spitfire or mustang?

[huggy98]

[rgmwa]

Trick question?

 

rgmwa

 

 

[fly_tornado]

 

each way bet

 

 

[huggy98]

Trick question?rgmwa

no. just wondering. just look at the spitfire. got to be the most beautiful plane ever built. love the mustang too. but I am a pom.

 

 

[Keenaviator]

This ones not bad either. Laurie

 

 

[M61A1]

no. just wondering. just look at the spitfire. got to be the most beautiful plane ever built. love the mustang too. but I am a pom.

No, the F4u Corsair is the most beautiful aircraft ever built, but the P51 would my pick out of the choices offered.

 

 

[JimG]

I reckon if i were a pom I'd still lay claim to 90% of the Mustang success. After all the original XP 51 was designed by north american aviation for the British . The British accepted the contract to build the first batch , they assigned it the name 'Mustang' and the airframe didn't really reach legend status until it was retro fitted with the British Rolls Royce Merlin (P51D) and the rest is well known history. I just love the Mustang, where i work on saturdays there is a real one and when it is taking off everyone just watches in awe and soaks up the roar of of that Merlin.

 

Not taking anything away from the magnificent achievements of Reginald Michell and his Spitfire as it is also is an icon and Legendary machine, its just a shame that Michell didn't live long enough to see it perform in its finest hour

 

love em both

 

JimG

 

 

[rgmwa]

no. just wondering. just look at the spitfire. got to be the most beautiful plane ever built. love the mustang too. but I am a pom.

Oh, I thought you were trying to decide which one it was. It's hard to beat the Spitfire's elegance.

 

rgmwa

 

 

[bexrbetter]

hard to beat the Spitfire's elegance.

That's the problem for me, they are blatant killing machines and they should look like the Terminator, not Mary Poppins.

 

I reckon it was the P51s with teeth that got me as an impressionable youth watching Saturday Matinee war movies!

 

Oh and that's the P51A/B/C (fastback?) not the bubble canopy D along with the Messerscmitt BF109 so my taste in shape is pretty obvious.

 

 

[M61A1]

That's the problem for me, they are blatant killing machines and they should look like the Terminator, not Mary Poppins.I reckon it was the P51s with teeth that got me as an impressionable youth watching Saturday Matinee war movies!

 

Oh and that's the P51A/B/C (fastback?) not the bubble canopy D along with the Messerscmitt BF109 so my taste in shape is pretty obvious.

Agree....the spitfire is fine boned waif of a thing while the F4U has great curves with the muscle of xena. I do like the Bf 109 too, for it's stark functionality.

 

 

[Downunder]

No Hawker fans?

 

 

[rgmwa]

Some like war clubs, some of us prefer rapiers. Same result.

 

rgmwa

 

 

[rgmwa]

No Hawker fans?

I like this one..

 

 

rgmwa

 

 

[dutchroll]

British aircraft of the era certainly had grace and flair, although their cockpits were usually ergonomic nightmares. But why choose one Rolls Royce Merlin when you can have two, while still meeting or exceeding the speed of a Spitfire?

 

 

 

[kgwilson]

It's the Spitfire for me for it's elegance & grace & that beautiful Merlin sound. The Mustang would look better if it didn't have that huge radiator intake under the fuselage. Both were, and still are very fine designs but most things with Merlin engines were good at what they did.

 

 

[facthunter]

I think the Mustang is the more robust. There are a lot of versions of the Spitfire. The later ones not quite so pure in design, but I'd give the Spitty the tick for appearance . They were expensive to build. The Hawker Hurricane was in much larger numbers and did most of the hard work early in the piece. Nev

 

 

[Derby]

The Spitfire is rated to 10+6- and is better in a dog fight as is has better manoverability looks better to.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

That's the problem for me, they are blatant killing machines and they should look like the Terminator, not Mary Poppins.I reckon it was the P51s with teeth that got me as an impressionable youth watching Saturday Matinee war movies!...

