Hello,
I'm quite a plane enthusiast, especially WW2 prop planes. I'm looking for primary performance data, or original design documents for some world war 2 planes, mostly american planes (like the F6F, P-51, F4U, P-38, B-17 ext.).
Is there a published archive of any of these documents? or is there a book that would have complied copies of these documents?
Thanks
Not quite sure what sort of document you are looking for, if it's the original design documents then as far as I have heard there is no centralized archive, you could always attempt to write the manufacturer or whatever company it went up into(many WWII plane manufacturers merged after the war), or look up some company specific library. I know some manufacturers do spend time digitizing old documents although this is mostly related to the current flying fleet, documents that carry a direct monetary value for the company.
Performance data often differs between sources, the best sources are often the test pilots that flew the aircraft for the relevant air wing.
Would this be the sort of data you are looking for?: http://wwiiaircraftperformance.org/
Unfortunately many of the aviation related documents only got standardized after the war, so finding exactly what you are looking for might be a bit more difficult.
Fans of the WW2 air combat sim Aces High have been combing archives world wide for decades looking for this kind of information, I would search their message boards for specific aircraft.