What if? The Americans succeed with these projects in the 1930s.

[miletus12]

Here are some potential counterfactuals.



Instead of this (^^^); 

Suppose the Americans had paid more attention in 1939 to 1949 and managed to make the program below, work?

 

The British tank Cruiser Mark III would have been a close copy of what the M1932 Christie would have resembled as a gun tank if pursued to completion. .



 

[miletus12]

Four programs that faltered.

[miletus12]

Now the question is... what were they thinking? That is a variant of the British unrotated projectile weapon.

[miletus12]

Another missed opportunity?

Probably one of the most obscure yet fascinating episodes in the history of jet engine development stemmed from Lockheed's innovative jet-powered L-133 fighter design that was submitted to the USAAF in March 1942. While the fighter design boasted advanced features like a canard and a blended wing-body, the Army Air Forces were more interested in the proposed engines of the L-133 which were to be two axial-flow jet engines designed by Lockheed itself designated L-1000. The engine had a multi-stage turbine to increase compression which translated into a greater thrust output. At a meeting at Wright Field in Dayton (where the USAAF's Power Plant Laboratory was located) in August 1942, military researchers and Lockheed engineers reviewed the L-1000's design- it was only 24 inches in diameter, 139 inches long, and weighed 1,235 lbs. Lockheed estimated that at full takeoff thrust, the L-1000 could develop 6,700 lbs of thrust. Despite the reservations of the Power Plant Laboratory, they felt there were enough features in Lockheed's jet engine that had potential that made it worth funding further development.

Read rest of the article at the link above.

The summary of the difficulties Monesco encountered were twofold.

a. The British would not release the Inconel process forcing American duplication of it. That took a half decade. (1950)
b. HAP Arnold did not trust Lockheed after the problematic P-38 program. Besides he was a bomber baron and did not see the "repeat" of a jet powered P-38 as necessary.

See below the planform for the Lockheed L133.



It would not have worked.

The P-80 Shooting Star did.

[575]

At least they got the looks right! Beats Luft'46

[miletus12]

Curtiss Ascender. It did not earn its name "Ass-ender" because of its configuration. It had appalling flight characteristics.

[lordroel]

Jan 1, 2022 18:30:04 GMT miletus12 said:

Curtiss Ascender. It did not earn its name "Ass-ender" because of its configuration. It had appalling flight characteristics.

Seems the person who design the plane toughed, how crazy can we make it.

[miletus12]

Jan 1, 2022 18:34:41 GMT lordroel said:

Jan 1, 2022 18:30:04 GMT miletus12 said:

Curtiss Ascender. It did not earn its name "Ass-ender" because of its configuration. It had appalling flight characteristics.

Seems the person who design the plane toughed, how crazy can we make it.

The pusher screw configuration was not unknown and it could be successful.

The SAAB J21. 

 

LIke the XP55, it had a long takeoff run and a ragged roll rate and some strange spin characteristics, but it was accepted into service and served as the basis for the jet version around 1949.

Meanwhile, at the same time, Curtiss produced this debacle.



The SB2C was promptly dubbed "Son of a 'beach'; second class". It's chief operating characteristics, besides flat spins and shaking itself to bits, was tearing its tail off, engines exploding in flight and killing aircrews in pancake landings. The plane could not even release bombs safely. This was Curtiss at its finest. They still made 7,000 of these flying death traps.         

[lordroel]

Jan 1, 2022 19:08:00 GMT miletus12 said:

Jan 1, 2022 18:34:41 GMT lordroel said:

Seems the person who design the plane toughed, how crazy can we make it.

The pusher screw configuration was not unknown and it could be successful.

The SAAB J21. 

 

LIke the XP55, it had a long takeoff run and a ragged roll rate and some strange spin characteristics, but it was accepted into service and served as the basis for the jet version around 1949.

Can we add the Fokker D.XXIII to the list, a plane that seems to have a needed a ejector seat:

[miletus12]

Jan 1, 2022 19:10:20 GMT lordroel said:

Jan 1, 2022 19:08:00 GMT miletus12 said:

The pusher screw configuration was not unknown and it could be successful.

The SAAB J21. 

