WI: British Air Force Equivalent to P-51

My understanding is that the late war Spits were capable of long range combat, though not quite so capable as the P-51D and on, but they were not needed to do so in most cases.
Bomber Command had gone to night bombing, and no real escort was required or practical.

The Mustang's just fame is because it was both capable of and used for long range escort.

The Mustang was a great plane but sometimes it gets more credit than it deserves IMO. Look at the numbers for Big Week in February 1944 - the number of P-47s dwarfed the number of P-51s involved. There were even some P-38s flying escort.
 
The Martin Baker MB5 does seem to be the most common answer when questions like this turn up. The three main problems, aside from the crash of the MB3, though were that they seem to have been a fairly small and undercapitalised firm, the weren't part of the Air Ministry's 'magic circle' - during the slump in the 1920s and 30s they limited their orders to a limited number of manufacturers to try and keep them afloat, and that James Martin was apparently a major perfectionist. Now the first two could possibly be got around if they were able to raise more investment money, either commercially or from a Lady Houston, of Schneider Trophy fame, type figure. Baker apparently taught a large number of rich and famous people to fly at his air school at the Heston aerodrome before leaving to start the company so that could be one possibility. Martin's perfectionist tendencies however are a somewhat more intractable problem. Best I can think of is that a larger aircraft company, either as a full takeover or a large minority shareholder, or the government becomes involved so that there's someone to keep reminding him that 'perfect is the enemy of good'.

You've also got the problem to identifying a need for it. The Air Ministry was already funding the Spitfire and Hurricane for their fighter requirement, with the belief that 'the bomber will always get through' still being generally accepted a long-range escort could well be seen as superfluous.
 

hipper

Banned
The Central Fighter Establishment provides figures for Tempest V range and radius of action, 237 mi radius clean, 404 mi with 2 45 gal drop tanks. .

So the effective radius foe a Tempest V with 2 90 gallon drop tanks would have been about 575 miles? about the same as a P47 D with 2 140 gallon drop tanks.

perhaps a bit more in the late model tempests with the extra fuel ?

Peter Brothers thought his spitfire wing from Exeter (Devon not Cornwall) could reach the Swiss border.

Thunderbolt II's have the advantage of air to air refueling :)
 
Peter Brothers thought his spitfire wing from Exeter (Devon not Cornwall) could reach the Swiss border.

Well, if Pete said so, it must be true. He preferred to fly the Spit VII. We both share the same opinion of Richard Overy. Small world.
 
We could have had one called the Spitfire.

Quill's book states their were 2 conversions to attempt long range spits. Wright Field used extra tankage in the wings (wet wings in effect) but it did bad things for the strength of the airframes.

RAE added an extra fuselage tank (ala mustang) and i think smaller tanks in the wings that did'nt effect anything. Might also have had a drop tank

It was flown at low level from the South to Scotland and back - Quill estimated at a proper cruise altitude it would have been equiv of East Anglia to Berlin and back (which i think was maybe an exaggeration)
It had the same CoG issues that fully loaded mustangs had, so you had to do the Mustang fuel burn regime
 
Top