The Griffon is far more powerful than the Merlin which is why it was used in the later marks of Spitfire. Contrary to popular belief the Merlin & Griffon bear no relation to each other, apart from both being developed by Rolls-Royce. The big Napier inline water-cooled engines like the 24 cylinder Sabre used in the Typhoon & Tempest were more powerful than both.
Going back to the topic I never saw any resemblance between the Viscount & the Electra. Maybe I missed something but the Viscount was the first successful turbo-prop airliner & one of the few British airliners that was popular in the US. Apart from both having 3 jet engines in a similar configuration I never saw any relationship between the Trident & 727. Not having much interest in jet airliners it's quite possible they were intended for completely different markets.
As the others have said, the Lancaster & B-24 were designed to two completely different concepts. Like the B-17 the B-24 was designed before WWII started so suffered from the same lack of experience with strategic bombing. If anything the comparison should be between them.
The Lancaster was a four-engined development of the unsuccessful Manchester (more due to the unreliable Vulture engines than the airframe) & produced with the knowledge gained from several years of bitter warfare. Unlike the US types it was mainly intended for use by RAF Bomber Command for long-range night bombing. I found this site with some very interesting information on the B-24 Liberator.
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher2/b24.html Here's a short quote.
A comparison between the B-24 Liberator and the B-17 Fortress is perhaps inevitable. The Liberator was slightly faster than the Fort, carried a heavier bombload and could carry it farther and higher than the Fort. It was slightly more maneuverable than the Fort, and was much more adaptable to other missions. On the debit side, the Liberator was harder to fly, less stable, and much more difficult to hold in the tight bomber formations that were mandatory in the European theatre of operations. The Liberator was not capable of absorbing nearly the same amount of battle damage that the Fortress could handle. Any sort of solid hit on the wing of a Liberator was generally fatal, the high-aspect ratio Davis wing often collapsing and folding up when hit. In comparison to the B-17, there are relatively few photographs of Liberators returning home with half their wings shot away or with major sections of their tails missing. The Liberator was not very crashworthy, a "wheels up" landing generally causing the fuselage to split into two or three pieces, resulting in a complete writeoff. In contrast, a Fortress which had undergone a "wheels-up" landing could often be quickly repaired and returned to service. When ditching at sea, the Liberator's lightly-built bomb bay doors would often immediately collapse upon impact, the interior of the aircraft quickly filling up with water, causing the aircraft to sink rapidly. In spite of the Liberator's defects, Eighth Air Force records show that B-17 operational losses were 15.2 percent as compared with 13.3 percent for the B-24,which meant that a crew had statistically a better chance of surviving the war in a Liberator than in a Fortress.
Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2005 5:57 pm