 

LIke the XP55, it had a long takeoff run and a ragged roll rate and some strange spin characteristics, but it was accepted into service and served as the basis for the jet version around 1949.

Can we add the Fokker D.XXIII to the list, a plane that seems to have a needed a ejector seat:

Sure. In an ATL Fokker could have produced this bird along with the G.1 using his American Atlantic Aircraft Company as a manufacturer. Just make sure it is a Pratt R1340 instead of the underpowered Bristol Taurus or Walter Sagitta series of engines in the planes. They could replace the awful Brewster Buffaloes.  

[lordroel]

Dec 31, 2021 17:51:07 GMT @miletus12 said:

See below the planform for the Lockheed L133.



It would not have worked.

The P-80 Shooting Star did.

Would be named after a fish looking at there:

[miletus12]

Jan 1, 2022 20:02:54 GMT lordroel said:

Dec 31, 2021 17:51:07 GMT @miletus12 said:

See below the planform for the Lockheed L133.



It would not have worked.

The P-80 Shooting Star did.

Would be named after a fish looking at there:

You must be a Babylon Five Fan.  If a Sharlin was an Angelfish, what does the shape suggest to you for a name?  

[miletus12]

Let us put the XP-71 Ray aside and look at this problem.



The Browning automatic rifle had and has a decent gas piston operating cyclic. It is heavy so that a soldier can spray a WWI trench with accurate bullet hose fire with a full power military cartridge. What it was not, was a weapon designed to be a portable machine gun.

stmuscholars.org/gatling-gun-parker-and-the-battle-of-san-juan-hill/

The American army learned some bitter lessons from Kettle Hill.



Stephen Benet was an American naval officer and engineer. He developed that machine gun to specification.

The idea was fire and movement as the Japanese developed in the Russo-Japanese War.

It did not work too well and then the Americans learned the wrong lessons in WWI (Pershing and his "cult of the rifle" was a huge mistake.)

Then this was attempted;



Basically, it is a 1940 version of a Browning automatic rifle turned upside down and made to operate an indexer and pawl feed. It is a general-purpose light machine gun with a quick-change barrel.

The American army rejected it, because it could not be made out of stamped sheet metal. It had to be forged and cast and it required many milling steps. It was expensive.

So what happened? The American infantryman had no portable machine gun that was a one man carry. He did not have the shoot move tools the British and the Germans and the Poles and the Swedes and the French and Czechs and the JAPANESE did. So... he carried this:



It weighed more than 40 pounds (18 kgs) and had no quick change barrel, nor was it truly "portable".

NIH and false economies.



Easy to convert the Colt made BARS. Why was it not done? Politics.

[miletus12]

Why did plane that not work?


a. Unstable in yaw and pitch.
b. Loss of roll control.
c. Engine too heavy and overheated easily.
d. It vibrated.

While it did not kill pilots and it was a test prototype for jack Northrop's flying wings, it simply could not be made to work, because the designer (Northrop) had not understood flapperons or nose control before he built the silly thing. Four years of testing and ten million dollars went down the chute before jet engined aircraft made the Black Bullet a waste of time. Unfortunately, the pusher configuration of jets showed the same aerodynamic air pressure loading problems of the Black Bullet. it sure would have helped if NACA or Northrop had shared their data with Lockheed. The P-80 might have been solved a year earlier in time to fight the Me 262.

[miletus12]

