Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaston
I have been asking litterally for years now for a low-speed low-altitude turning battle where the Spitfire defeated the FW-190A in a series of sustained horizontal turns: In years nothing has surfaced...
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Try this one. It took a bit of looking but I found it again:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=HofA...20turn&f=false
The action describes an early Typhoon Mark IB in a low level escort run with other Typhoons. In the battle a Typhoon and FW190 end up in a sea level turn fight and although descriptions of the battle is light... it illustrates that the FW190 and Typhoon had fairly similar turn rates. In this case the Typhoon pilot was still attempting to pull lead when the FW190 stalled with it's legendary wing drop and crashed in to the sea.
By all rights the RAF considers the Spitfire to be much more manoeuvrable in the horizontal than any model of Typhoon or Tempest. It's not a direct comparison (I'll have a look in some other books) but I remembered this story and I think it illustrates that the FW190s high wing loading, powerloading, and other aerodynamic features that make it such a great hunter do not provide for great turn rate at sea level. Particularly with an aircraft as heavy as the Typhoon was. So to lay it out. If a Spitfire is better in the horizontal than a Typhoon by a significant amount and the FW190 and Typhoon are roughly even (slight edge to the Typhoon?) then the Spitfire is going to be better in the horizontal. In my mind almost unquestioningly so given any number of battle accounts from either side on any front where the two clashed.
On a side note the FW190 is much more manoeuvrable than the Typhoon in all other regards. The Typhoon has a slight sea level edge in speed and a slightly better turn, however, it's roll response is one of the worst of the WWII fighters (note: The Tempest much improved on this with an excellent roll rate particularly in Series II models).