Shortround6
Major General
I believe that Robert J Woods, Bell's chief designer, started working on what would become the Airacuda in 1934 while working for Consolidated. He was the Chief designer for the turbo charged P-30.
De-Suckifying the YFM-1: Building an American Heavy-Fighter
- Thread starter Zipper730
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Shortround6
Major General
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- #43
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- #44
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- #45
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- #46
I'm not sure why but fiddling with the graphics seem to be getting me nowhere fast, so I decided to draw a little. I'm not the best artist in the world, but I did better than I'd have expected.
The files are in zip format to avoid the ire of the moderators over size concerns, though only one file is rather large.
The files are in zip format to avoid the ire of the moderators over size concerns, though only one file is rather large.
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- Thread starter
- #47
I'll post the final image in the series here...
Note the aircraft is smaller than before, has either 1-2 crew, and no gunner of any kind -- the strengthening I figure would be more like a Beaufighter.
fubar57
FLYBOYJ
nuuumannn
P-39 Expert
S
Shortround6
swampyankee
X
XBe02Drvr
W
wuzak
Note the aircraft is smaller than before, has either 1-2 crew, and no gunner of any kind -- the strengthening I figure would be more like a Beaufighter.
fubar57
FLYBOYJ
nuuumannn
P-39 Expert
S
Shortround6
swampyankee
X
XBe02Drvr
W
wuzak
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Looks like you've arrived at something between a Lightning, a Mosquito and a BF110. If this is truly a mid 30s design, where are you going to find the horsepower to make it competitive?I'll post the final image in the series here...
Note the aircraft is smaller than before, has either 1-2 crew, and no gunner of any kind -- the strengthening I figure would be more like a Beaufighter.
View attachment 562558
Cheers,
Wes
fubar57
General
Interesting............
Interesting!
wuzak
Captain
I believe that was one of the configurations considered for the P-38.
Shortround6
Major General
Zipper, you do realize that the Airacuda had wing bigger in span and larger in area than the short wing on the Martin B-26 bomber?
By the time you get rid of three crewman and the flexible 37mm cannon the use tractor propellers the only thing left is a reduced size tail?
Desuckifying the Airacuda means throwing the whole thing out and starting over.
By the time you get rid of three crewman and the flexible 37mm cannon the use tractor propellers the only thing left is a reduced size tail?
Desuckifying the Airacuda means throwing the whole thing out and starting over.
Lifted straight from Lockheed P-38 Lightning by Jeff Ethell and Rikyu Watanabe (Wing and Anchor Press, 1983), no less.
Might as well try to desuckify an Electrolux.
wuzak
Captain
- Thread starter
- #59
The YFM-1 used turbocharged V-1710's. The engine was fine, the aircraft sucked, but not the engine.
Yeah, the idea was to remove the gunners, reducing the crew complement to either 1-2. I'm personally, more a proponent of a single-seater, however.
Turbocharged V-1710's for power-plant because of the desire to take out bombers (getting on top is a big part of it), and escort them (also requires being able to fly at the same altitude as them or higher).
I'm not sure about wing-area because I'm not sure about weight figures, but I figure the Me-110 would be a good starting point.
The inspiration came from several things...
Firstly, the basic YFM-1 fuselage shape which had a nice tear-drop shape.
Secondly, the first design depicted for the conceptualizations that would lead to the P-38 (Reply 43)
Thirdly, the canopy shown in this drawing of the YFM-1
Ignoring the gunner pods, look at how the canopy seems slightly raised up above the fuselage...
Actually, I didn't. That said, I have looked at the statistical figures, and you're right.
Well, the biggest problem with the YFM-1 were the USAAC specs, which called for an aircraft that could accomplish the following rolls
- Patrol Interceptor / Cannon Fighter
- While many saw the key to intercepting bombers as being greater speed & climb, a smaller number saw standing patrols and massive firepower as the key: Personally, I see both as being qualities that go well together. The Spitfire and Hurricane were both built around this idea, as would the later Typhoon.
- While standing patrols are not useless, but the design should have sufficient maneuvering performance to match it to other fighters, which this design did not have: From what I was told, the aircraft's normal load factor was around 3.4-3.5g. That's nowhere near enough to hang with fighter planes.
- The desire to drop-bombs on enemy bombers, while proposed by the USN (that said, they were planning on using 5.2 pound bombs instead of 15-20 pound bombs), and carried out by the Luftwaffe in WWII (I'm not sure what the success-rate was), the USN was smart enough to remove the feature from the F4U by the time the plane appeared to enter service.
- The requirement for pivoting barrels seemed to be part of the design so as to improve aiming from rear-quarter attacks (I'm not sure if the 37mm was a requirement, as the 23mm Madsen was proposed too): I figure that, if the plane is agile enough, with good guns, you should not require this.
- The 37mm M4 was all-American and based on an existing calibur: That said, it was shorter in length, lower in mass, had a smaller explosive charge, and had a smaller casing to propel it up to speed. That said, while not ideal against tanks, it was effective against bombers, but it's refire and muzzle-velocity were far too low and pilots described it as throwing a grapefruit.
- Bomber Escort
- The problem wasn't so much that they wanted range, but that they wanted aircraft with a rear-gunner, range on internal fuel only, and speed comparable to fighters without rear-gunners (the YP-24 actually was one of the fastest US fighters, but it didn't enter service; when it finally did, several years went by, and it was dated). The idea seemed to revolve around a fighter that can be a gunship to protect the bombers, and provide that doesn't work, go out and hunt them down in the traditional style. Really, you just want a fighter that can fly really far.
- When designs like the P-16 & YP-30 proved inadequate (the gunner was useless in both cases), they decided to pursue a twin-engined design that was either a modified B-10, or a dedicated flying-gunship (YFM-1): They had attempted to pursue this idea all the way through WWII (YB-40), without success. Claire Chennault had pointed out the absurdity of trying to produce a plane the size of a bomber with a whole lot of firepower that is expected to be faster than a bomber -- unfortunately, he wasn't really listened to (part of me wonders if this is what got him bounced out of the service).
- The idea of fighters with multiple crew, rear-gunners, and flying gunships weren't unique to the US: The RAF had looked into such an idea during WWII, the Germans had the Me-110 (and the Hs.124 which never entered service, but far as I know, it flew).
- Fighter Bomber
- That seemed to be the reason for having 30 x 15-20 pound bombs. That was the same layout that they wanted in attack-bombers too.
Ultimately, you end up with an aircraft with two crew-members tops (pilot, fire-control operator).
Interestingly, from a pure intellectual standpoint, it's interesting to contemplate how this would have affected the development of other aircraft, such as the Lockheed Super Electra, Loadstar, Ventura, and the P-61 Black Widow. After all the YFM-2 was based on the Loadstar (possibly the Super Electra), and the P-61 was inspired by a three-seat turret-fighter called the Shrike (at least, I think it was a fighter).
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vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
If you remove all that, you end up with basically the Heavy Fighter version of the B-10 (version without the retractable turret) which they Air Corps did not want, hence the YFM-1 selection.