Agree about the sad reality, Bex. Look beautiful, but designed for killing. There is quite a debate about the origin of the sharks' teeth. Most of us first saw them on American P40s flying in China, but Australians in North Africa painted "Grey Nurse" teeth on their P40s. Even they were not the first.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nose_art

 

 

[planedriver]

I like this one..

rgmwa

So do I.

They had so much grunt.

 

Around that era and post WW2 period the Poms designed some truely great aircraft.

 

They didn't worry about noise so much back then either.

 

As a kid i'd spend many a day alongside Heathrows boundary fence and loved it when a VC10 took off. The ground seemed to shake and the ear-splitting roar from it's engines seemed to crackle and made ones hair stand up on your back.

 

Living between Henley and Biggin Hill, I used to see dozens of Spitfires and Hurricanes flying low overhead and that was awe-inspiring for any boy around that time.

 

 

[facthunter]

The "Iron Duck" would have to be one of the noisiest aeroplanes ever externally. The "Crackle" is the supersonic jet efflux. Nev

 

 

[Mick]

All this talk about what's pretty & what's tough. For me tough wins everytime.

 

This is my idea of tough -

 

 

It out guns, out dives & out weighs all of it's contempories, and best of all it would soak up alot of damage and still get you home.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

...As a kid i'd spend many a day alongside Heathrows boundary fence and loved it when a VC10 took off. The ground seemed to shake and the ear-splitting roar from it's engines seemed to crackle and made ones hair stand up on your back.

Living between Henley and Biggin Hill, I used to see dozens of Spitfires and Hurricanes flying low overhead and that was awe-inspiring for any boy around that time.

With that childhood Planey, how could you have avoided becoming an aeroplane fanatic?

 

 

[bexrbetter]

All this talk about what's pretty & what's tough. For me tough wins everytime.This is my idea of tough -

 

[ATTACH=full]27367[/ATTACH]

 

It out guns, out dives & out weighs all of it's contempories, and best of all it would soak up alot of damage and still get you home.

Yep, tough looking plane the Thunderbolt, that 'fastback' style I mentioned is what appeals to me.

 

I really dig the Corsair's wings.

 

 

[metalman]

I've always had a thing for the hurricanes , not so pretty , can take a hiding and still get up, under appreciated ,,,,,I'd love a full scale replica,,, just need to wrassle up a bit of dosh and it'll happen

 

Matty

 

 

[Mick]

The following was written by Rip Collins who flew both the Mustang & Thunderbolt ( nicknamed the "Jug" ) in combat during WWII.

 

For sure, fighter pilots are a different cut of guys. I guess we got spoiled because we were considered the "cream of the crop." In most cases, not all, but most, if you were going into the USAAC, USAAF, USAF, or whatever name it was called at the time, the majority of us young bucks wanted fighters (1055) and not multiengine (bombers, transports, surveillance, rescue, etc.). I've seen the disappointment at "wash out" time, when the primary and basic flight instruction group was split up prior to advanced training. The men that couldn't cut it went on to multiengine advanced training bases, while the "cream" went on to single engine bases to fly the AT-6 Texan (advanced fighter trainer).

 

It is not unusual to favor your own aircraft. In fact, it is a bit common. We probably all look at this in a different way, and in a different light. And if you didn't get to fly both the Jug and the Mustang, you were at a decided disadvantage. Here are my dozen reasons why the T-bolt was the superior fighter of the two.

 

• 1. The Republic Thunderbolt had a radial engine that could take hits and keep on running. I know of an actual case where a Jug brought a pilot back from Borneo after 8 hours in the air. The pilot landed with the master cylinder and three other cylinders blown out of commission. But the Jug kept chugging along, running well enough to bring its pilot back safely to his base at Morotai. I was there.
   
