuelled we set off in that. As soon as we coasted out over Blakeney I started to jettison through the pods which we continued to do all the way up to top of descent for Leuchars. This was in 1973/74 when as I recall we were talking about petrol rationing and they had just introduced the 50mph speed limit on all roads to save fuel!

Sounds like some mornings after a good Pub Crawl and late night Curry!:uhoh:

Oh, SASless. So terribly inapropriate in a public forum. But wonderfully funny.

I do not thank you for the picture you've planted in my head!:cool:

There were good long-range fighters in WW2 - and then came jets. We just about had the technology worked out for better jets and supersonics came along, the only way to get decent range in a supersonic being apparently through sheer size, cf Avro Arrow.

Today if you must have supersonic speed (there is a strong case for subsonic ground-pounders - if they'd done the A-6F Intruder II we'd be SLEPping the hell out of them and fitting them with AESA) your best bet is to arrange to carry a lot of external fuel. Today's range champs are the Rafale and Strike Eagle.

"There were good long-range fighters in WW2"

At the end yes, but not at the start of WW2

Hell, there were hardly any decent long-range BOMBERS at the start of the war

Haraka, just a follow up on the Ed Schmued being ex Messerschmitt story.

Rolls Royce test pilot Ron Harker test flew the Mustang I on April 30, 1942 and praised the aircraft, suggesting fitment of the Merlin, and commented that he thought it looked like a Bf 109F "probably due to it being designed by one of the Messerschmitt designers, who is now with North American."

The above comes from page 10, "Rolls Royce and the Mustang" by David Birch, Derby, England: Rolls Royce Heritage Trust, 1987.

Could it be that the design credit comment was a tongue in cheek throw away line mistakenly taken as serious by a reporter in attendance and so appearing in "Flight"?

Mustangs of the 357th Fighter Group at one stage sported white spinner and nose and broad white stripe on the fin/rudder so as not to be mistaken for a Messerschmitt.

Too much fuel
 

I launched from a ship and took 6000 lbs of fuel off a Victor tanker over the English Channel once. Due to fog over the whole UK it turned out the tanker and I were the only folk airborne that day, and when I was summonsed back to Mum due lack of trade, the tanker crew asked if I could take some more fuel because they had a command directive not to dump anything. When I asked how much they wanted me to take they said "about 100K lbs please!" Couldn't help them, so I asked what they were going to do. Their reply was, "We're thinking of doing a practice diversion to JFK." Quite sure they had too much fuel that day...

To come back to th OP's question, the only long range fighter involved in the Battle of Britain (Bf110) was severely compromised, relative to our short range opposition. On the other hand the Me 163 had a powered endurance of about four minutes...which for its mission was plenty, although it was very unsatisfactory for other reasons!

Leon,

Can you be sure? In 1982 Buccaneers (the last British-built jet fighter/bomber) from 16 Sqn deployed to Nellis and flew unrefuelled across the Atlantic from the Azores to Gander (Great Circle route but against the prevailing wind). Buccaneers (RN/RAF) from as early as the 60s routinely flew across the Atlantic unrefuelled from Gander or Goose to Lossiemouth (with the jet stream, which one presumes the F3 took advantage of too)!

On another point, can the Tornado (F3 or not) really be called a British jet aircraft as the F3 was designed from the GR1, not all of which was designed and built in Britain!? Although I take your point that it was in BritMil service and was a fighter (or was it actually an interceptor!).

Anyway, the real point and answer to the original post:

is this: Range is inconsequential to a warplane, it is Radius of Action that is imperative AND radius of action in its designed role. A Buccaneer, for example, had a high level range of 2300nm if you fitted every possible tank and filled them to the gunwales - you could (I was involved in planning it once) fly a Buccaneer round the World without AAR as long as you selected judicious landing fields and appropriate diversions! However, the radius of action in its war fit at low level in Germany was no more than 300nms - sufficient to attack enemy airfields and opposing forces during the Cold War and return to base to do it all again (assuming that you got through the SA-2 belt at your first attempt!).

So for Range read RoA!

Bloggs :ok:

HH's point is an interesting one. Several good reasons have been given why many original specs were like they were and I cannot see a manufacturer deliberately exceeding the required spec as this would create problems with other aspects of the design.

