Found the following at
Fastest piston fighter, page 1
waynos
posted on 16-1-2005 @ 05:02 AM
Here's a little more information that is relevant to this thread and also the 'first to break the sound barrier' thread.
I was reading the book 'The British Fighter Since 1912' by F K Mason and chanced upon the following two quotes;
On 12 December 1942 Philip Lucas reached 575 mph (mach 0.76)at 20,000 feet in a full throttle dive from 27,000 feet in the prototype Tempest V. Thereafter tests were flown on production aircraft, often firring their guns in dives at around 550mph
to see if the wings came off
That sounds like an exciting job doesen't it
then there was this startling account;
....diving trials with spitfire
PR.XI's in the late summer of 1943.......sqn leader James Tobin recorded Mach 0.92 between 25,000 and 30,000 feet (a figure later amended to Mach 0.90, but still a speed of around 650mph TAS); of course no spitfire would have retained its wings had it fired its guns at this speed.
This is a much higher speed than I thought any Spifire would have recorded and is probably as close to the
[COLOR=#60e060! important][COLOR=#60e060! important]speed [COLOR=#60e060! important]of [/color][COLOR=#60e060! important]sound[/color][/color][/color] as any piston fighter of the time managed to get.
Otherwise it looks like the P-47 would be a probable.