The Secret Horsepower Race
from -
https://www.facebook.com/TheSecretHorsepowerRace/
excerpt-
Another astounding discovery from this months archive-box digging. German engineers designed, built AND tested for hundreds of running hours - ceramic inlet and exhaust valves in the Daimler-Benz DB600 series. Only the head was solid ceramic, attached to a metallic stem.
This was not done for lightness, but to deal with the highly corrosive fuels then in use, lead-oxide attack was a very serious issue.
I`ve been doing more fuel manufacturing data-crunching - I can say that (at least in 1943) the ratio of 100 Octane Allied fuel to German High Octane C3 fuel ACTUALLY produced in all theatres combined, was about 1:10
I`m saying that the Allies produced ten times as much high octane fuel as Germany in 1943. To give you a figure, Allied production of 100 Octane in 1943 was nearly 10 million tons.
To give this perspective, the Allies produced about 50% more fighter aircraft than Germany over the course of WW2 - but had ten times the high octane fuel. This tells you a lot about the air-war 1940-45.
War is merely racing "for keeps", before WW2 Daimler-Benz and Rolls-Royce were locked in a battle for Air-Speed records in the Spitfire vs. the Heinkel, Me109 and Me209. The Speed-Spitfire was in doubt after the convincing record by Willy-Messerschmitt and pilot Fritz Wendel...