Word: combatants
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...training and battling in Spitfires mainly because Britain has plenty of efficient fighter planes, and that the economical thing to do was to put U.S. pilots in those planes. But it is also true (and more revealing) that the U.S. now has no fighter plane, thoroughly proven in combat, which can match the Spitfire...
...that the pre-war U.S. fighter program was nothing to boast about. Hap Arnold and others responsible for U.S. fighter design sorely misjudged the requirements of war. Notably, the U.S. fighters of 1938, 1939 and 1940 were under-gunned, under-armored. For this fact - and for the resulting combat deficiencies - General Arnold cannot wholly plead the natural innocence of peace. Britain went into the war, in 1939, with two fighters (the Hurricane and Spitfire) which were ahead of any U.S. fighter then in service. Both planes had been designed and developed in the years (roughly 1935-39) when comparable...
...engine in the U.S. "medium-altitude fighters" is what keeps them down. This engine is General Motors' liquid-cooled Allison- a power plant which has been the subject and victim of more controversy than any other single element in the U.S. fighter picture. According to combat pilots recently back from fighting fronts, the Allison now going into U.S. Army fighters is reliable, efficient, easy to maintain, a good engine within its limits. Its main limit is that it does not deliver enough power above medium altitudes...
...Allison-powered plane-the twin-engined Lockheed P-38- may yet prove in combat that it is an adequate, all-around, high-altitude fighter, with its two Allisons doing what one Allison has not been able to do. Another fighter with an engine similar in general design to the Allison may also prove its worth at higher altitudes - the late-model P-40F with a Packard-made Rolls-Royce Merlin (British) engine instead of the Allison. According to published reports, the Merlin P-40 has shot up to 30,000 feet (on a par with the Spitfire and the Nazi...
General Arnold last fortnight pinned his hopes on an untried fighter with an entirely different engine: the air-cooled, 2,000-h.p. Republic P-47. Said Hap Arnold: "The P47 now is in production and ready for delivery to combat theaters. . . . It is believed able to outfly and outfight any other known airplane." But combat will be the only real test...