A funny looking experiment!!!

[Professor Brensec]

If anyone thinks this is an 'ugly', or at least a strange looking version of the P40, I'll let them get away with it, this time.

Although we all know I believe the P40 to be the best looking plane of it's day (pre and early war years), I'm very glad they didn't opt for thisd particular version - designated XP37.

It apparently had 'centre of gravity' problems when they placed the radiator and supercharger behind the engine, which required th repositioning of the cockpit. Fair enough......reposition it, but don't put it on the tail!!!!!!



The Corsair was difficult to land on a carrier because of the length of nose in front ofthe pilot. I wonder how this thing would have gone on a carrier. IMPOSSIBLE!!

[Professor Brensec]

Who said you can't have a 'back seat driver' in a fighter!!

[Flt.Lt.Andrew]

Looks like a GeeBee Racer cross breed....

hmmmm....

A.

[Woodlouse2002]

It looks COOL!!!

[Hagar]

Looks all out of proportion to me. That short moment arm would make it a tad twitchy. Adding 10 feet or so to the rear fuselage might be an improvement.

Looks like a GeeBee Racer cross breed....

My thoughts exactly.

[Woodlouse2002]

I like it personally. And I want one.

[Ben_M_K]

It kind of looks like a mix beetween a Gee Bee and a P-51.

[Jared]

It kind of looks like a mix beetween a Gee Bee and a P-51.

Yeah that is definately an interesting looking aircraft!

As for landing it on an aircraft carrier, I'm not gonna do it!!!

[Professor Brensec]

It kind of looks like a mix beetween a Gee Bee and a P-51.

Funny you should mention that it looks like a P51!!!

Curtiss (designers and makers of P40) of which this is an experimental variant, were ordered to give the plans of their new fighter to North American, so the new fighter could be 'rushed through' in record time.

Although NortH American claim to have had no more than a 'perfunctory' look at the plans of the completed (and test flown) plane, their P51 ended up looking very 'reminiscent of the new Curtiss fighter based on the P40. (I beleive they had more than just a 'look' at the plans).

Don't get me wrong, I believe the P51 was an innovation and it had features which were original, not the least of which were the laminar flow wings. I, in fact. love the P51B/C.

But many P40 features can be seen on the P51, apart from the overall 'look'. The 'belly mounted' radiator scoop, for instance.

[Hagar]

LOL Prof. We've already had a long discussion on this subject so I'll try not to start all that again. Personally, I can't see any resemblance between the aircraft in your photo & the P-51. Except for the stubby tail end it has the classic look of a Curtiss design.

I still maintain there's only so many places you can fit a radiator scoop on a single-engined fighter. The most common locations were directly below the engine as on the P-40 & Hawker Typhoon, under the wings as on the Spitfire & Bf 109 - and below the mid-fuselage as on the P-51, Hawker Hurricane and many other types. I read an interesting article in Aeroplane Monthly by J. Leland "Lee" Atwood, vice-president of North American Aviation in 1940. It's based on a lecture he gave to the Yorkshire Air Museum on June 13, 1998. Here's what he said about the "laminar flow" wing.

After the RAF contract was awarded it was decided - at the recommendation of the aerodynamics group - to use the new "laminar flow" aerofoil, which promised further drag reduction. In the event, many tests (including some in recent years) have shown that extensive laminar flow was not developed by the Mustang wing, and that the drag of the wing was probably no less than that of conventional wings of the same thickness & taper ratio. On the other hand the figures .....
... indicate a substantial drag-reduction advantage for the cooling system.

Earlier in the article he states that.

The theory of this air pump effect (of the radiator scoop) was encapsulated in the work of F. W. Meredith of the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, whose report (RAE No 1683) of August 1935 greatly influenced me, as chief engineer of North American Aviation, to offer the British Purchasing Commission the ducted radiator design configuration in 1940. Meredith's report showed how the momentum loss in the cooling radiator could be largely restored when excess cooling air was being forced through the radiator at high speed. .....
.... Since Meredith's work was generally expressed in unfamiliar mathematical terms, it was poorly understood & sometimes even described in terms of mild ridicule.

Unfortunately this high-speed phenomenon could not be effectively measured by regular wind-tunnel scale model tests, and no full-size tunnels ran fast enough (200 - 400 mph) to obtain meaninful results; so it was viewed as ephemeral or even imaginary by many people in the engineering practice. Actually it is quite real, and has a close relationship with jet propulsion. It is reported that Willy Messerschmitt made extensive efforts to determine the reason for the low drag of the Mustang, but his wind-tunnel measurements did not disclose the air jet effect, and most probably could not have done so with the equipment available at the time.

[C]

LOL Prof. We've already had a long discussion on this subject so I'll try not to start all that again. Personally, I can't see any resemblance between the aircraft in your photo & the P-51.

Agreed...

Rather think it bears a resemblance to the Napier Heston myself (well, not really, but the Heston's worth looking at anyway )...

http://www.jaapteeuwen.com/ww2aircraft/html%20pages/HESTON-NAPIER%20RACER.htm



Charlie

[Hagar]

Agreed...

Rather think it bears a resemblance to the Napier Heston myself (well, not really, but the Heston's worth looking at anyway )...

Now that's what I call a nice looking aircraft Charlie. Certainly worth looking at.

[C]

Now that's what I call a nice looking aircraft Charlie. Certainly worth looking at.

...Once the undercarriage is retracted ...

[Professor Brensec]

G'day Hagar. I figured you'd pop up here, after I made the comments. You seem to be able to smell them............lol.

[Hagar]

Hi Prof. I know I'm wasting my time but I couldn't resist it.

You should know me well enough to realise that I enjoy playing Devil's Advocate. I don't know the truth & doubt it will ever be uncovered now. Mind you, the article I mentioned is extremely interesting & proves that the information on the "Meredith Effect" was available & documented in 1935 if anyone was prepared to read it. From what I can make out, 2 prototypes of the XP-46 were ordered on September 29, 1939 & the first flight did not take place until September 29, 1941, exactly 2 years later. The Mustang was already in production & being evaluated by the RAF by then. The Napier Heston in Charlie's photo is another example of the ventral positioned radiator scoop which was certainly not unique, not in Europe anyway.

However, from what "Lee" Atwood explains in the article the Heston would not have benefitted from the Meredith Effect. This is caused by the design & shape of the radiator scoop itself. The important thing seems to be that the front part of the scoop is clear of the fuselage as it is on the P-51D & not directly bolted on or faired into the fuselage itself as on the Heston & so many other examples. This is clearly shown on this photo I took of the immaculate P-51D "Jumpin' Jacques" during a fly-in at Abingdon earlier this year.

I don't think the all-important gap between the air intake & the fuselage was so marked on the original P-51 & this was developed over a period of time. It would have been mainly a matter of trial & error as the results couldn't be verified in the wind-tunnels available at the time. The full extent of the air scoop's effect on perfomance was not fully appreciated until after WWII was over.

I think any similarities between the P-40 & P-51 might be exaggerated by the fact that US-designed fighters were invariably radial engined so wouldn't require a radiator at all. (The Curtiss P-75 Hawk, direct predecessor of the P-40, was powered by the Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp.) These are the only ones I can think of that had inline water-cooled engines, both originally having the same engine. The photo in your previous reply only serves to remind me of the basic differences between the two types.

PS. It didn't strike me until recently how similar the air intake on the F-16 is to the Mustang air scoop. This might explain its remarkable performance.