Quote:
Originally Posted by Crumpp
And nobody else does either.....including you.
Aircraft fuel tanks have what is called "usable fuel". There is always some left in the tanks that the lines cannot reach in level flight. The Spitfire POH refers to this as the "effective capacity". That left over fuel can be a significant amount in a WWII fighter. The amount is specific to the individual aircraft and will be found with that airframes weight and balance sheet. The average is about 5 gallons a tank for a WWII fighter.
Next point is "consumed" does not mean it was put in an airplane and used up. Aircraft fuel has a specific shelf life to it. Once mixed it is distributed and considered consumed. For example, 100LL stock is refined only ONCE per year in the United States. The stock is then distributed to the holding yards. When it is dispensed to the airports, the final mix of that stock occurs and it becomes 100LL fuel. Just because the airport buys 15,000 gallons does not mean it will be sold and go into airplanes by the time the shelf life is over. That is why airport managers keep data on fuel sales!
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And what does peacetime civil practice have to do with an air force fighting off a concerted air attack over a period of a few months? Absolutely nothing!
For one thing it was standard FC practice to top up the tanks of all of its fighters as soon as possible after every sortie, mainly to avoid condensation traps because of the fuel left in the tanks. Nor did every aircraft land with empty fuel tanks. There was no "shelf life" when it came to running intensive, frontline operations.
No - what this entire discussion comes down to is Barbi's belief that Fighter Command, which proved to be technically astute during the Battle of Britain, deliberately deprived up to half of its front -line pilots of a technical and tactical asset.
People can speculate all they like about "selected units" "certain units" etc because, in the end:
1) Was 100 octane fuel available to Fighter Command? Yes
2) Was there enough 100 octane fuel available to cover
all sorties flown by Fighter Command during the battle? Yes
3) Was enough 100 Octane fuel distributed and used throughout the battle to allow Fighter Command to fly all 57,971 sorties from July to end of October? Yes, with more than enough left over to allow Blenheims of Bomber Command to operate.