1. Look at the plethora of projects, especially the failed projects of Curtiss aircraft.
2. The XP-77 was the American version of most every nation's cheap lightweight emergency fighter program, similar to the Miles M.20 and Caudron C.214, if somewhat more successful.
3. The XA-41 would have been fine in 1940. By 1944 it was notably too late, too underpowered and too expensive, haveing been a wastage of time and money.
4. Many of the Curtiss derivatives were reworks of the P-40 airframe with wing tweaks, prop mods and various engine schemes. The net result was too little time aloft, poor climb performance and inferior corner turn to the P-40.
5 The XP-75 was a GM attempt to con the USG into a cash-flow solution to its mid-war cash flow crisis. The proposed mating of different aircraft sections to produce a long-range escort fighter / high altitude interceptor did produce an airplane so no criminality could be claimed; but it was too late and came with APPALLING spin characteristics. Sure, looked good, though, like the clunky post-war GM cars.
6. The XP-72 was too late. Jets were on the scene.
7. XF14C was Curtiss attempt to compete with Grumman's F6F. Guess who won that contest? Guess why? Hint: the Curtiss plane climbed like an arthritic dog, and it could be
outmaneuvered by a Brewster Buffalo.
8. XBTC-1 lost out to the Douglas Skyraider.  Also: it had the usual Curtiss shortcomings of being underpowered, a slow climber and assembled to a very low-quality standard.  
9. The XBTK shook itself to pieces and was a pilot killer.
10. The XB-42 came too late and was rendered useless by jet bombers.
11. The Ass-ender has been covered.
12. Ditto the Black Bullet.
13. The Northrop flying wings were yaw unstable. The Flying Ram was just an ignorant concept. 
14. The Flying Pancake was an engineering disaster that vibrated like an out of balanced load washing machine. The plane was a pilot killer.
15. The Flying Flapjack was worse in vibration. Sure; looked pretty. If only the PTOs would not snap in two? This plane had potential.  Too late. Jets again.
16. The Bell L-39 was trouble plagued as was to be expected from a swept wing piston engined screw propeller aircraft. 
17. XP-81 was a combined piston and turbo-jet aircraft. Pure jets did it in.
18. XF4R Fireball. Underpowered, poor climb and it caught fire.
19. The XSB3U-1 was unsafe and too slow. 
20. XSBD2-1 was done in by the Skyraider.
21. A-17A Successful if obsolete and introduced into secondary service as a trainer - tactical bomber.
22. Northrop BT-1. Same as the A-17. It leads directly to the SBD DAUNTLESS which evolved from it.  
23. XA -19 / V-11. Export success. Pilot killer and clay pigeon. Refer to Fairey Battle for why.
24. SNC-1. Trainer plane exported as a light bomber. See 23.
25. XF5F and XP-50. John Tower screwed this program up and delayed it to the point where it evolved into the F7F Tigercat.
26. XP-49 was no better than the P-38J. Hyper-engine Continental XI-1430s failed.
27. XP-54. Refer to Ass-ender. Also, nose-dived for no apparent reason. 
28. XP-58 Chain Lightning made no sense at all. Hyper-engine program killed it.
29. P-73 actually the XF/R-11, too late. Jets again. Nearly killed Howard Hughes in a test flight.    
30. XP-67 Moonbat. Overweight, underpowered. It could have been a winner in 1942. Hyper-engines failures and jets did it in. It caught fire. End of it.    
31. Y1A. Another failure by Curtiss. Too slow with too small a payload. 
32. XC-35 Lockheed Electra with a pressurized cabin. A success.
33. XA-22. This is the Martin Maryland. Highly successful.; 
34. XB-28. This SHOULD have been put into production for the Pacific War if nothing else as a recon bird.   
35. XFM-1 Airacuda. Another exercise in idiocy. Too slow and expensive. Plus: its engines caught fire.
36. XA-21 and XA-21A. Too slow, maneuvered like a pig in molasses and its bombload was too small. 
37. XB-15. Too heavy, too large and underpowered. 
38. XB-19. See XB-15.
39. XF-12. Recon and post attack battle damage assessment bird. Too slow. Too late. Jets did it in.
40. YO-51. American version of the Storch. Like the Storch it had a defect where the wing tore off when it exceeded 250 knots in a dive. Unacceptable.
41. XPBB Sea Ranger. Made irrelevant by the PB4Y, known also as the B-24 Liberator / Privateer.
42. XPBS-1. See 41. In addition: it as a VIP) transport developed a slight leak after hitting an underwater obstacle and almost drowned Admiral Nimitz when it sank with him aboard. Not too good. 
43. Bell YP-59. One word description... fiasco. Whatever could go wrong, did with this first American jet aircraft.  
44. Bell XP-83. Unstable, underpowered and a pilot killer. Had to land flat or it would nose in and crash.
45. XF6U. This turkey actually entered service as the F6U. Underpowered and unstable, it was equipped with an ejector seat which was thoroughly tested as pilots had to eject early and often.  Its nickname was "Groundhog".