Thermal Efficiency of a Lockheed P-38 Engine Calculator

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II-era fighter aircraft. The thermal efficiency is a term more commonly associated with heat engines like gas turbines or internal combustion engines rather than aircraft as a whole. However, I can provide a general explanation.

Thermal efficiency is a measure of how well an engine or system converts the energy from its fuel into useful work. It is often expressed as a percentage.

The thermal efficiency is expressed mathematically as:

where:

  •  is the thermal efficiency,
  •  is the thrust produced by the engine,
  •  is the jet velocity,
  • f is the mass flow rate of fuel,
  •  is the specific enthalpy of the fuel.

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