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Aviation History
1946
1946 - 0291.PDF
FEBRUARY, 14TH, 1946 FLIGHT I WORLD'S FASTEST FIGHTER '"X-'--,'-'' Qloster Meteor IV Does 585 m.p.h,. at Sea Level : Range Up to 900 Miles : Phenomenal Climb THAT an aircraft should lose but 21 m.p.h. by carry-ing full military equipment as compared with one"specially groomed for the world's speed record may appear astonishing. Yet that is the case of the Gloster Meteor IV, some further details of which have now been released by the Ministry of Aircraft Production. Actually the loss in speed is.probably somewhat smaller than this, since the thrust from the two Rolls-Royce Derwent V engines in the Service version may be assumed to be some- what lower than that available in the speed-record machine, the power units of which were not, however, given full throttle during the record flights. In the Service Meteor IV the two Derwent V units give a static thrust at sea level of 3,500 lb. each. The total thrust from the two at full power gives the machine the impressive speed of 585 m.p.h. at sea level and 560 m.p.h. at 30,000ft. At the former speed, with the power units giving 7,000 lb. thrust, the equivalent thrust horse power f no less than 10,920 h.p. To obtain the same thrust from ston engines driving airscrews would require, allowing i airscrew efficiency of 80 per cent., no less than 13,650 b.h.p. The tremendous thrust available has a great effect on climb as well as on speed, as is obvious from the fact that a height of 30,000ft. is reached in the incredibly short time of five minutes. Coupled with this rate of climb is a service ceiling of 50,000ft. at the fully loaded weight ofJ 3.9oo lb. By the time some of the fuel has been con- sumed, and the weight has been reduced to 12,600 lb., the service ceiling has gone up to 52,000ft., which is well into the stratosphere. By way of comparison, and to show how great is the effect of increased thrust, it will be of interest to quote a few figures for the Gloster Meteor III. Its loaded weightw *as 12,200 lb. and the power units gave a static sea-level thrust of 1,950 lb. each. This produced a maximum speed at sea level of 460 m.p.h. At sea level the maximum rate of climb was 4,000 ft./min., the time to 30,000ft. was 11.5 minutes, and the service ceiling just over 40,000ft. The take-off run to clear a 50ft. obstacle was 1,000 yards. Jet propulsion is always thought to be extravagant in the matter of specific fuel consumption compared with the piston engine. A strict comparison is difficult, but it is now customary to state the specific consumption of a jet unit in pounds per hour per pound of thrust as the counterpart of the piston engine's pound per horse-power per hour. Fuel Economy In the official figures of the Meteor IV released by M.A.P. the ranges are given for various tankages, at an economical cruising speed of 350 m.p.h. at 30,000ft. With 275 gallons in the tanks the range at most economical cruising speed is 500 miles, which corresponds to 0.55 gallons per mile, or 1.8 miles per gallon, a figure which is not too bad when allied to a speed of 350 m.p.h. Looked at in a different way, the hourly fuel consumption is just over 190 gallons for the two units. At present the air- craft has a standard permanent tank capacity of 330 gal- lons but has only been cleared for a normal tankage of 275 gallons. When the R.A.F. begins to take delivery of its Meteor IVs the machine will doubtless be cleared for carrying not only its full tankage of 330 gallons (giving a cruising range of 585 miles) but also the ventral drop tank of 180 gallons for which provision has been made. The extreme range should then be extended to something like 800 miles, making an allowance for the climb to the operational height of 30,000ft. These figures indicate that when the Royal Air Force
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