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Originally Posted by Glider

As mentioned before the first units started using 100 Octane in February not March. Document Attached.

As before this section I do fundamentally disagree with. In December 1939 stocks of 100 Octane were 202,000 tons, by May 1940 stocks were 294,000 tons and by August 1940 stocks were at 404,000 tons (documents are attached). We know that in June – August the average consumption was 10,000 tons a month (document attached).
The question I suggest we need to ask is If you have what is in effect a two and a half year stockpile, is this a strain, let alone a great strain on the stockpile. In my opinion it isn’t a strain at all, it’s barely noticeable

The British War Cabinet didn’t discuss 100 Octane at all in May and as a result no decisions were made. I spent a day in the NA going through all the papers for the meetings, the meeting notes and the actions resulting, and Fuel of any kind was not discussed. I should add that in May 1940 the War Cabinet met almost daily and it was a huge amount of paper, literally hundreds of sheets making it impossible to copy and post. Clearly as this wasn't discussed there were no actons or decisions made along this line.

The first part is correct, the first shipment from the middle East did arrive in August, however the rest is misleading. Numerous other tankers arrived from others parts of the world between May and August and stocks continued to increase . On July 11th stocks of 100 Octane were 343,000 tons as specified in the Narrow Margin page 87 (document attached).

This is clearly wrong In August 1940 permission was given for all commands to use 100 Octane in Operational aircraft. (Document attached)

Given that FC were using 100 Octane and the bombers plus the rest of the RAF were using 87 Octane I would expect 87 Octane use to be higher.

Now if someone could produce this and its supporting inforation then we would be in a good position.

I should point out that all my comments are supported by original documentation. The posting isn't supported by anything.

If the people working on the code base there scenario's on Pips posting as above, they have only themselves to blame if the adverse comments arrive.

Good post Glider. Amongst the odd things in that supposed Australian mystery document, this sentence struck me as rather off the mark: "This initial increase in maximum boost from 6 lb to 9 lb delivered a useful power growth of around 130hp at the rated altitude". This just doesn’t make sense when all the documentation available shows an increase in maximum boost from +6.25 to +12 with the Merlin III. That’s just a bloody obvious error. Dr. Alfred Price wrote that "The higher octane fuel allowed an increase in supercharger boost from +6 lbs to +12 lbs, without risk of detonation that would damage the engine. […] The emergency power setting increased maximum speed by 25 mph at sea level and 34 mph at 10,000 ft. It also improved the fighter’s climbing performance between sea level and full-throttle altitude" (see attached scan). The RAF’s old History page pretty much said the same thing.