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

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. 😁

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

This was very entertaining, but at the same time, precise, thorough, and compelling. Well done.

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

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!)

great work as always - thanks for all your work on this.

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. 🙂

Much awaited, much appreciated excellent insights as always from you

"Pusher designs never adopted".... Ummmm.... SAAB J-21 anyone?

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

Love your content Ed! You and Rex's Hanger are some of my favorite late night channels!

Fantastic video, delivered with suitable grace, humility and humour. Well done.

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.

Ed: 'Anyone for tennis', while rolling a hand-grenade (minus pin) into the room 🤣🤣🤣 But in all seriousness, a well-researched and thoroughly enjoyable run through the archives - thank you 😀

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!!!

Now that you’ve mentioned the “what if?” scenario, I imagined an alternate universe where Rolls-Royce got their shit together and actually got the Crecy to be put in a test bed. It would most likely go into a Spitfire airframe with a nasty five-bladed prop and a complex extractor system to squeeze every last bit from the two-stroke’s massive exhaust gas production. It would also definitely be ridiculously loud, as engineers noted when they first tested the Crecy. Consider me very impressed with this tier list! Thanks for setting things right!

CAC - 15 Kangaroo was my guess, at least as a testbed winner….. a surprising list for me. Well done providing this really informative video!

I enjoy your videos because you inject your opinions (as well as humour) into the factual accounts. Thanks for what you're doing.

Hey Ed...Great video and the commentary is spot on. Always interested in War Birds from that era. What made this much much more interesting were the pics of the P51's . Of those displayed, on the port side fuselage is a a "fighting bird" ( Baltimore Oriole) with boxing gloves on. They were from the Maryland Air National Guard fighter group. I love these!!! Reason being my father flew these and I recall at family gatherings at Harbor Field, MD I would see these birds. Even have a photo of dad sitting in the cockpit of one. We may have been the poorest family on the block but dad flew fighters!!! Many Thanks!

It's such a complex and difficult field, the rate of change was insane in the 1930-1945. Great video, love it

SAAB 21 was a push design that made it to service. twin boom push config. over 200 built later fitted with a jet.

Good list Ed thanks! Also thanks for including Shinden...I agree it “doesn’t count” but I just love the thing 😊..just like the MB5 & maybe the cac-15...certainty in my favourite “what if” aircraft( if they could have been developed further)

If you live in Palm Spring you can watch them flying around nearly every weekend. Just saw a P-47 for the first time today!

Wow, a lot of interesting planes and information to see here, and I appreciate the way you use imperial measures along with with metric (I'm American so that helps... no conversion calculations, my mathematics are not my forte... kinda scary for an aspiring pilot, right haha) That makes it great for everyone to watch no matter where you come from. Great vid thanks for the upload!

What’s crazy about the fury 1 is that we only have data for its top speed without 150 octane fuel. With no 150 grade fuel it had a top speed of 482mph while making 3,055hp. With 150 grade fuel it’s engine was rated for 3,500hp, but we have no top speeds recorded for this plane in that configuration

Looking at the finish of the final few aircraft and they look fast. Smooth clean lines, tight panel gaps, efficient looking air intakes and radiators. The comparison to some earlier noted aircraft and their rough appearance gives the indication that their airspeeds may have been fudged a little.

Thank you for another very informative video. I learned more about some of these aircraft that I sis nor know before.

Your speeds are quite different than many other publications I have read many written by well know experts in that period in aviation. With that said I don't see any point arguing when I found your videos completely enjoyable. Very nice compilation.

The aircraft shown at 5.28 isn't a Tempest II, it's an experimental version (note 'P' for prototype on the fuselage) of the Sabre-powered Tempest V, with an annular radiator, possibly inspired by the Fw190D. Note the Sabre's exhaust stacks. This was an attempt to reduce drag by eliminating the chin radiator and it seemed to work: top speed increased by about 15mph (24kph). Despite this it didn't make it into production.

