Would have made quite a different story I think

yes quite a different story most decidely so!this baby was on the drawing board and prototyped long before the lanc was created! had they chosen 4 seperate engines rather than coupled twins. 😎 😎

Last year EHVB and I visited Gatow and saw the mainspar from up close. It looks more like part of a bridge. The brackets still had remains of wooden ribs clamped into them. All that’s needed is a welded steel fuselage and a Gigant is a distinct possibilty. IIRC there is another main spar about in Germany.

Amazing what’s still left but easily overlooked, even items such as this.

Cheers

Cees

must be a feasable project after all it would be mainly wood constructed ,are there any drawings in exsistence ?

The Merlin was 27 litres. It was the smallest capacity front line combat engine of the war. It started at 950hp, just, flew the Battle of Britain at 1300hp, by 43 it was at 1600hp and 2000hp reliably by June 44. In 44 it was cleared to 2200hp but not require at this power. These figures alone are not matched by any other engine.

The DB605 at 35 litres was the size of the Griffon, yet never matched the Merlin, and was way off what the 36 litre Sabre regularly ran at. The 605 was beset with lubrication issues as well as deficiency’s with its fuel system. Perhaps the Jumo 213 would have been the best German fighter engine but it was originally developed for bombers and the war had ended before its more advanced versions were produced in meaningful numbers.

The BMW 801 was roughly the same size as the R2600 and a bit larger than the Bristol Hercules. Again the 801 was not seen to be racing ahead of the other 14 cylinder radials on the block.

Forget the nonsense spoken about direct fuel injection. You lost as much as you gained and often more. One of the key features lost with the direct into the cylinder injection of the Germans was the important charge cooling they lost.

I don’t mean to burst the bubble but whilst the Germans had no end of good idea’s they did not have a monopoly on good ideas, and nor did they do the best job of getting all these ideas into effective production. War conditions had an obvious detrimental effect, but it doesn’t account for all that could have been done better.

your suggesting that a carburrated engine is more efficient than a fuel injected unit?the intercooled fuel injection units operated very efficiently and had an exellent reliability record, the merlin went through several mods and i agree it was a most potent unit ,however they did suffer in battle and ive seen plenty of battle used examples with blocks destroyed by the shock loading factor whilst most of the german units id examined seemed to fair better absorbing more damage, i dont intend to get into a merlin v the rest scenario but these engines werent blessed by god as it were, nor were the german units:cool: 😎 😎

most interesting thanks for the responses, its something i think many forget about in the heat of war etc, after all its cost millions to produce these war machines etc and why should the victors/goverments be allowed to profit from their confiscations not to mention saved development costs etc and not pay for the privilage,there again some would argue the expenditure of the winning side should be set against any reinbursments made for the capture and use of enemy equipment albeit. guns,planes ships etc etc.:cool: 😎 😎