RAF P-40 found in desert

[urr-lord]

I once read the P-40 was the best "second choice"craft.Pilots wanted Spitfires or Mustangs etc. But there were not enough to go around,so many got assigned to the P-40 and came to respect and appreciate them.They were rugged , well armored and capable within its limitations.

There is also a story that Curtiss had a plane design that they could not produce due to running their factories at full capacity w/P-40's.They produced blueprints when the Brits came around looking for war production,received a sizable payment for them.The design was taken to North American who produced it as the Apache attack aircraft w/mid-low altitude fighter capability(much like the P-40).A test pilot later recommended an engine change which resulted in the famed Mustang.

I too wish the pilots remains are found and given a proper burial.

 

[The Kiwi]

North American was producing the T-6 Texan Advanced trainers by the trainload (and SNJs for the Navy, Harvards for Canada), but was only known for trainers. I don't think that the USAC (forerunner to USAF) ever asked them for any bids for fighters (although they were well along in getting their B-25 in production). Curtiss had a great deal of production capacity, but with Americans, Australians, Brits, Canadians, New Zealanders, and South Africans all wanting some P-40s, the Brits hoped to get more from alternate factories.

An RAF procurement team obtained complete sets of machine tool specs, raw material lists, etc as well as blueprints for the P-40C, and took those to North American. It was at that point that North American's designers balked. Why produce more of the same "second best" fighter? They promised to show the commissioners from Britain plans for a vastly superior design in some really short time, and had roughed out ideas already on hand to convince the Brits to wait. I'm sure it was less than six weeks before the blueprints were ready, and less than six months before the first Mustang was flying ("Apache" was the USAC name for a ground attack version of the plane, that had the model number A-36).

The Mustang I had the same single-stage supercharged Allison V-12 that the majority of P-40s used, so limited thereby to lower altitudes. But it outperformed anything and everything around in 1942, just not flying high enough. Packard Motors already had a contract for Merlin V-12s, with the two-stage supercharger those used, so the shortage of Merlins was about to end. Some wise engineers in Britain obtained several Spitfire engines, and replaced the Mustang engine with it. The results were better than anyone could have dreamed of. It was the very best USAC fighter of the war, perhaps the best of the war (Grumman and Chance-Vought might have wanted to argue the point regarding their F8F and F4U, respectively).

 

[urr-lord]

I always gave that story about 20% chance of being correct.The main evidence of that story was a set of blueprints for an experimental design by Curtiss.IIRC it looked to me like a hawk series upgrade,longer wings perhaps w/clipped ends.It has been years since I saw that show on one of the history channels.

I had also heard the story you related Kiwi ,which I gave 70% chance of being correct.

With a 10% chance of there being some mix of the two or some other flow of events.lol

 

[The Kiwi]

At the time that the P-51 was designed, Curtiss had already gotten a contract for prototypes of a smaller plane than their P-40, intended to be faster, and Allison was supposed to copy the Rolls Royce Merlin supercharger to modify and use with their own V-12. General Motors, the producer of the Allison, had an extreme shortage of experienced aviation engineers, and never delivered on the high altitude engine before the end of WW2 (the very interesting F-82 Twin Mustang had twin Allisons with the two-stage supercharger).

The P-46 was only incrementally superior to the P-40, and only two prototypes (I think) were accepted. The best that Curtiss came up with was the P-60, with a Pratt and Whitney R-2800, turbocharged, similar to the P-47, and that one is the one they weren't allowed to build because it would have meant shutting down the P-40 production line, and the P-60 wasn't really needed as much as more P-40s were.

On that very last point I may be a little off. I'm going on a recollection of the writeup that Green included in his book about United States Fighters in WW2, which included prototyped designs.

Here's one XP-46 link: http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=421

Another: http://www.aviastar.org/air/usa/curtiss_p-46.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_P-60