I actually didn't expect to see the Ki-83 in the list mainly due to lack of knowledge about it. I knew it was an impressive twin engine fighter but hearing that it only needed better fuel to go that much faster is insane

WILD CARD . . . 😂🤣😂🤣😂 Love it! I greatly appreciate the time taken to both research and present this piston driven aircraft comparison. Have a safe and blessed week, my friend! 👍🏻🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 👍🏻

Love the half-chuckle at the end, Ed knows what he's done😅

Given that to be a fighter pane you needed guns and ammo, plus fuel for operational sorties, were all the top speeds done with so equipped aircraft, if not, then I'd quibble about any that weren't.

Btw I was told at the mosquito museum now new Mosquitos are possible a serious attempt is being made to build a hornet as the moulds exist. Imagine that at an airshow!

Great job Ed. Very calm explanation.

Another awesome video. I enjoy your content immensely.

You made me laugh just when I needed to very badly!!! From a Yank, all I have to say is "jolly good show"! Great informative video.

I believe only aircraft with a combat record in WW2 should be considered for this list. Experimental aircraft are just that, experimental and improved aircraft that flew after WW2 ended clearly cannot be considered.

Nice edit of the "For a few dollars more" cards scene. Got a chuckle out of me!

You are a brave man taking on the aircraft community with this comparison We all have our favourite and can see how subjective speeds can be I personally think it shame that some of the one off's did not see action MB 5 XP 72 etc weren't developed more great upload 5hough 😊😊😊😊

I like these videos where you explore a topic rather than a specific plane.

Vídeo Excelente!👏 Grato pelas informações!🌟

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

"What is the fastest piston fighter?" Has a simple, one-word answer: context.

SAAB 21 (pusher engine), almost 300 were built and put into service.

Well done, Ed.

this pop up in my recommended after 12 seconds being upload, notification squad?

As a P-47 fan I can say I find no fault in your findings.😍

I certainly think you were fair and impartial!! Thanks Sir!! I enjoyed your work immensely🫡✅💯

Fascinating review, thank you.

The Ta152H had crazy speed at hight altitude and it actually saw action in the last weeks of the war.

You missed out the Airco DH.2 900mph @ sea level. Oops my bad that should read 90mph :/ got he decimel point in the wrong place, easly done :)

Enjoyed it Ed. Thank you. A lot of interesting fighters, but my favorite is the F4U

This must have taken a lot of time to make, so I just wanted to say thanks for doing this. Cheers.

The Spiteful may also be the prettiest, piston-engined fighter ever. Thanks for this, Ed. ☮

Great video. Would like to note that you said (referring to J7W Shinden) no pusher type piston engined aircraft ever made it to production. While not the fastest by any standard, the SAAB J21A entered production in 1945!

Big thank you for including metric on screen!

I suspect you will be covering things such as some fighters being better at diving while others are better and faster at climbing but I am enjoying this so far.

Sea Fury is badass… Corsair too

This video shows how piston power reached it’s peak during and after WW II. Then jets took over. It surprised me that the F86 flew in the late 1940’s along with the P80. Interesting video

Another great video Ed. I do think it would have been interesting to see what the Pfiel could have done with some really good quality fuel, exactly the sort of thing the Luftwaffe was lacking by the late war period. However, if the pilot got into difficulties, exiting the plane in an emergency was, well, a bit hit & miss. Apologies if this has already been covered. Eric Brown said it had, quote, ‘The most complicated system of safety devices ever employed to get a pilot clear in an emergency.’ Unquote. 1/ Press a button to blow the rear prop off. 2/ Press a second button to blow the top fin and rudder off. 3/ Press third button to arm the ejector seat. 4/ Manually eject the canopy by gripping two red levers at the front of the hood & heaving with all his strength. 5/ Squeeze a trigger on the seat arm-rest to activate the ejection seat. Unfortunately, step 4/ had a few issues which could prevent step 5/. On at least two crashes, the pilot was recovered from the aircraft ~ without one or both arms. Upon heaving on the two red levers to jettison the canopy, it was snatched away so fast that the pilot had no time to let go of the levers ~ and their arm (or arms) went with it. NOT a nice way to go!

I think you may have missed the BF109K. I've seen several figures over the years of around 440 mph for the K4. It was a lot slower with the underwing cannon pods - about 410 mph, I believe - but while they were normally fitted in service, they weren't integral to the aircraft and could be removed.

i had William Greens first book. You left out the K4. Wow. Listed at 452 in his book and that was most repeated number. 440 is also a number i've seen often in the last 50 years. He listed the Ta152 at 472mph btw. It seems most English speakers underestimate the K4, until they try to outclimb one. i would really just count the fighters before Japan fell, ie during the war. After that you have prototype hot rods with 150 octane fuel.

