Let's say Drgondog and I have heard different stories from people invlolved ... unless he is using reference material and not direct communication to make his post. I don't know and decline to ask. Either one of us or neither could be correct, it depends on who you speak with and what their recollections are ... and the real facts .. which are probably lost to time or are hideen away in files buried somewhere that are unavialble to the causal information searcher.
When Al White and Jim Brooks were at North American Aviation I did meet Horkey but we talked only about the evolution of the P-51 not the 'box of data'. Having said that, reference and cross reference documentation as well as documented dialogue and debate are usually better references than 90 year old memories of persons not part of the inner workings of Curtiss or North American Aviation. Neither White nor Brooks ca 1960-61 had any part of the design but Horkey was the driver behind the lines and the lower cowl design and the NAA Laminar flow wing.
I KNOW what history records (no evidence of collusion with the XP-40Q plans), but that doesn't make it either true or false, just what has been accepted.
What makes it 'false' is that the P-40Q was a P-40K-C10, yanked off the production line Dec 43/Jan 43...in other words, absent "Back to the Future" time travel the assumption of a connection is foolish on the face of the facts.
The world was also accepted as flat right up until it wasn't. Most criminals deny they did the crime right up until and sometimes even after they are convicted. NAA would never admit if they DID use the Curtiss Data including the XP-40Q initial plans, and Curtiss hasn't "sued" over it, but that doesn't weigh in with me at all either way.
It is pretty simple Greg. NAA payed $50,000 for access to the XP-40 data that Curtiss provided. The notion of the use of the XP-40Q data before there was XP-46 completion of mock up is a novel claim. Did you at any time know enough of the timeline to question your source? Have you a source from the Curtiss design team that thinks there is any connection?
Personally I don't care, but I do WONDER after hearing what we heard.
I suspect We think you were snowed... and having not cross referenced the timelines You believed what you were told.
Back in 1940, the ability to feret out the truth may well have been much harder than it is today, given the lack of a world wide web that can record everything and electronic copies of communications, etc. ... maybe not. Either way, I still wonder and have simply stated that plus what was said in paraphrase. Nodoby else need consider it, believe it, or think it has merit. It wasn't my own concoction to start with and I probably should not have even mentioned what was said. Certainly, if the proof is there and still exists, somebody would have to believe it, and then take the trouble to dig it up and publish it.
Now that you have access to the internet, the books published by authors 'who were there' and part of the design teams, what is your timeline for the Preliminary design of the XP-40Q? And perhaps you can trace the completion of the XP-46 Mock up in March 1944 with lines and profiles of the NA-73 started in late March before NAA contacted Curtiss to purchase XP-40 wind tunnel data? Then perhaps cite the design milestones for lower cowl/radiator design for NA-73 during late March through April 11, 1940 when Kindlebeger completed his presentation of Schmued's 3-view?
Greg - Aprill 11, 1940 is three years before work was fully in progress on the XP-40Q. As to the XP-46 which design features do you believe were 'stolen' by NAA before NAA received the Purchased XP-40 data three to four weeks after the completion of the NA-73 drawings were presented to Lord Self, discussed and contract executed on April 11?
With the posts above, even fans of the time are not inclined to pursue it, much less someone who is NOT a fan. Neither am I at this time.
Doubting posts are not an opinion changer and people who don't consider alernatives are usually "mind made up" and cannot be swayed either way, even in the face of facts, which I don't pretend to have established ... I just passed on what I heard.
Neither am I a follower who blindly accepts the published version of "facts." Indistrial intrigue in the face of huge wartime profits was a fact, not heresay. Whether or not this subject was a part of that is in some doubt ... by me at least. No conviction is likey at this extended time past the deeds or lack thereof.
Not being a follower is healthy - especially when you have a series of facts that are contrary to the 'leader's story'.
So, let's get back to the XP40Q (thread subject) and let this one drop. Argument about it is fraught with peorsonal opinion
Greg - so far you haven't presented what you believe to be facts and pointed to the source(s) that you believe provide substantive facts. If you have something worth presenting that proves that a.) XP-46 wind tunnel tests were completed, and presented to NAA for $50,000 or b.) stolen by NAA, or c.) that the XP-40Q preliminary design was completed prior to March 1940 - trot 'em out. As the three XP-40Q's were P-40K and P-40N and the earliest of the three came off the assembly line in December 1942 - it would seem that work on the XP-40Q started about two years after NAA purchased XP-40 data on or about April 30-May, 5 1940? Ditto the Allison 1710-121..
From what I have read, the XP-40Q seems to have been a good fighter with characteristics that made it good ... but it fell slightly short in top speed to the P-51 (422 vs. 437 mph). Why that small difference would be important is beyond me since neither was likely to attain max speed except in a slight dive anyway.
15mph is huge - airframe to airframe. And 437mph for all the P-51D's with 1650-7's were with full combat load - w/o external tanks.
So I ask myself if the XP-40Q, in 1943, would be an asset at the time it was developed..
Since it didn't start as a prototype until mid 1943, it was hardly developed to fly by late 1943 and projected less performance that the P-51B-1 rolling off the assembly lines when the XP-40Q/P-40K airframe was pulled from the production line.
The answer is yes, if the logistics chain could be justified. Since we were able to produce enough P-51's to meet war needs in the actual event, the obvious answer is that another long, complicated logistics chain with mechanics, spare parts, etc. was probably not justified once the P-51 logistics chain was in operation. It would have been cheaper and more efficient to expand the P-51 chain than to establish a new one to support planes that could be supported by the P-51 production line instead.
Logically then, what happened was probably the better choice, even if the XP-40Q could have been a good addition, which I believe it could have been in other circumstances. Since I am a fan of obscure types, the XP-40Q simply falls in there with other potentially good or great planes that came at just the wrong time or just at the time when circumstances dictated another choice, through no fault of the particular prototype under consideration.
So, though I lament the choice to not build the P-40Q, it was probably the right choice at the time. Curtiss did not long survive in the airframe game after the P-40 anyway, and the P-40Q might simply have prolonged the agony a bit longer.
Long live the P-51 and I wish an XP-40Q survived for at least museum flights.