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Interesting indeed! 
De-Suckifying the YFM-1: Building an American Heavy-Fighter
- Thread starter Zipper730
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Shortround6
Major General
Where do you get this stuff?
Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra first flight July 29, 1937
YFM-2 first flight September 1st 1937
One month is not enough to turn a 14 passenger Airliner into the YFM-2, It would also have been incredibly dumb to lose the fowler flaps the Model 14 used.
Lockheed 18 Loadstar which was a stretched fuselage model 14 with extra row/s of seats. It came after the Model 14. They used the same wing.
Aside from twin engines and being roughly the same size what did the Lockheed 14 and the YFM-2 have in common.
As I mentioned before, the YFM-2 was LARGE Airplane.
And somewhere around half the horsepower. For a fighter ?? When I look at photos and drawings of this aerial Electrolux, all I see is LARD. Only 2000 horsepower to lug this brontosaurus around and you want to call it a FIGHTER? Given the performance targets you want it to meet, you'll have to pare down its weight, frontal area, and wing til you have a P38 clone. Given that design exercises to meet similar goals, under similar technogical limitations, tend to arrive at similar solutions, do you really think the depression-ridden defense budgets of the mid 30s could afford another high performance twin engine fighter? How many 'Cudas did they buy?
Cheers,
Wes
The "bomber boys" ran the Air Corps in the late 30s, and, mesmerized by the vision of sleek, powerful, heavy bombers too fast and too high for a pursuit to catch, begrudged the allocation of any fighter resources beyond the bread-and-butter mission of troop support. Chennault was guilty of heresy in pointing out the emperor's costume deficit, and of continuing to spread the gospel in defiance of the chain of command. Billy Mitchell 2.0.
Cheers,
Wes
wuzak
Captain
Speak of the devil, and who should appear?
- Thread starter
- #69
I'm not sure what the specs of the fighter-version of the B-10 were, but
- The traditional B-10 had a typical crew of 3
- The traditional B-10 had a top-speed of around 200-215 mph
- The traditional B-10 did not appear to have a massive maximum g-load: Most bombers were built to around 3.0-3.5g normal load
- The "De-Suckified YFM-1" which I'll just call the "American Heavy Fighter" would have a crew of 1-2
- The American Heavy Fighter would have a top-speed of around 315 mph at the lower end, and probably more like 335-350 on the upper-end based on the available power and critical altitude.
- The American Heavy Fighter would have an ultimate g-load of 8-11g ultimate (5.33-7.33 normal load-factor).
Yet they did periodically propose escort planes. They did, at first, propose single-engined designs, as was the norm; then switched to flying bomber-defense gunships. The turret-idea was simply an unnecessary concept -- even the P-61 flew without turrets a lot.
That is actually, entirely correct.
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- Thread starter
- #71
It'd probably be better than the P-70 as it would have had overall superior agility. I think that the P-61 was ultimately the better choice.
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- Thread starter
- #72
It actually came from you (reply #32, this thread): You mentioned the YFM-2 which appeared to be based on the Super Electra design -- probably a parallel development.
As for the idea of twin-seat fighters and stuff appeared to have originated from developments in World War I, such as the Vickers Gunbus, and the Bristol F.2B, as well as influences from the French. I'm not sure the exact decision making process, but apparently, we were heavily inspired by the French, in regard to twin-seat fighters.
This quote comes from Chapter 1 of Warren M. Bodie's book "The Lockheed P-38 Lightning", there's a mention of the U.S. being heavily inspired by the French, in regard to twin-seat fighters.
The first half of this came from Pages 2-3, IIRC, and the latter half of this quote came from Page 10.
I'm not sure how many influences the Germans had from the French, but I do remember reading about the Germans developing a design called the Hs.124.
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Or, if you swap the 37s for 30s and sweep the wings a little, a REAL jet fighter: ME262.
Cheers,
Wes
vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
Work on it started in early 1933 with 2 additional .30 caliber machine guns added, one on each side and 1-2 added firing forward controlled by the pilot. 10 x 15lb bombs could also be carried as it would also perform recon and night time missions. It would retain the crew of 3-4 and speed was expected to hit 250 mpg being powered by 2 x R-1820-19 Cyclones rated at 675 hp. G-load would have been increased, however to what extent was not determined.
- Thread starter
- #76
So, the plane would have 1-2 forward firing guns which the pilot would shoot; the nose-turret, the rear gunner, and 2 x waist guns?
Asking for too much...
If the horsepower was bumped up to 1200 like on the B-17 you could have seen 302 mph out of it, ironically (at least, applying the cube rule).
It seems an overkill way to achieve a much simpler result.
Did the fire-control system of the day require two crew?
- Thread starter
- #77
Another idea I was thinking of was an earlier XB-42 like design. This would be smaller, but the shape wouldn't be much different from what I drew a little bit earlier, with the following changes.
- Remove the engine nacelles
- Reposition the vertical stabilizer
- Add a ventral fin to allow the prop to clear the ground
- Incorporate a nose-gear from the outset
- Put the two V-1710's in the fuselage and put the two props in a coaxial configuration
- Add some extra fuel in the span that the nacelles previously occupied.
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- Thread starter
- #78
That's actually pretty interesting: Though it makes sense. The P-30 was a twin-man fighter with a rear-gunner. I guess he figured more power was the key.
I wonder what the initial concept looked like in 1934. The USAAC didn't seem to have much interest in such a plane until 1935 from what I recall (I'm not sure if it was the modified B-10
I take it Chennault was a very blunt person. I'm not sure if he had much skill at manipulating the system. From what Warren Bodie wrote in his book about the P-38, the B-10 Fighter/YFM-1 is what got him bounced out of the USAAC -- That said, maybe it's a good thing: Him getting bounced from the USAAC let him lead the AVG where he was able to develop fighter tactics.
- Thread starter
- #79
The gyroscopic sighting system that was proposed for the aircraft: Why did it require two people? Could it have been reworked to be used by one person? While this might sound like a stupid question, if a plane was designed as a twin-seater: Could it be repurposed into a single-seater later on?
Graeme
S
Shortround6
vikingBerserker
X
XBe02Drvr
Graeme
S
Shortround6
vikingBerserker
X
XBe02Drvr
I think you've misrepresented Shorty's post somewhat and nowhere does it say the Airacuda was based on the Lockheed Super Electra. What it says is that the Lockheed entry to the specification was based on its own work, but that it lost to the Airacuda. However, design aspects for the Airacuda came from Robert J Woods who worked for both Lockheed and Consolidated, but the designers did not base their aircraft on the Lockheed one.
