Originally Posted by NeilStirling

I thought this may be of some help.

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/JStirlingB...grade+fuel.jpg

Neil.

Originally Posted by PipsPriller

Would be more interesting to see a comparison table of 87 Octane in the same format.

Originally Posted by NeilStirling

Why?

Originally Posted by PipsPriller

Because 100 Octane only became available in the UK in mid 1939 with small quantities imported from the US. Even in 1940 large scale imports didn't start until late August. Here's brief history of it's introduction.

"The first bulk shipment of 100 octane fuel had arrived in Britain in June 1939 from the Esso refinery in Aruba. This and subsequent tanker shipments from Aruba, Curacao and the USA were stockpiled while the RAF continued to operate on 87 octane petrol. Having secured what were considered reasonably sufficient quantities of 100 octane, Fighter Command began converting its engines to this standard in March 1940, allowing boost (manifold) pressures to be raised without the risk of detonation in the cylinders. This initial increase in maximum boost from 6 lb to 9 lb delivered a useful power growth of around 130hp at the rated altitude.

By the time of the invasion of the Low Countries by Germany in May 1940 the RAF had converted approximately 25 % of it's total fighter force to 100 octane fuel use. The subsequent escalation in air activity and demands placed upon Fighter Command over the next two months put great strain on both the 100 octane fuel stockpiles and aircraft modified to use the fuel. Against the backdrop of total war the RAF found that it's reserves of 100 octane fuel was well below the level considered necessary for widespread use, for any sustained length of time.

Two actions were immediately undertaken by the British War Cabinet in May to resolve the looming crisis. Firstly 87 octane fuel was deemed the primary fuel source to be used until further supplies could be discovered and delivered in sufficient quantities to allow the Merlin conversions to again take place. Those existing fighters already so converted (approximately 125) would continue to use what supplies of 100 octane were available, but all other fighters that had not been modified to continue with the use of 87 octane (of which there was more than adequate supply). The second action was for the British Government to contract the Shell Oil Refining Company to assist the British-controlled Iraqi Petroleum Company at Kirkuk to produce 100 octane fuel. This arrangement proved quite successful as production was quickly converted to 100 octane fuel.

The first Middle East shipment of 100 octane fuel arrived in Portsmouth on 12th August, with a further two deliveries in September and four in October. Although too late to allow widespread conversion for the use of the fuel the deliveries did ensure that from this point on Britain would not be lacking in 100 octane fuel levels. With the newfound supply RAF Fighter Command again embarked upon a Merlin II and III conversion to 100 octane use from late September, finally achieving 100% conversion of it's fighter force by the end of November in 1940.

Given that large quantities were not available until late August, the volume of usage/week of 87 Octane must be far higher than that quoted for 100 Octane. So to put things into perspective that why I asked for a comparison. :)

Originally Posted by Ring

http://prodocs.netfirms.com/

Various documents about 100 octane fuel, 1937-39

http://www.lanpartyworld.com/smallwoy/100o1.JPG

http://www.lanpartyworld.com/smallwoy/100o2.JPG

http://www.lanpartyworld.com/smallwoy/100o3.JPG

Originally Posted by NeilStirling

Thats interesting, where does this come from and does it quote refererences?

Two thousand five hundred tons per week = 130,000 tons per year and given that it would have been April by the time the RAF started using 100 grade that total would have been spread out over 9 months, approximately 14,400 tons per month.
This works out at 52,705 Spitfire sorties per month, half that for supply and storage and we still get 26,552 Spitfire sorties.

Edited to include this,
UK 1940 consumption of aviation spirit was 404,000 tons and 100 grade made up 130,000 tons of it, and as far as I know only Spitfires, Hurricanes and Defiants used this fuel at the time.

The question of +9lbs boost seems strange as everything I have seen states +12lbs.

http://www.fourthfightergroup.com/ea...pit1-12lbs.jpg

http://www.fourthfightergroup.com/eagles/dowding1.jpg

http://www.fourthfightergroup.com/eagles/dowding2.jpg

+9lbs may have been for those aircraft not so modified

http://www.fourthfightergroup.com/eagles/ap1590b.jpg

Nine pounds boost did not require this modification

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/JStirlingBomber/twelve.jpg

Maybe unmodified aircraft used +9lbs.

