Turbo-supercharged radial engines (a uniquely American development) were to give the necessary high-altitude performance, and heavy defensive armament was to provide protection against attacking fighters.
Though produced in smaller numbers than its partner the B-24 Liberator, the B-17, with superior high-altitude performance and greater resistance to battle damage, was the mainstay of the strategic bombing campaign.
Partly in consequence and partly because many fighter pilots were intimidated by the Lightning's size and complexity, the Army Air Forces were ambivalent about the P-38 and failed to exploit aggressively its superior range and high-altitude performance when it was the only fighter in Europe capable of escorting bombers deep into Germany.
Superior high-altitude performance rendered it all but immune from interception, and the fuel tanks that replaced wing-mounted machine guns and ammunition bays gave it sufficient range to probe western Germany from British bases.
More Hurricanes than Spitfires served in the Battle of Britain, and they were credited with more "kills," but it can be argued that the Spitfire's superior high-altitude performance provided the margin of victory.
No American engine then available produced sufficient power to satisfy the requirement, and designers Hall Hibbard and Kelly Johnson designed the P-38 around a pair of liquid-cooled in-line Allison engines, turbo-supercharged for high-altitude performance.
In the meantime, the British had experimented with Mustangs fitted with the powerful Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, and they discovered that the Merlin's efficient mechanical supercharger gave the fighter outstanding high-altitude performance.
The P-47 originated with a June 1940 proposal by Republic designer Alexander Kartveli to base a fighter on the new Pratt & Whitney R-2800 twin-row radial engine, turbo-supercharged for high-altitude performance.
McCudden's changes were made with one main objective in mind: high-altitude performance.
One aircraft used to evaluate the TK-3 turbosupercharger in July 1944 in the hopes of improving high-altitude performance.
If the paradigm proposed at the outset of the present review has validity, then it would be expected that genes conferring benefit for high-altitude performance might be related to improved outcomes in critical illness.
