Let’s Settle This. What Was the Fastest Piston Fighter Ever?

After my video on the XP-47J caused a bit of a fuss, I thought it might be interesting to go through and see just what was the fastest piston engine fighter in history.

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[EdNashsMilitaryMatters]

LOL I am once again corrected, so well done to everyone who pointed out that the Saab 21 is a great example of a pusher type that did get into service. 😁

[Mouxbar]

Me163 by miles. Amazing what that little prop on the nose could push out ROFL - Great video 🙂

[daviddavid]

I'd say you showed saintlike restraint, amazing patience and the utmost tolerance in another stellar video. Thanks.

[bobroberts]

Oh how I love it when an Ed Nash video lands.

[EffequalsMA]

This is the best day ever, Ed puts a video out on fast piston engine fighters and starts with the XP47J. Anything P47 is my favourite, automatically.

[Andre_Kummel]

The Christmas Bullet is a clear contender, in my opinion. It exited flight testing so quickly, hardly anyone noticed it whiz by.

[Godvana_]

11:35 Slight correction: Sweden did adopt a push design in the SAAB J 21

[aaronlopez]

Ed, that was an excellent review of piston engine aircraft. Excellent job.

[johndavey]

Ed. I think you hit gold with this one . And it's a comfort to know the Spiteful was the top dog . Thanks Ed . (Of course we both know someone will always contest the claim!)

[FinsburyPhil]

With 500+ built, I'd have to go for the P-51H as the fastest 'fighter'- as you said, prototypes are almost always lighter and cosseted in some way that makes the top speed unrealistic in service. Other then that, it seems to me that the Spiteful F Mk 16 probably has the most reliably recorded highest speed of an aircraft designed to be a fighter.

[olivergs]

As soon as you cited Aircraft/Warplanes of the Third Reisch by William Green, I grabbed my copy, turned to the Dornier 335's entry, and can confirm that Green claims the maximum speed of the Do335A-1 to be 474 m.p.h at 21, 325 ft

[cecilboatwright]

VERY NICE discussion!! After the war, Wright Field tested just about every airplane that the Axis powers had come up with, and YEARS AGO I came across a website that had many of their typewriter-written reports scanned and available. I cannot remember if the Do335 was included, but I would be very curious to see what their figures were on it (I cannot seem to locate the old website through any search engines). I am a former military pilot and (Heaven help me) retired air traffic controller, and a point that seems to allude most non-pilots is that "top speeds" are typically TRUE AIRSPEEDS after a myriad of corrections have been applied to them, and true airspeeds are very dependent upon the ALTITUDE (mostly temperature, but also atmospheric pressure) that the measurements are taken at. The thing is, around WWII, there wasn't really any universal convention on how to arrive at the calculated speeds. For instance, the more advanced models of the F4U Corsair had published "top speeds" well in excess of 400mph, and the Grumman F6F Hellcat was only supposed to be capable of around 360mph. At one point in the war, the Department of the Navy insisted that Grumman and Vought swap some fighters, in the hope that each company could improve their own fighter by being exposed to the capabilities of the other's design. Famed Grumman test pilot Corky Meyer claimed that, against the F4U that they took on for testing, that head to head, the poor "360mph" Hellcat could easily "walk away" from the "faster" F4U at just about every altitude!! And just the basics of flight testing in the 1940s was an EVOLVING discipline! So, your task becomes even more daunting, just because the observations-made-specifications, at that time, were anything but a standard practice!! And just one other point....the fighters of WWII RARELY RACED EACH OTHER!! Aerial combat is VERY RARELY done at any airplane's top speed!!! If anything, dogfighting is very often nearest the opposing airplanes' STALL SPEED, as they try to outmaneuver each other. Where a "top speed contest" comes into play are basically when an approaching fighter is attempting to CATCH an opponent to try to shoot them down, or as being able to determine who can successfully break off the fight and escape to fight another day, with the faster ship having a distinct advantage. YOU REALLY DID A NICE JOB with the discussion with the information you used, but the discussion, honestly, is SO VERY VAGUE with the data we have available to us at this point in history. The only REAL WAY to determine the answers would be to have ONE test and evaluation team fly EACH of the airplanes in the running, using a very precise set of testing criteria, and OBVIOUSLY that's just no longer possible (that's why I think the Wright Field flight test data would be SO HELPFUL here). LOVE YOUR STUFF CHUM!!!

[sailor]

I enjoyed that. I had the wonderful experience of standing next to Yale English professor Norwood Russell Hanson’s F8f Bearcat. He kept it at Tweed New Haven Airport in Connecticut, USA. It was painted black with white eagle claws painted on that long legged landing gear. Flying magazine did an article on it; and stripped of guns and armor, it was reported to go 500 mph. When it entered the pattern it sounded like a jet, beautiful. As a kid it was a wonderful time. We would ride our bikes to the airport and sit on an old picnic table outside the FBO and just take it all in. Unfortunately, Hanson flew the ‘Cat into a Pennsylvania hillside in bad weather. Both pilot and aircraft died.

[Thomas..Anderson]

03:48 01. XP-47J
04:04 19. Grumman Bearcat F8F-1
04:34 18. Grumman Tigercat F7F-3
04:58 17. Hawker Tempest 2
05:35 16. CAC Ca-16 Kangaroo
06:10 15. Supermarine Spitfire Mk.21
06:34 14. North American F-82G
07:07 13. Martin Baker MB.5 / Hawker Sea Fury / FMA I.Ae30
08:38 12. Focke Wulf Ta 152H
09:42 11. Yakovlev Yak-3M-108
10:37 10. Kyushu J7W Shinden
12:05 09. F4U-5 Corsair and P-57M
13:32 08. De Havilland Hornet F.Mk.3
14:03 07. Mitsubishi Ki-83
15:18 06. Dornier Do 335
17:37 05. Hawker Fury Mk.1 / Supermarine Spiteful F.Mk.14
18:45 04 North American P.-51H Mustang
20:04 03. Republic XP-72
20:53 02. Supermarine Spiteful F.16

[gandsproductions]

I love these super prop designs. Its also pretty neat just to see how long the idea of trying to get a propeller driven aircraft to go even faster stuck around for. With stuff like the thunderscreach and tu-95 later coming around.

Maybe one day you could make a video about the fastest military propeller driven aircraft.

[shaider]

Hmm, perhaps for a more complete info, a collab with Greg's Airplane and Automobile channel. That guy gots lots ofr performance charts for different altitudes and manifold pressure.

[barrysheridan]

Kudos for taking this subject on. The claims for any supposed fastest will find it difficult to escape suspicion for one reason or another, I think we can say that any aircraft that could reach 450 plus was an exceptional machine.

[ianmcsherry]

I'd love if Eric Brown was still alive to pitch in to these comments: "Flew that. Flew that one. Flew that one too, and that one... Went to fly that one in 1945, but the only remaining engine at the airfield blew up as I was taxiing...." Etc. 🙂

[mikepette]

the army tested the xp-47 J to ONLY 484 MPH ! wow thats still pretty crazy

[davidjernigan]

This is a tough one as there were so many low production models like the super Corsair, seafury, bearcat, etc.