Germany did not lose the Battle of Britain

[kimosabi]

I srsly doubt that with todays oil/starter/battery/engine quality. Those lumps back then were heavy and crude enough just to crank empty. lol I want one.

[MaxGunz]

Rolls Royce Merlin engines .... crude?

[kimosabi]

Considering that you today can squeeze out that hp/torque safely from a piston engine half its size, I'd say so.

[nearmiss]

Internal combustion engines... pretty well done back then.

There are certainly refinements in oils, fuels, computerized ignition systems today, which provide more horsepower.

Even if they had current technology back then we have today their engines wouldn't have done any better than they did. The conditions those old warbirds had to fly under were delimiting.

All types of weather and environmental extremes, shortages of adequate parts, etc. I doubt the screaming little internal combustion engines we have today would have been reliable under such conditions.

Back then horsepower was important, but reliability was just as important.

[MaxGunz]

Take a modern Formula One engine that has such tight tolerances it has to be heated to operating temperature -just to start without being ruined- as an example of the best power/weight IC made, and they are good for one race....

hope no one thinks that all the parts in those exchange easily.

That kind of fit was possible in 1936 too. The tightness of machining then for those engines was high though nowhere as CNC fast as now. But they did have to make the things able to cold start, be fixed relatively quickly, and last just a bit longer.

Perhaps you need to have cut metal yourself to understand just how fine the better AC engines of those times really are. Calling the Merlins crude is like saying that people in the past were stupid because they didn't know what is known by some people now. Yet we can't get a real dialog on global warming....

You want crude, get an old Harley made to 1910 technology -- any made up to perhaps the 60's.

[JtD]

If you want to compare today's F1 engines with older technology, you should compare it with older F1 engines, not aircraft engines. Turbocharged these managed up to about 500 hp from 3 litres displacement in 1939, considerably more than contemporary aircraft engines. Naturally aspirated they were at about 50 hp per litre, today were at about 300.

[MaxGunz]

Why? Formula racing is a very different sport just from the 60's let alone the 30's, not just in the cars but the monnnnney poured into it. Is anyone winning with cars built in old barns in the last 20-30 years?

I've seen the Austrian air-rifle that Lewis and Clark took across the American continent and back. It's nothing as good as an M-1 yet I wouldn't be gauche enough to call it crude. The thing was very fine even for today. And look at those really old musical instruments that didn't have MIDI or pickups of any kind.. crude?

Crude AC engines were the radials they used in early WWI.

[kimosabi]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

Take a modern Formula One engine that has such tight tolerances it has to be heated to operating temperature -just to start without being ruined- as an example of the best power/weight IC made, and they are good for one race....

hope no one thinks that all the parts in those exchange easily.

That kind of fit was possible in 1936 too. The tightness of machining then for those engines was high though nowhere as CNC fast as now. But they did have to make the things able to cold start, be fixed relatively quickly, and last just a bit longer.

Perhaps you need to have cut metal yourself to understand just how fine the better AC engines of those times really are. Calling the Merlins crude is like saying that people in the past were stupid because they didn't know what is known by some people now. Yet we can't get a real dialog on global warming....

You want crude, get an old Harley made to 1910 technology -- any made up to perhaps the 60's.

You can't know much about engines if you don't realize that any piston engine from the 1940's were crude. F1? Get a grip dude, taking an extreme approach like that and comparing those engines to Merlins just makes you look narrow. One race? Read the F1 regulations for 2011, and also compare how many revolutions those engines makes between tear downs to a Merlin from 1940. We're talkin roughly 19000rpm compared to 2500rpm. I wouldn't be surprised if F1 engines surpass Merlins in terms of longevity through crank revolutions. But put simply, they are not comparable.

I'm not calling the Merlins crude because people back then were stupid, you would probably think like that but I'm saying that Merlins(And DB600 series for that matter) are crude because it was on a lower step on the evolutionary scale. Yes, we still use internal combustion engines and yes it is (mostly) the same principles but when a 3L straight six from BMW can fork out over 300hp/400nm reliable power you gotta wake up and smell the coffee man. There's a reason to why piston engines left fighter aircrafts. They were crude, too much prone to failures and something better came around.

Want a fair comparison? Take a 1940's car engine and compare it to a modern one. Any engine.

[waspfarmer]

Did too.