  2. The Jug's radial engine was air cooled, instead of liquid cooled with a radiator system, like the Mustang's V-12. This is significant because one small caliber hit on an aluminum cooling line in a Mustang would let the coolant leak out, and when the coolant was gone, the engine seized, and the show was over.
  I took a small caliber hit in a coolant tube over Formosa (Taiwan). When I landed back at base, my crew chief said, "Lieutenant, did you know you got hit?" I replied, "No." He continued, "You took a small caliber shell in the coolant tube on the right side of the engine. I'd give you between 10 and 15 minutes flying time remaining." I had just flown from Formosa, over nothing but the Pacific Ocean, to our fighter strip on Okinawa.
  3. The P-47 could fly higher than the P-51. With its huge turbocharger, it could climb to over 40,000 feet. You could just look down at your enemy in a stall and smile.
  4. The Jug could out dive the Mustang. As a matter of fact, it could out dive any enemy fighter, and at 7.5 tons loaded, it dove fast! I have personally been in a dive at what we called the "state of compressibility," at nearly 700 mph indicated air speed. I was scared to death, but with a tiny bit of throttle, I pulled it out at about 2,000-foot altitude, literally screaming through the sky.
  5. The Thunderbolt had eight .50's. The Mustang had six. That's 33 1/3% more firepower. This made a major difference.
  6. The later model Thunderbolt's could carry and deliver 2,500 pounds of bombs. (One 1,000-lb. bomb on each wing, and one 500 lb. bomb under the belly.) This was a maximum load and you had to use water injection to get airborne. But it would do this with sufficient runway. I have done this myself.
  In addition to being a first class fighter, it was also a superb fighter-bomber and ground level strafer. Jugs practically wiped out the German and Italian railroads. I have strafed Japanese trains, troops, ships, gunboats, warships, airfields, ammo dumps, hangers, antiaircraft installations, you name it. I felt secure in my P-47.
  7. The P-47 was larger and much stronger, in case of a crash landing. The Jug was built like a machined tool. Mustangs had a lot of sheet metal stamped out parts, and were more lightweight in construction. One example was the throttle arm. You can see the difference. What does all this mean? The safety of the fighter pilot.
  8. The Thunderbolt had no "scoop" under the bottom. You can imagine what happens during a crash landing if your wheels would not come down (due to damage or mechanical trouble). On landing, it could make the P-51 nose over in the dirt as the scoop drags into the earth. In water (and I flew over the Pacific Ocean most of my 92 combat missions), it could cause trouble in a crash landing because the air scoop would be the first part of the aircraft to hit the water. Instead of a smooth belly landing, anything might happen.
  9. The Thunderbolt had a much larger, roomier cockpit. You were comfortable in the big Jug cockpit. In my Mustang, my shoulders almost scraped the sides on the right and left. I was cramped in with all my "gear." I could not move around like I could in the P-47. I found the ability to move a little bit very desirable, especially on seven and eight hour missions.
  10. The Mustang went from 1,150-horse power Allison engines to the Packard built Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that had 1,590 hp. The Thunderbolt started out with a 2,000 hp Pratt & Whitney engine, and ended up with 2,800 war emergency hp with water injection. That's close to twice the power.
  11. The Jug had a very wide landing gear. This made it easy to land just about anywhere, with no tendency to ground loop. Many times we had to land on rice paddies and irregular ground. When you set the Thunderbolt down, it was down. In the Far East, England, Africa, and Italy, this helped you get down and walk away from it. To me, that was very important for the safety of the pilot.
  12. The Jug's record against all opposing aircraft is remarkable. The ratio of kills to losses was unmistakably a winner. Thunderbolt pilots destroyed a total of 11,874 enemy aircraft, over 9,000 trains, and 160,000 vehicles.
   
   
  

 

 

 

But, the big factor, above all else, it saved pilots in great numbers. Ask most fighter pilots who flew both in active combat and they will tell you that, given a choice to fly either one in combat, it would be the Juggernaut hands down.

 

Now one last thing: the P-51 Mustang was a superb fighter. I am fully aware of that! But, considering that I flew about every kind of mission the Pentagon could dream up, and a few they didn't know about, I will rate that 8 tons of destruction first as long as I live, and no one can change my mind. I was there. Simply walk up to one of them and see for yourself.

 

The dictionary defines "juggernaut" as: "any large, overpowering, destructive force or object." That was the P-47 of World War II.