Heat in Fighters?

[Dan Jones]

As I sit here in about -31C (-24F) tonight I'm wondering how effective was/is the cabin heat in WW2 era fighters? I know the bomber crews had electrically heated suits but was there much heat in the P-51's, P-47's, the Lightnings and the Spitfires up at twenty-five or thirty thousand feet? I've never seen much in he way of insulation in the cockpits either. I'm betting they were darn cold.

[dhenriques]

As I sit here in about -31C (-24F) tonight I'm wondering how effective was/is the cabin heat in WW2 era fighters? I know the bomber crews had electrically heated suits but was there much heat in the P-51's, P-47's, the Lightnings and the Spitfires up at twenty-five or thirty thousand feet? I've never seen much in he way of insulation in the cockpits either. I'm betting they were darn cold.

Well..............sort of yes and no for the Mustang. The heat is pulled off the back part of the radiator and enters the pit on the right side. I've had a 51 over 30 thousand and I can tell you my right leg and side were toasty but my left side was cold as hell.
You could adjust the heat with a control to the right of the stick. For me anyway, strapped in good and solid with the harness it could be hard to reach on occasion.

Dudley Henriques

[Dave Hadfield]

The P-40 has heat. I've used it when flying for Nov 11 ceremonies. Our Spitfire and Hurricane certainly don't.

The Lysander is very warm, but unfortunately you can't shut it off, so you roast in summer.

[WIXerGreg]

Heat in the P-38 was said to be poor.

[JohnB]

I would imagine warbirds are a bit like autos...or general aviation aircraft...namely air cooled engines aren't as effective in producing cabin heat as liquid cooled types where you have radiators.

There is a reason why some aircraft (and cars) have fuel-fed heaters.

[Dan Jones]

The P-40 has heat. I've used it when flying for Nov 11 ceremonies. Our Spitfire and Hurricane certainly don't.

The Lysander is very warm, but unfortunately you can't shut it off, so you roast in summer.

Not even windshield defrost or anything in the Spitfire? That must have made things pretty interesting diving out of altitude into nice, moist, Messerschmitt laden air! I guess you'd be flinging the canopy open pretty fast. You would think that with that big liquid cooled engine (especially engines in the P-38 and Mosquito) that you'd have all the heat in the world...

The Lysander sounds a little like the Beaver or an Otter; I used to wonder in the winter where all of that marvelous summertime heat had gone while sitting there slowly dieing and stomping my feet on the floor, occasionally scraping the frost off the inside of the windshield with a credit card.

[Scott Rose]

I know some Harvards pull heat from the exhaust pipe.

[Dan Jones]

I think that was a actually a Canadian mod. I think most of them had the long, heat exchanger exhaust up here.

The P-47, with all of it's ducted exhaust running right past the cockpit, should have had decent heat?

[Dave Hadfield]

The brits used alcohol for deicing a lot. In the Spitfire there is a perforated tube to allow de-icing fluid to coat the windscreen in the center. Ours is in place, but not used. It would probably fog up on the inside though.

I can't recall if the glareshield is pierced with ventilation holes for de-fogging. Probably. But there is no selector for it.

[Spitty]

Spits just had the ventilator on the RH front side of cockpit and the MkI,s had the oval push out panel on the canopy LHS but yes for deicing they just had the windscreen spray bar.

[bdk]

I think that was a actually a Canadian mod. I think most of them had the long, heat exchanger exhaust up here.

Shockingly, the Canadian extended exhaust even allowed the rear passenger/instructor to avail themselves of heat.

The T-6/SNJ only had a valve for warm air on the floor that the pilot could open and close with his foot. The air flowed from an inlet between the cylinder baffles, then passed through a heat muff adjacent to the exhaust and finally through the firewall to the valve.

[Dan Jones]

I just find that strange that "heat" was such a minor consideration in those days. Slowly freezing to death in a cockpit is a truly miserable experience.

[airnutz]

I just find that strange that "heat" was such a minor consideration in those days. Slowly freezing to death in a cockpit is a truly miserable experience.

"Iron men with aluminum wings"?.... To update the old Lou Cameron title reflecting on WW1 combat aviators. There must be a Brit sketch or two somewhere of the oversexed American fighter pilots in their heated cockpits...meeger as it was.. surrounded with bins of booze, nylons, and coffee.

[Rick65]

The early Spitfires and Hurricanes were primarily interceptors and didn't have huge range.
A combat mission in the battle of Britain seems to have been less than 2 hours, some thing like 45 to 55 minutes to scramble, assemble, climb and intercept, 15 minutes combat?, 40 or so to disengage, descend and land.
This is massively less than the later offensive or escort missions and might explain the lack of heat in these UK types.
But still easily long enough to get cold (as I remember from my motorcycling days)
Adrenalin would have helped

[CAPFlyer]

Also, not all of the fighters, but some of them did have the electric suit hookup as well. I know I've seen pictures of the electric suit control unit in P-51s and F4Us for sure. Between that and heavy clothing, that seems to be the preferred method on the US to keep pilots warm.