Quote:
Originally Posted by TomcatViP
Let's resume :
1st. We can say that some Spit and Hurri did rely to 100oct latte in BoB in frontline units.
2nd We can assume that 100oct was used on low alt raider bombers - perhaps "the some of the spits" were low alt escorting fighters. This makes more sense that 100oct being used at alt high fight (were BoB did occur : Bob was an anti-bomber campaign for the RaF !)
3rd The value for the HP provided are grossly overestimated and only focused on the Spit witch does not makes any sense as Spit and 109 were much close match and it seems to be well known for years
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1) No, we can say that there is no evidence of 87 octane fuel use in any operational Merlin engined fighter squadron during the BofB.
2) All Merlin engined fighters saw a tremendous increase in climb rate due to the use of 100 octane fuel, when using the combat rating of the engine:
for example, the Hurricane I's climb rate increased to ~3450fpm up to 10000ft and the time to 20,000ft declined to about 6.5min at 12lb/3000rpm from 9.75min at 6.25lb/2850 rpm at 6750lbs. The increased climb rate paid dividends even though the performance above ~16,000 ft was unchanged with 100octane fuel.
On the later Spit V at 6965 lbs, the combat rating climb performance was:
.(a) Climb performance.
Combat rating 16lb boost@3000rpm / Normal rating 9lb boost@2850 rpm.
Maximum rate of climb (ft/min) 3710 at 8,800 ft/2650 at 14,900 ft.
Time to 10,000 ft. (minutes) 2.7 / 3.8
Time to 20,000 ft. (minutes) 6.15 / 7.9 min
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/aa878.html
3) There was a considerable increase in performance for both the Hurricane and Spitfire.