I will visit the NA soon and I will look further into this.


Neil.

Originally Posted by NeilStirling

This was just sent,by a friend.

>In article <bXadnem5cpH-keujXTWcqA@gbronline.com>, Lawrence Dillard
><lawrenced@gbronline.com> writes
>>Done. Now, with respect, I suggest that you read "I Kept No Diary" by RAF
>>Air Commodore FR (Rod) Banks, 1978.

I have actually read this book, and Banks is wrong when he states that
- "...100 octane became available to Fighter Command ready for the
Battle of Britain through Roosevelt's "cash and carry" compromise."

In fact Britain had been importing 100-octane from three seperate
sources, Shell, Standard Oil and Trinidad Leaseholds, and only
Standard Oil importation was affected by the embargoes involved in
pre-war Neutrality Acts as the others were not US companies and did
not export 100-octane spitit from US terrirtory. 100-octane supply
began in 1937 to selected airfields for trials and was then withdrawn
to build up a large (400,000 ton) reserve stock. I'm read the
official records and even the damn Air Ministry purchase contracts,
something I suspect nobody else commenting on this issue has.

When it comes to the BoB, the British imported as much as Fighter
Command used in July - October 1940 from BP in Abadan alone. Banks
worked for the British Eythyl Corp, a subsidiary of ICI and Eythyl
Export importing tetra-eythyl lead for the Air Ministry, and was
clearly not a party to 100-octane supply policy as a whole. He
confuses Standard Oil's 100-octane supply to the Air Ministry with the
totality of supply, and is unaware of pre-1939 importation despite the
fact that 100-octane had been delivered in barrels by rail to selected
RAF bases as early as May 1937.

>The question is more of where the fuel came from. I haven't got an
>accurate breakdown but I understand 100 octane fuel from several
>sources:
>
>1) British refineries
>2) Dutch Shell refineries (in the US) handed over to British control
>3) US refineries
>4) Refineries in the Caribbean (not sure about this?)
>
>Obviously a lot of it came across the Atlantic (possibly in US tankers),
>but that doesn't necessarily make it supplied by the US.

Here is an extract from a presentation I made on the subject at the
Transatlantic Studies Conference, Dundee in July 2002.

"It has often been asserted that the supply of high-octane aviation
fuel was an operationally-significant factor attributable to American
supply in the Battle of Britain [22]. This rests on two largely
unsubstantiated foundations - firstly, the operational impact of
100-octane fuel to fighter operations, and secondly the paramount
importance of American supply of this fuel.

100-octane fuel allowed aircraft engines to exceed their normal
supercharging limits at lower altitudes. This provided higher power
output with a consequent improvement in performance, without the
premature detonation that would result from doing this with lower
octane value fuel. However, the constraints involved in this facility
are never fully articulated. In fact, exceeding normal supercharger
boost was only permitted for a maximum of five minutes, and the engine
power settings involved in most operational sorties were identical to
those obtained on lower-octane fuel. The level of benefit gained from
increasing supercharger pressures decreased with height, declining to
no additional benefit at or above the full-throttle height of the
engine [23]. Nevertheless, the use of this fuel did confer a real, if
often overstated, operational advantage in terms of speed and rate of
climb at lower altitudes.

A larger problem comes with the assertion that high-octane fuel was
exclusively attributable to American supply. 100-octane fuel was
developed in the mid-30's in the U.S., firstly by Shell and then
Standard Oil, in response to a USAAC requirement [24]. However
British purchasing of this fuel began in March 1937, from three
sources, while the Hartley committee was formed to steer the
development of production expansion for the RAF. 100-octane fuel was
also produced within Britain [25].

