Scott Peterson wrote:

Guy Alcala wrote:


*I have serious doubts about this being correct, and suspect it's a
typo. The P-51D weighs over 1,500 lb. more than the P-51A (albeit
with considerably more power and a four-bladed prop), and I just don't
believe that it's better than, e.g., the P-63A.

Now go back and look at the numbers for the B-25.....and yet they were
able to take off with less than half the flight deck.

Certainly. I'll have to use the figures for the PBJ-1H, essentially the
marine version of the B-25H. With a bombload of 6 x 500 lb bombs plus the
75mm cannon and ammo, at a t/o weight of 35,106 lb. (considerably heavier
than Doolittle's B-25Bs), the t/o runs are as follows (note, this is for a
field not a carrier deck):

0 wind, 1495 feet.
15 knots, 1064 feet.
25 knots, 813 feet.

Please note that the Hornet was worked up to just about full speed, i.e.
30+ knots, and there was a considerable natural wind blowing when Doolittle
& Co. took off. Even so, at least some of them dipped below the flight
deck after takeoff (an advantage from a carrier deck, which is why carrier
takeoffs can be made from slightly shorter runs than under the same
conditions on land). Oh, and less than half the flight deck of the 32 kt.
Hornet is just about the maximum available t/o run of an 18 kt. CVE.

In point of fact, the Navy conducted flight tests using a slightly
modified P-51D (I think) on USS Shangrila in 1944. The plane was
easily able to take off using the same space as Navy fighters

And how, pray tell, was it able to "take off using the same space as a navy
fighter," when (even assuming the '1,185 ft.' figure for the P-51D's t/o
run given in "America's Hundred Thousand," is _not_ a typo) the
contemporary F6F-5 and F4U-1D only required t/o runs under the same
conditions of 780 ft. (405 feet less than the P-51D) and 840 feet (345 feet
less) respectively?

and no
catapult and easily landed using a hook fitted for the tests. The
results were quite favorable but not compelling enough to continue.

'Quite favorable' is an interesting way of putting it. Eric Brown's
comments are rather different:

"Landing the Mustang required concentration, for at an approach speed of
105 mph the view was bad, and high-rebound ratio landing gear made a
three-point landing tricky, This state of affairs was exacerbated by the
aircraft's lack of directional stability, on the landing run. The U.S.
Navy abandoned the Mustang's deck-landing trials on an aircraft carrier for
these reasons."

All of which makes the later Corsair sound like a great deck-landing a/c by
comparison. But what, exactly, does this digression have to do with the
ability of a P-47 to make a non-catapult take off from a Casablanca or
Bogue class CVE that's only allows roughly half the t/o run, and is 15
knots slower than the Shangri-La?

Guy