The Harrier GR1 spec of the mid 60s was interesting in that it called for a 2000nm unrefuelled ferry range (rather more than the range of Trident airliners of the day). We met the spec by unscrewing the small wing tips that were outboard of the outrigger wheeels and replacing them with slightly larger so called 'ferry tips'. This took about 45 minutes but I don't ever recall the RAF using this capability.

When I wandered about in the Dunsfold demonstrator G-VTOL (particularly all over South America for example) we were always airborne on our own and often unable to contact our destination until well on the way. So I never planned a leg longer that 1000-1200 miles to keep stacks in hand for whatever. On occasion this caused real aggro at our destination as I always refused to demo on arrival having so much fuel and a congfiguration that reduced the max g . This did not go down well with Generals and salesmen alike.

Hey ho.

I don't remember ever thinking, "God, I wish I had less fuel."

Not even on a JMC? :bored:

Charles Lindbergh
 

Anyone interested in long range ops in WW2 should read of Charles Lindbergh's efforts as a P38 test pilot in the Pacific. Lindbergh taught the pilots techniques that added 500mms to the range of the P38. His wing kept pitching up in places the Japanese never expected

I seem to remember many years ago hearing that, when the Tornado was being designed, the German partners considered it politically unacceptable for a Tornado to reach the Russian border at low level from bases in West Germany (don't forget there was a West and East Germany in those days). Targets in East Germany and Poland fine, but no further. I believe that when the Tornado replaced the Buccaneer in RAFG that some of the Bucc's targets had to be handed over to F-111's, as the Tornado didn't have the range to cover them.


Could be an urban myth I suppose...

Tornado GR1 Range
 

It is indeed true that it was deemed politically unacceptable at the design stage for the Tornado GR1 to have the range to reach the USSR. I remember this being mentioned by a VSO who accompanied a Staff College visit to my sqn in the 1980s.

It is also true that the Tornado GR1 range in the strike role was less than the Buccaneer. Some Tornado missions were planned to be buddy-buddy refuelled from Buccaneers.

F111
 

I seem to remember being told that the F111 was not based in Germany because it would then have round trip fuel for Moscow and would therefore have to be counted in the SALT talks.

F/O Bloggs

The info came from the RAF History webpage under 1987 - RAF - RAF Timeline 1980 -1989

My suggestion is to dig out log-books and the old F540s and/or write to the Air Historical Branch! That way you can rewrite the history books.

LJ :ok:

Lol!! Thanks,Leon, maybe when I have bugga all else to do!!

Bloggs. ⛄️⛄️⛄️⛄️:D

There may have been another reason. I am not aware of any V-force target in the '60s to the west of the WPC eastern boundary, when the MRCA was being considered.

Basically Bomber Command and SAC would operate the deeper strategic plans and the ATAFs would be deconflicted in space. You may also remember that there was an upper yield limit on SACERs 7,000 nukes.

JF

Don't doubt your experience for a moment but are you sure about a ferry range for a GR1? If memory serves, the ac burnt about 4000lbs /hr in transit so to cover 2000 nm would need about 16000 lbs plus the arrival fuel and that's not even allowing for any climb. Again, IIRC the latest Harriers only carried about 15klbs and did not fly for the 4 hours needed.

Blogs are we sure that any Buccs referred to did not use buddy/buddy AAR?

LJ I am slightly dubious about the source document that claims that 23 VC10s were to be converted to K2/K3 there aren't that many different serial nos in my logbook!

Wasn't there a TW3 sketch about the range/radius of action of the then MRCA, and that despite the inability to get to Russia and back it was not a suicide mission

Vasco, buddy/buddy only works so far. Assume two Buccs, only one arrives. It would have to wait for the tanker etc etc.

I know the RN flew a Bucc, Goose to UK (Lossie?). I can't remember if it was a Mk 1 or Mk 2, I think it was a Mk 1.

The aircraft was fully fuelled. Having taxied to the marshalling point it was manually topped up to full. I seem to recall that there was a problem restarting and engine that burnt most of that extra fuel.

It made the flight unrefuelled but I believe the 'clouds were full of tankers.'

PN am fully aware of the limits, it does of course depend which AC you need to get thru etc. As far as an AC like the Buccaneer is concerned a top up at TOC (to more than one AC ) could be all that is needed to achieve the result. A lot would depend on the exact conditions on the day eg wind component and min fuel needed at destination. I don't actually remember any unaccompanied direct transits in 82 or 83 hence the question.

vascodegama

Hi. Sometimes spec points can be a little like the small print in insurance policies or other docs.