100-octane fuel was made by blending additives (iso-octanes) with
lower-octane feedstock and tetra-ethyl lead. Iso-octanes were
originally manufactured by a process of hydrogenation, pioneered by
Shell and copied by Standard Oil in the United States. Almost all of
the British supply of 100-octane fuel in the period up to 1940 was
dependent upon this process, but the massive expansion of high-octane
fuel production which followed was contingent upon the development of
iso-octane production by another process (alkylation). This was
discovered by British Petroleum in Britain in 1937. BP production of
100-octane fuel using this process began at Abadan in Iraq in 1940,
and in that year sufficient 100-octane fuel was delivered from this
source alone to replace that issued to Fighter Command during the
critical period of the Battle of Britain [26].

The procurement of 100-octane fuel for RAF use involved the use of
several sources of supply, and was not contingent upon supply from the
United States in isolation, as Table 2 indicates.

Table2. 100 Octane fuel production: current production estimates
exclusive of American domestic production, November 1940. From PRO
AIR 19/254 - 23A

Plant Production (tons per annum)
Heysham, UK 150,000
Billingham, UK 15,000
Stanlow, UK 55,000
Abadan 50,000
Trinidad 80,000
Palembang, Dutch East Indies 50,000
Pladejoe, Dutch East Indies 50,000
Aruba, Dutch West Indies 50,000

After early 1941, to economise on tanker shipping tonnage and take
advantage of lend-lease supply, a deliberate policy decision was made
to favour "short-haul" supply across the Atlantic instead of the
longer routes associated with sources of supply in the Dutch East
Indies and Persia. Nevertheless, this indicates a more complex
historical picture regarding the supply of 100-octane fuel than is
admitted in most accounts. The availability of 100-octane fuel for
the RAF in the Battle of Britain was contingent upon a variety of
sources of supply, and the procurement process involved originated in
pre-war rearmament policy, not in the emergency measures of 1940[27]."

Footnotes:

22 "..a contribution of profound significance to the operational
success [of British fighters]", Richard P. Hallion, "The American
Perspective", in Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang (eds), The Burning
Blue. A New History of the Battle of Britain (Pimlico, London 2000),
p. 84. Hallion's appreciation is derived from Richard Hough and
Denis Richards, The Battle of Britain (Hodder & Stoughton, London
1989) Appendix XII, p.387. Deighton emphasises similarly the
performance benefits, Blood Tears and Folly, p.352.

23 Approximately 18,000 feet for the Merlin III engined used in
the Spitfire I and Hurricane I in use in the Battle of Britain.

24 For the evolution of 100-octane fuel for the USAAC, Lowell
Thomas & Edward Jablonski, Bomber Commander. The Life of James H.
Doolittle (Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1977), p.136-142 and Kendall
Beaton, Enterprise in Oil. A History of Shell in the United States,
(New York, 1957), p.535 and p.561-569. For the evolution of BP
production, J. H. Bamberg, The History of the British Petroleum
Company, Vol.2. The Anglo-Iranian Years, 1928-1954 (Cambridge
University Press, 1994), p.199-218, and for Shell, George P. Kerr,
Time's Forelock. A Record of Shell's Contribution to Aviation in the
Second World War (Shell, London 1948), p.36-59. An overview is in D.
J. Payton-Smith, Oil - A Study of War-time Policy and Administration
(HMSO, 1971), p.55 and p.260-279.

25 Air Ministry importation of 100 octane was established in 1937
at 17,000 tons per year from Trinidad Leaseholds, 32,000 tons from
Shell and 25,000 tons from Standard Oil (New Jersey). Payton-Smith,
Oil, p.55. These quantities were doubled after Munich. Domestic
production was in progress at Billingham and Stanlow, with a further
plant planned at Heysham.

26 By 11th July 1940 the RAF had 343,000 tons of 100 octane in
store, and the rate of importation was such that stocks rose to
424,000 tons by 10th October, 1940 after 22,000 tons had been issued
during the Battle. Derek Wood and Derek Dempster, The Narrow Margin.
The Battle of Britain and the Rise of Air Power 1930-1940 (Hutchinson,
London 1967. First published 1961), p.101-102. Importation from BP
at Abadan alone was sufficient to meet this consumption. Bamberg, The
History of the British Petroleum Company, p.244

27 100 octane was delivered to selected airfields and used in
trials from 1937, with priority going to those where Spitfires and
Hurricanes were to be based. PRO AIR 2/3424. A date was set by the
Air Ministry in April 1939 for introduction into RAF service in
September 1940 after a sufficient stockpile had been accumulated. In
the event this was accelerated due to events in 1940. PRO AIR 2/3531
- 3A.