Interesting video and list you have provided. For me any consideration would only include those aircraft that had actually seen service during WW II. I am surprised though that the P-38 was not on your list. I thought it's highest recorded speed was higher then that listed at number 19 so I''ll have to look it up.

Very well done!

The Sea Fury - whatever its speed - was a pretty successful aircraft pretty much everywhere it was used.

Regardless of who wins, they're all really beautiful planes. Even the P-47, in its own special way. :-)

Excellent video, worth a look at what was the plan for the Rolls Royce Crecy engine, the ultimate piston engine . It was considered too powerful for the Spitfire and Spiteful airframe which had been the plan.

That is one of my favourite books. I’ve spent 10s of hours going through it

My criterion for determining the fastest WWII fighter is that it must have at least achieved what we call today initial operational capability during the war. That excludes fighters like the Hornet, the F4U-5 and all prototype and preproduction aircraft. The contenders come down to the the TA-152, P-47M and P-51H. I usually say the P-51H by virtue of its large production order and its deployment for the upcoming invasion of Japan. However since the H never saw combat the winner is the P-47M.

P47Ms in Zemke's Wolfpack in the last 2 months of WW2. They were Me262 hunters.

Excellant video, and I believe you showed a great deal of patience and time in research. I have seen many referances to the the Hawker Hornet and the Do335. I hope you have settled the arguement. I agree with your list and I wonder if this will ever be truelly settled.

Brilliant video mate.. cheer's..😊

There was a version of the Do 335 called the Do 635, one of a kind if I remember correctly (I hope). It was single seat with a bubble top canopy similar to a Tempest, P-51D or P-47D with an even sleeker fuselage than the Do 335. It was allegedly measured at 835 km/h TAS at the Erprobungsstelle Rechlin, I think in April 1945. I can’t remember the altitude, but it was very high because I just remember me wondering that it could climb that high let alone fly that fast that high. There was an article about this in a German aeronautical magazine called “Flug Revue” in the 1980ies. In the article there was a picture of the aircraft and a picture of the barograph readout. The guy who wrote the article was Hans Redemann, a noted Luftwaffe historian back then. I just hope I didn’t post any nonsense. It’s been decades I read this.

For comparison the A400M does 781 km/h (485 mph) at 9,450 m (31,000 ft). Cruising.

Great Rundown Ed Nash's truly amazing and I am wondering why the P-38 variants were not mentioned as had a very high dive speed Mach Number::))

The complete book of fighters! One of my absolute favorite books! Ever!

Yay!

Pierre Clostermann describes an attempted interception of a Do-335 in his book, _’The Big Show’._ Green’s book definitely says 474. I have a copy.

I would have loved to see a Mosquito fitted with Griffin engines!

Thank you for the video. I, also, am doubtful that it will settle many, if any, debates.

Mr. Nash, you must be either a masochist or a sadistic gadfly. Either way this video is sure to send the comments flying. Nicely done, sir, nicely done.

Dornier 335 left everybody in it's turbulence.

The RR Griffon 101 was the ultimate version of the 36.7 litre V12 (along with the Griffon 130). They both had a two-stage, three-speed supercharger with the RR fuel injection system and good for 2,420hp. (The 130 drove a contra-prop).

You're getting into territory covered by Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles channel. Any time spent on his videos will prove that any answer to "What was the fastest X" should start with "That depends..."

Wheraboos (ostensibly anime nerds who worship nazi WW2 weapons, uniforms, etc.) are a sad lot. There is definitely a huge overlap of these folks and 4chan incels. It is simultaneously funny and sad.

Nicely done. Thank you.

Really awesome video covering the Superprops! Only ones I can think of to add is the 109K-4 fitted with the DC engine and running the right fuel and MW-50, and potentially the Seafire 47. And although it would be at the very bottom end, you could also throw in the Fiat G56 as a wild card. Also is there any particular reason that you went with the F8F-1 instead of the -2? Maybe I missed something. I'm hoping the add the Spiteful and F4U-5 into War Thunder one day.