Spit Mk1 Boost?

[Viper2000]

Originally Posted by Crumpp

You know I read that part about one sortie life span. Thanks for pointing that out. Makes perfect sense to put your obsolete motors and so extremely over-boost them in a disposable airplane. Even then I would like to see what the engine was approved for at the boost. I would think it was just to get off the CAT.

Even a disposable fighter is worthless if it cannot fly to a target and fight.

I don't think they needed the power for takeoff because the "catapult" in this context was a whacking great rocket.

Given the stability & control difficulties associated with using really high powers at low speeds in these aeroplanes, and the obvious risk of engine failure at low speed & altitude off the bow of a ship which probably can't stop or avoid the aeroplane if it ends up in the drink, I would have thought it more likely that the launch was conducted at normal takeoff power.

I think that the extra combat power was primarily intended to be used for a rapid climb to cloudbase in order to intercept/scare off the bomber that was threatening their convoy; in the absence of RADAR, the CAM's fighter was only launched when the enemy was within visual range, and so warning time was strictly limited.

The climb would be unlikely to go higher than cloudbase because the bomber would just cloud-hop home (and probably couldn't hit a ship from any higher anyway, so either way it would be a mission kill); the fighter would be unlikely to give chase because of the obvious navigational challenge of finding their convoy again afterwards in an aeroplane not really equipped for naval navigation (at this time, most Fleet Air Arm aircraft, even the fighters, had a navigator).

For this reason, I suspect that they'd be unlikely to use the extra power for more than a couple of minutes in the sortie; I'm guessing that an early Hurricane with +16 would probably exceed 3000 fpm climb rate, and the cloud base would usually be less than 6000 feet...