04.08.2010, 13:38
Heavy-E
Having worked on a multitude of V-1710 I can assure you they have internally driven superchargers. If you look at the upper two photos you can see the supercharger case on the rear of the powerplant and the lower photo you can see the impeller and diffuser ring. Allison did play with turbocharging but was never used in P-40s. Most all of the large inlines dating from production in the 30,s had internally driven superchargers but very few had turbo-supercharging.
All 14,000 P-40s got gear-driven superchargers and, as a result, were never first-class fighter planes. Donaldson R. Berlin, the P-40 designer, has said that P-40s experimentally equipped with turbo-superchargers outperformed Spitfires and Messerschmitts and that if it had been given the engine it was designed for, the P-40 would have been the greatest fighter of its era. This may be to some extent the bias of a proud parent, but there is no doubt that the deletion of the turbo supercharger ruined the P-39.
http://www.raafwarbirds.org.au/targetvr ... 710-33.pdf
Look at the fourth line down and you will see Supercharger Type is single stage single speed.
The prototype XP-40, the Curtiss Hawk Model 81, owed its origin to the earlier Model 75 of 1935 vintage. With the standardization of the Allison V-1710 , the P-36 design was reworked to incorporate this engine, becoming the XP-37 which was equipped with a General Electric turbo-supercharger, and featured numerous other modifications, including a rearward positioned cockpit. Thirteen YP-37s were built for service evaluation; but, with increasingly ominous signs of an approaching war, development of this fighter was abandoned in favor of a less complex and more direct conversion of the P-36 for the Allison engine, the XP-40. This was, in fact, the tenth production P-36A with an integrally-supercharged 1,160 hp Allison V-1710-19 (C13) engine, and first flew with its new power plant in the autumn of 1938. Successful in a US Army Pursuit Contest staged at Wright Field, in May 1939 it was awarded what was at that time the largest-ever production order for a US fighter, totaling nearly thirteen million dollars.
The prototype was the only one to have turbosupercharging but all V-1710,s were integrally supercharged.
Having worked on a multitude of V-1710 I can assure you they have internally driven superchargers. If you look at the upper two photos you can see the supercharger case on the rear of the powerplant and the lower photo you can see the impeller and diffuser ring. Allison did play with turbocharging but was never used in P-40s. Most all of the large inlines dating from production in the 30,s had internally driven superchargers but very few had turbo-supercharging.
All 14,000 P-40s got gear-driven superchargers and, as a result, were never first-class fighter planes. Donaldson R. Berlin, the P-40 designer, has said that P-40s experimentally equipped with turbo-superchargers outperformed Spitfires and Messerschmitts and that if it had been given the engine it was designed for, the P-40 would have been the greatest fighter of its era. This may be to some extent the bias of a proud parent, but there is no doubt that the deletion of the turbo supercharger ruined the P-39.
http://www.raafwarbirds.org.au/targetvr ... 710-33.pdf
Look at the fourth line down and you will see Supercharger Type is single stage single speed.
The prototype XP-40, the Curtiss Hawk Model 81, owed its origin to the earlier Model 75 of 1935 vintage. With the standardization of the Allison V-1710 , the P-36 design was reworked to incorporate this engine, becoming the XP-37 which was equipped with a General Electric turbo-supercharger, and featured numerous other modifications, including a rearward positioned cockpit. Thirteen YP-37s were built for service evaluation; but, with increasingly ominous signs of an approaching war, development of this fighter was abandoned in favor of a less complex and more direct conversion of the P-36 for the Allison engine, the XP-40. This was, in fact, the tenth production P-36A with an integrally-supercharged 1,160 hp Allison V-1710-19 (C13) engine, and first flew with its new power plant in the autumn of 1938. Successful in a US Army Pursuit Contest staged at Wright Field, in May 1939 it was awarded what was at that time the largest-ever production order for a US fighter, totaling nearly thirteen million dollars.
The prototype was the only one to have turbosupercharging but all V-1710,s were integrally supercharged.