P-40 with laminar flow wing?

spicmart · Sep 15, 2021

Would it have been feasible for Curtiss to give the P-40 a laminar flow wing and lessen the performance gap to the P-51 which still had the more efficient cooling system.

wuzak · Sep 15, 2021

That'd be the XP-53/XP-60.

drgondog · Sep 16, 2021

spicmart said:
Would it have been feasible for Curtiss to give the P-40 a laminar flow wing and lessen the performance gap to the P-51 which still had the more efficient cooling system.

P-40Q, reasonably better than the K it was modified from

Wildcat · Sep 16, 2021

Been done!
A29-53 | Curtiss Kittyhawk 1A | Australia - Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) | Wal Nelowkin | JetPhotos

pbehn · Sep 16, 2021

The only way to get P-51 performance from a P-40 is to tell Curtiss to build P-51s as soon as the drawings were made, but that would knock a huge hole in production and mean you had few P-40s when they were most useful.

tomo pauk · Sep 19, 2021

drgondog said:
P-40Q, reasonably better than the K it was modified from

Bill - the wings on the (X)P-40Q were still the same as on the other P-40s.

drgondog · Sep 19, 2021

tomo pauk said:
Bill - the wings on the (X)P-40Q were still the same as on the other P-40s.

Agreed Tomo - I should have clarified that the improvements did Not include XP-60 Low Drag wing

Tom Fey · Sep 20, 2021

Curtiss XP-40Q Fighter

The XP-40Q was a final attempt by Curtiss to extend the life of its P-40 fighter design. While it was a good aircraft, the XP-40Q was on par or outclassed by other fighters already in production.

oldmachinepress.com

thunderbird · Sep 20, 2021

The key to the P-51 was not its "laminar flow" wing, but in the attention to detail and manufacturing "cleanliness". NA was able to manufacture an airplane with better skin waviness and smaller panel to panel mismatches and gaps. Curtiss and Bell aircraft often look like someone put them together with a big hammer.

Part of that was tooling. I know one company that was still tooling the forward fuselage to an inner mold surface into the 21st century. Added stringers, frames, clips and then external skin, and all the additive tolerances. No one should be surprised how ragged that ended up looking.

drgondog · Sep 22, 2021

thunderbird said:
The key to the P-51 was not its "laminar flow" wing, but in the attention to detail and manufacturing "cleanliness". NA was able to manufacture an airplane with better skin waviness and smaller panel to panel mismatches and gaps. Curtiss and Bell aircraft often look like someone put them together with a big hammer.

Part of that was tooling. I know one company that was still tooling the forward fuselage to an inner mold surface into the 21st century. Added stringers, frames, clips and then external skin, and all the additive tolerances. No one should be surprised how ragged that ended up looking.

Manufacturing process and quality was One of the 'keys'. NAA Proposed and delivered to Dr. Milliken's multi-point recommendations for High Speed Pursuit (Cal-Tech), published in 1938. Flush rivets, priming/filling/sanding and painting wing from LE to 50% chord top and bottom of wing, development of airframe master lines with second order curves via development of Projective Geometry at NAA by Liming and Weebe, placing the imbedded radiator/oil cooler aft of wing center of pressure, design and improving design for Meredith effect cooling scheme, design for and improvement of exhaust stack to improve exhaust gas thrust - Plus the Low Drag Wing.

peperez · Sep 25, 2021

The P-40's wing profile was the same used in Dauntless. It generates a lot of drag. P-51 has another interesting feature: the radiator generates thrust.

Cheers

Pepe

P-40 with laminar flow wing?

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