EXCELLENT book: The Secret Horsepower Race. Western Front fighter engine development

[The Dumb Gun Collector]

Hey guys,

If you like ww2, engines, and airplanes and are a bit of a tech nerd I have the book for you. The Secret Horsepower Race: Western Front Fighter Engine Development is superb. It has an excellent summary of fighter engine technology before the war, and every year during the war. It talks about the development of everything from superchargers, turbochargers, direct fuel injection, nitros oxide, methanol injection. Essentially, almost every meaningful piece of combustion engine technology was developed from 1939-45.
https://www.standingwellback.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/3529EB2B-466C-4DCB-8175-8243C8498F5E-1440x810.jpeg

It talks about how the limitations on aviation engines put in place by the Treaty of Versailles actually lead to the Germans researching fuel injection, and subsequently getting way out ahead of the allies because of it.

It also has lots of cool ww2 history like the British trying to buy Alison engines from the Americans so they could study their turb0s---but being rebuffed by the Americans who were worried about intellectual property---so they had to dig BMW turbo engines out of wrecks to study them. Just craziness.


It is a technical book with lots of graphs and charts but it is still very approachable especially if you like engine technology.


Take a look here...

Here is a much better review...

https://www.standingwellback.com/book-review-the-secret-horsepower-race/

The book is hardbound, has lots of color pictures, and is very nicely put together and it's on $43. If you like motors and ww2 this is the book for sitting next to the toilet!

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Horsepower-Race-Western-Development/dp/1911658506

https://www.calum-douglas.com/current-book-the-secret-horsepower-race/

[SteyrAUG]

Where was this book when I was 12? I'd have it memorized by now.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

I thought it was interersting that I always thought that the Allison engine was inferior to the Merlin- and in success it was, but why didn't we put Merlins into P38s? Because the Allison also had improvements during the war and improved on its overall and high altitude performance, making a Merlin swap not that advantageous.


https://youtu.be/oJPGFcXRZZI

That Greg's airplanes youtube channel is CRAZY detailed on WWII aircraft.

Thanks for the book, one more thing for my wife to get me for Christmas.

[JediGuy]

There goes the gift card from work. Thanks for the recommendation! Brings back memories…grade and middle school.

[SteyrAUG]

There goes the gift card from work. Thanks for the recommendation! Brings back memories…grade and middle school.

God it's like we were all cloned in some secret government project. Spitfires v 109s and Corsairs vs Zeros were 90% of everything I thought about grade school through middle.

[Pacific5th]

I thought it was interersting that I always thought that the Allison engine was inferior to the Merlin- and in success it was, but why didn't we put Merlins into P38s? Because the Allison also had improvements during the war and improved on its overall and high altitude performance, making a Merlin swap not that advantageous.


https://youtu.be/oJPGFcXRZZI

That Greg's airplanes youtube channel is CRAZY detailed on WWII aircraft.

Thanks for the book, one more thing for my wife to get me for Christmas.

At the same time the F82/P82 twin Mustang has the distinction of the prototypes and test aircraft being faster than the production aircraft. The test beds had Merlin’s while the Army Air Corp insisted the final version has Alison’s for two reasons. 1 cost to license and build the Marlins and 2 they wanted it to be all American. Still a fantastic bird in the end.

[JediGuy]

The I discovered Star Wars and it was A-wings vs TIE Interceptors. And the requisite video games.

[SteyrAUG]

Mercedes ad from 1940.

https://i.imgur.com/R3iYous.jpg

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

There goes the gift card from work. Thanks for the recommendation! Brings back memories…grade and middle school.


God it's like we were all cloned in some secret government project. Spitfires v 109s and Corsairs vs Zeros were 90% of everything I thought about grade school through middle.

Little grade school library and I WORE OUT the Time-Life series of books on the WWII fighters and bombers. My favorites were the one on the P51 and the B29....

[JediGuy]

P-38 - There is no comparison

My first non-car plastic model was a Hawker Hurricane, so there’s a soft spot there, though the Spitfire is just beautiful.

And the Hellcat and Corsair were such fixtures of Victory at Sea that we checked out from the library.

My mom signed me up for an airplane binder mailing list when I was no older than 7, and I know they are all still at home. It was kinda cool, we didn’t have a ton of money so they didn’t keep it active (my perspective as an adult), but I got a new shrink-wrapped set of cards to add to the binder on a number of birthdays, possibly into my teens. They’re still at my parents house, and when offered, I asked to leave them there so my kids can look through when they visit.

Honestly: They are cooler than guns. But I haven’t made enough to buy that P-51 at the airport yet.

[SteyrAUG]

So thanks to this thread, I spent the evening watching "Battle of Britain" (1969) and it's the first time I've watched it in about 20 years. No CGI, no woke nonsense, just an almost documentary true story with enough human drama to make your wife watch it with you.

It was amazing to see the actual planes involved, in flight. Sure they had some special effects, the Stuka's were apparently models and everything blown up in the sky was obviously also a model or 1960s level special effects of superimposing an explosion on the last frame of a plane in flight. Is that better or worse than cartoonishly bad CGI? For me it isn't.