Very strange-looking aircraft ...

[Darth Wong]

[Knife]

While massively impractable, I have always liked this one. The plastic emergency aircraft made in the 50's or 60's is the really weird one.

[BoredShirtless]

What's so strange about it?

[Darth Wong]

You don't see what's strange about that thing?

Anyway, I suppose I should point out for the benefit of curious onlookers that it's a Lockheed XFV-1. Its test pilots commented that the plane was pretty good at flying, but it was extremely difficult to land.

Best quote came from Kelly Johnson, who wrote the Navy to say: "We think it is inadvisable to land the airplane".

The project was actually cancelled at the request of the contractors, because they did not want to be involved with a project that was so clearly misguided and doomed to failure.

[Knife]

IIRC, they put in a bunch of mirrors so the pilot could attempt to see durring landing. Anyway, it was canceled as you said.

[BoredShirtless]

Oh ok. The fins at the back make it a bitch to land.

[BoredShirtless]

Ah and the propellers. Anybody know why the radical design?

[Montcalm]

Ah and the propellers. Anybody know why the radical design?

Probably to prevent the plane from spinning while taking off.

[Sea Skimmer]

I've seen worse in the form of the Ryan X-13 Vertijet, which is basically the same concept as the XFV-1 except with a jet engine.



Then we have the XF2Y-1 Sea Dart, the worlds only hydroski jet fighter comes to mind as an at least equally screwy airplane.



Then there was the XP-71; a fighter armed with a 75mm gun and multiple trainable 37mm automatic cannon and of course the XF-85.

[Sea Skimmer]

Ah and the propellers. Anybody know why the radical design?

Contra rotating propellers offer better performance and power absorption then a conventional propeller, but they still can't compete for speed with a pure jet since they've still got the basic limitation of blade speed. You'll find them on quite a few 1940's and early 50's aircraft designs, often fitted as turboprops but after that they became very rare. The Russians however still use them on there Bear bombers.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Then there was the XP-71; a fighter armed with a 75mm gun and multiple trainable 37mm automatic cannon...

WTF...

That's like that Soviet 5 Turreted Tank...

[Sea Skimmer]

WTF...

That's like that Soviet 5 Turreted Tank...

You've got to remember that the US had the B-29 and B-36, and we had to assume an enemy might field a plane of comparable strength


Scratch the trainable 37mm part that was a different earlier aircraft 1939. It mounted a 37mm cannon in front of each wing engine. The engines where pushers with a crew man squeezed in-between the gun and engine, with a tiny tunnel through the wing to get back into the fuselage. It was meant as a bomber destroyer. A couple prototypes got built but it was canceled as obsolete in 1940 and I'll be damned if I can remember its designation.

The XP-71 did have twin 37mm cannon and a 75mm gun but all fixed in the nose, it was meant as a long-range, 3000 miles, escort fighter and bomber destroyer but got canceled when the USAAF doubted the need for a fighter the size of a B-25 with matching maneuverability. Two had been ordered for testing but never got built.

The armament seems excessive, both the US and German flew aircraft with 75mm guns but for ground attacks, the Germans also had a 50mm gun mounted to attack bombers but that much smaller. A number of planes in several air forces did fly with one or two 37mm guns as well. But no one combine both a big automatic cannon and a 75mm gun during the war, the AC-130 would later do much better.

Anyway the reason was the USAAF had the B-17,24,29,36. All big multi engine bombers that where bitches to shoot down. We knew how difficult they where to kill better then anyone else, and really no one else had planes comparable in toughness and firepower. But we couldn't be sure of that, some German four and six engine designs and prototypes would have been better then a B-17. So we developed planes to shoot down such things should they ever show up, since they didn't most designs got canacled like this one.

Another fun note, the original B-36 armament included no less then five 37mm automatic in powered turrets along with ten .50cal machine guns also in powered turrets. This was eventually changed to sixteen 20mm guns with computer driven radar fire control.



Picture of the XP-71 plan

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Then we have the XF2Y-1 Sea Dart, the worlds only hydroski jet fighter comes to mind as an at least equally screwy airplane.

http://www.aerofiles.com/convair-xf2y1.jpg

Someone wrote "Probably the best hing that can be said about it is that it seemed like a good idea at the time.

the XF-85.

Well, they'd certainly be a shock to Soviets attackin B-36s.

[Isolder74]

There we see the first attempt at making a VTOL aircraft. This was before the idea of thrust vectoring was invented. The twin Propellers is for stablizing the aircraft since the plane will ship like a chopper would without a tail rotor. The ship was never considered practicle and without today's computers and ect it was a beast to land. I'm sure tobay we couls make it work with modern softwars and Computer tech.

[Sea Skimmer]

Someone wrote "Probably the best hing that can be said about it is that it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Funny thing is the idea was revived later in the late 1970's and 80's once more as a way of preserving NATO fighters against nuclear attack but without as great performance penalties as the Harrier design.

Well, they'd certainly be a shock to Soviets attackin B-36s.

But the time the Soviets had a fighter, which could effectively intercept the B-36, SAC was fielding B-52's by the wing.

