What Crumpp is conveniently ignoring is that Rolls-Royce were already
A) Testing a Merlin at 18 lbs boost and generating 1,536 hp on a special blend of gasoline, benzol, methanol tetraethyl lead in August 1937. (Price Spitfire Story 2010 p. 107) But then Price, like most aviation historians, is an ignorant -non engineering- dweeb who knows nothing about aircraft.
B) testing Merlins IIs on 100 Octane in 1938.
Whatever Crumpp might think Rolls-Royce had been working on modifying Merlins to run on 100 Octane and high boost well before 1940, and with their engineering capabilities would have known what sort of modifications would be needed to get the Merlin II & III series running reliably at higher ratings - the modified cylinder heads would have been developed and ready to use as soon as the go ahead was given in November 1939 to allow Merlins to run at +12 lbs.
If Crumpp had been in charge at R-R at the time nothing would have been done because Crumpp would want every single tiny detail thrashed out at length, and he would know better than everyone else that at least 30 months would be needed for intensive operational testing and development before production engines could be cleared to use 100 octane fuel.
|