Corky Scott wrote:

On Fri, 06 May 2005 16:30:22 GMT, George Patterson
wrote:


That diving difficulty the Spitfires and Hurricane's had existed only
during the Battle of Britain. After that British engineers devised a
method of negating the engine cutting out from starvation from pushing
the nose down suddenly to follow a Messerschmitt doing the same thing
(the British called the maneuver a "bunt"). They installed a sheet of
metal across the top of the carburetor's float chamber that had an
orifice drilled in it. In effect, it was like a fuel tanks baffle
that prevents the fuel from ramming from one side to the other when
the wing's are banked.

With this plate/orifice installed, enough fuel remained over the jets
during this beyond zero G maneuver to keep the engine running.

Corky Scott

Hi Corcky,

I have the paper here, somewhere, that describes the problem and the fix -
which is more or less as you describe.

What I wonder is:

Was this fix proagated through to the Packard Merlins, for the life of
production? Or were Mustang and later Spitfire Merlins fitted with some
other solution which also solved the problem?

thanks

--
Saville

Replicas of 15th-19th century nautical navigational instruments:

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Restoration of my 82 year old Herreshoff S-Boat sailboat:

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Steambending FAQ with photos:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/Steambend.htm