As I recall the ferry range spec was met using a then light single seater complete with the ferry tips (nothing like a bit of aspect ratio to reduce induced drag) and with the slim 330 tanks - not the fat ones that the RAF eventually bought. The cruise was very carefully flown to produce a fuel flow (for about 30 mins or so as I recall) that showed there was enough left to go the required distance. There were no reserves required and the idle descent distance counted. Such things can make a big difference!

Mind you another spec point for 6g at 400kts, 16,000lb and 10,000ft was a really meaningful operational case which took a lot of wing dressing schemes and mid flap before we hacked it. (Dumping nozzle made it easy to get 6g but the Dunsfold pilots refused to allow the company to meet the spec that way for obvious reasons - which caused a bit of internal company aggro at the time.... )

JF

Vasco,

Germany squadrons, eg 16, were not fitted with AAR probes nor were the crews trained/practised in AAR therefore I am confident that no buddy/buddy AAR or (any other AAR) was conducted crossing the Pond. I was there, I led the leg from Azores to Gander! 23,000lbs of gas on board - a dawdle!

Although we never flew it because RAFG said that we couldn't take 2 Buccs around the World as our RAFG Bucc swansong when Tornado (our replacement) couldn't even get to Cyprus in one hop - we DID plan to do so and it could have been done as described in my previous post and without AAR of any sort!

Bloggs:}

Vasco, I was addressing the transatlantic case. For 2ATAF, FO Bloggs gives one definitive answer. Another, from a friend of mine, gives the aircraft/weapon matching for the end-game although pre-release operations would have reduced the number of weapons carriers.

The trans Atlantic sortie in the F3 in 1987 was flown by a BAe crew and had nothing to do with Boscombe (although they frequently flew ZE755/AS11 on trials). I am not sure where it took off from (Goose Bay or Gander at a guess) but I recall that it landed at Macrihanish. It was flown with 2 x 2250l plus 2 x 1500l tanks. I suspect that it probably was not carrying missiles.

In the early 1980s just after IX Sqn formed as the first Tornado GR1 squadron they flew an airfield attack on Akrotiri from Honington using Victor and Buccaneer tankers. The Bucc was the tanker for the bracket closest to Cyprus and when the crew asked if, after the bracket, they could follow the Tornado through Akrotiri they were politely told to p**e off! I think that it was a sortie of about 12 hours for the GR1 crew.

I presume that was a return trip (no duty free).

The F2 did a flight, again probably a BAe crew, to Akrotiri 5hr 50min unrefuelled, that would have been mid-80s.

I remember having to ferry a spare Victor out to Palermo for that trail. The ac was described as having a realistic weapon load (4 external fuel tanks!) and if memory serves they had to scramble a Buccaneer tanker from Akt when the airborne ac was unable to trail its hose.

LOMCEVAK,

The GR1 that did the Akrotiri mock attack was fitted with 4x1500l fuel tanks (with BOZ and SKyshadow pods on the outboard wing pylons). It therefore could not have carried any weapons. We all wondered what, exactly, the sortie was meant to prove and to whom.

Quote 1.3Vs,
"It therefore could not have carried any weapons."

I think 2 x 27mm, 2 x AIM9 and, last but least, 2 x Browning 9mm:ok:.

OAP

A few years ago TriStar tankers showed how to support long-range attacks from the UK to North Africa and back. A record for RAF UK based attacks I believe. Not trumpeted much as they are old hat and, a capability soon to be lost.:ugh:

OAP

OAP

And I suppose there was no VC10 involvement , indeed the entries in my log book must be false! I am also struggling to see how the capability will be lost, for all its faults , Voyager could certainly support such a mission. In fact as a casual observer I would say it is a far better platform (2 hoses, lower fuel burn etc)

And those faults are?

Bearing in mind that the Voyager programme is costing the tax payer over £1.2M per day, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect that, by now, it actually met the Indicative Statement of User Need which was written at least 10 years ago....:rolleyes:

BEagle,


"....it wouldn't be unreasonable......"

OH YES IT WOULD!!

Well, it is Panto season, and sometimes you have to either laugh or cry, and laughing is preferable! :)

How did we go from "never enough range" to another snipe-fest (yawn) against the A330 ?? The contract terms aren't the aeroplanes fault and it's unlikely, even if a different type had been substituted, that the finance arrangements would have been any different.