Neil.

Originally Posted by PipsPriller

I came across it when I was in fact researching another subject (Dutch East Indies Fuel levels prior to the Japanese Invasion) at the Australian War Memorial Archives.

It's from a document, copied to the Australian Military Commission in England in February 1941, by Roll Royce to Lord Beaverbrook outlining past, current and proposed changes to the Merlin; and factors that affect it's performance.

It was quite an interesting paper actually, even though i found it to be a very dry subject. :)

Originally Posted by NeilStirling

Pips, does the quote come from "Higher Faster and Farther: Fuelling the Aeronautical Revolution 1919-1945", by Stephen McFarland?

Neil.

Originally Posted by PipsPriller

It was a collection of lose-leaf typed pages, included as an addendum in a report titled Fuel Supplies to The British Empire And It's Commonwealth; Outlook, Ramifications and Projections For The Prosecution Of The War.

The reason why it is included amongst AWM papers is because the Australian Government at that time was protesting vigoriously about the continued supply of lower grade 87 octane fuel when it too wanted 100 octane for the RAAF.

I believe that McFarland, Pugh, Hart, Perret, Lumsden and even Churchill have all quoted parts from the report.

Originally Posted by NeilStirling

Thank you, do you have a copy? It would be useful as Rolls Royce seem to have been unaware of certain facts, or were the British deceiving to the Australians?
Then again maybe not, however your help in obtaining a copy of the original would be very much appreciated.

Neil.

Originally Posted by PipsPriller

I wouldn't be surprised. The British did quite a bit of that during both World Wars.

Next time I'm down at the AWM I'll chase it up for you Neil.

Originally Posted by NeilStirling

Latest info including that already posted.

1./ High Octane Fuel Decisions at the 96th meeting on 12th October 1937.

The Air Council note that 97,000 tons a year of 100 octane fuel is now in sight, the department being definitely committed to 72,000 tons a year.

17,000 tons from Trinidad Leaseholds Ltd.
30,000 tons from the Shell group.
25,000 tons from Anglo American Oil.
This total was reckoned not to be reached until 1939.

2./ Notes of a meeting held in AMPDS room on the 16 March 1939, to consider the question of when 100 octane fuel should be brought into use in the RAF and of the number and type of squadrons to be supplied with the fuel.

16 fighter squadrons and 2 twin engine bomber squadrons by September 1940, annual consumption 10,000 tons. Brought forward to early 1940 by subsequent events.

3./ 15/7/39. The position in regard to sources of supply of 100 octane fuel is therefore at present.

(a) under guaranteed off take contracts.

Aruba Already producing 25,000 tons per annum. Max58,000 tons
Stanlow Already producing 32,000 tons per annum. Max 42,000 tons.
Trinidad Already producing 17,000 tons per annum Max 20,000 tons
ICI Billingham 1/4/40 16,000 tons per annum Max 20,000 tons
Palembang 1/7/40 20,000 tons per annum Max 35,000 tons

(B) from A.M hydrogenation plants commencing circa 1/4/41 Max 480,000 tons
how did ^ get there?

4./ 11/7/40 RAF had 343,000 tons of 100 octane in store.

5./ 10/10/40 RAF had 424,000 tons of 100 octane in store. After 22,000 tons issued during the B of B.

6./ Quantity of fuel available ( production estimates) from non US sources as of November 1940

Heysham 150,000 tons
Trinidad 80,000 tons
Billingham 15,000 tons
Stanlow 55,000 tons
Abadan 50,000 tons
Aruba 50,000 tons
Palembang 50,000 tons
Pladjoe 50,000 tons

7./ Air Ministry reserves as of November 1940, 500,000 tons. This = 80 weeks consumption.

8./ At one time 800,000 tons was the target.

AIR 2/2151, AIR 2/3531, AIR 19/254.



Neil.