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Originally Posted by Dougpeerless
The Mustang was only really built because the RAF put out an order for a fighter it was initially supposed to use the Merlin but if i remember rightly the plane wasn't quite right so the early ones did'nt have it. Someone rightly said the aircraft used the Allison which was VERY similar to the Merlin but it never quite worked. I might add by the end of the war the engine worked great.
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If I remember my history correctly, the British purchasing commission was originally looking for Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawks - they approached North American Aviation with a request to build P-40's under license from Curtiss. North American really didn't want to build under a license from Curtiss, and, instead, proposed to design and build an entirely new fighter. After some last minute (overnight?) preliminary design work by 'Dutch' Kendleberger. The Brits agreed, under the stipulation that production could begin within 4 months (!!!) - an exceedingly short time for a new design. Kendleberger agreed and immediately proceeded with detailed design. The airframe was designed around the Allison V-1710-39, the same engine that powered the P-40.
Design and production proceeded, and, incredibly, the prototype was completed in 117 days, and, using the same engine, outperformed the P-40 by 25 mph or so. The Brits immediately put in an order for 300 or so, and later doubled it. The major strong point of the design was it's incorporation of the laminar flow wing, which greatly reduced drag and was much more efficient than standard wing designs of the time. The airframe had great low altitude performance, but, as mentioned above, was rather anemic in the thinner air at higher altitudes, due primarily to the un-supercharged Allison engine.
North American approached the US Army, but other than their requirements to purchase a minimum number of airframes under Lend-Lease, weren't interested, and initially fitted them with dive brakes and used them as low level attack/dive bombers (A-36 'Apaches').
It was the Brits who initially tried the Merlin in the Mustang, and the rest, as they say, is history. Most production Mustangs were fitted with Packard built Merlins, constructed under license from Rolls Royce.
Probably WAAAY more than anyone really wanted to know.
-whatever
-Lou