[phongn]

Someone wrote "Probably the best hing that can be said about it is that it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Funny thing is the idea was revived later in the late 1970's and 80's once more as a way of preserving NATO fighters against nuclear attack but without as great performance penalties as the Harrier design.

There's nothing new under the sun ...

Though there's always the mighty P6M Sea Master. Fear the jet-powered patrol seaplane.

Well, they'd certainly be a shock to Soviets attackin B-36s.

But the time the Soviets had a fighter, which could effectively intercept the B-36, SAC was fielding B-52's by the wing.

Muwahaha, and by the time the Soviets were getting ready to shoot down the BUFFs, they started sporting standoff weapons to nuke the air-defense installations first

[phongn]

Another fun note, the original B-36 armament included no less then five 37mm automatic in powered turrets along with ten .50cal machine guns also in powered turrets. This was eventually changed to sixteen 20mm guns with computer driven radar fire control.

Unfortunately, the early fire-control system was very unreliable - they might as well have stripped it off and let the Peacemakers fly higher until they got it working.

[Sea Skimmer]

Though there's always the mighty P6M Sea Master. Fear the jet-powered patrol seaplane.

With the range, speed and altitude of the B-52 and a five ton payload. And then there's the British SRA-1 jet powered flying boat fighter, which somehow managed to fly.

Muwahaha, and by the time the Soviets were getting ready to shoot down the BUFFs, they started sporting standoff weapons to nuke the air-defense installations first

[British 1890's general] Bloody unsporting colonials [/British 1890's general]

Unfortunately, the early fire-control system was very unreliable - they might as well have stripped it off and let the Peacemakers fly higher until they got it working.

That would likely be best but not much could catch it even laden down with all the guns, ammo and computers. I don't think you'd get that much of a boost anyway, the plane would probably burn through a larger weight of fuel and bombs on a mission.

[phongn]

Though there's always the mighty P6M Sea Master. Fear the jet-powered patrol seaplane.

With the range, speed and altitude of the B-52 and a five ton payload.

I bet that would have annoyed the Soviets had we deployed them in numbers.

[British 1890's general] Bloody unsporting colonials [/British 1890's general]

Yes, SAC never played fair. And then where was the Hound Dog cruise missle to make life even more fun, the SRAM and the ultimate standoff missile: Skybolt. And then we shoved low-level airframe modifications onto it with a host of low-light sensors.

That would likely be best but not much could catch it even laden down with all the guns, ammo and computers. I don't think you'd get that much of a boost anyway, the plane would probably burn through a larger weight of fuel and bombs on a mission.

Well, more fuel and bombs is always a good thing, and the final Featherweight III mod did get some performance boosts from ripping out all that stuff. Crew's a lot smaller too.

[Sea Skimmer]

I bet that would have annoyed the Soviets had we deployed them in numbers.

Only when combine with the scheme to resupply them via submarine.

Yes, SAC never played fair. And then where was the Hound Dog cruise missle to make life even more fun, the SRAM and the ultimate standoff missile: Skybolt. And then we shoved low-level airframe modifications onto it with a host of low-light sensors.

Skybolt never seemed that pointful too me. Accuracy and yield would have been too limited for hard targets while soft targets could be hit by things like Hound Dog. Land based ICBM's seem like a better investment then a huge bomber force to fly standing Skybolt patrols.

Well, more fuel and bombs is always a good thing, and the final Featherweight III mod did get some performance boosts from ripping out all that stuff. Crew's a lot smaller too.

You know I seem to recall one mod that went the other way and added more armor, guns, ammo and a few other things with the bomb load cut to almost nothing so it could fly as an escort for other bombers.

This whole threads tempting me to write a story in which island nations fight at 5000 mile ranges using nothing but heavy bombers with massive gun armaments and the worlds oceans are so rough aircraft carriers can't operate, only 100,000 ton battleships. Course yesterday I started writing a story, which involved rifled muzzle loading turbolasers, boilers fueled with neutronium via uber strong robots with shovels and barbette guns manned by crews in space suits so I might not be completely sane with this idea.

[MKSheppard]

Another fun note, the original B-36 armament included no less then five 37mm automatic in powered turrets along with ten .50cal machine guns also in powered turrets. This was eventually changed to sixteen 20mm guns with computer driven radar fire control.

Did they ever get it working? The B-29's remotely controlled gun turrets
didn't work most of the time.

[Sea Skimmer]

Did they ever get it working?

Kind of. The fire control computer was fucking huge, computers where the size of a big room after all but the B-36 was the size of an office building. So working out all the bugs took quite some time.

The B-29's remotely controlled gun turrets
didn't work most of the time.

They always worked fairly well, in terms of reliability, with no radar in the loop or totally automatic system the while thing was much simpler. The problem was the lag time in the computing system from the gunner station to the gun mounts, they eventually worked out what additional lead-time that necessary for the gunners to compensate. That improved accuracy but it still wasn't as good as old fashion manned turrets, but the B-29 would have had greatly inferior performance if fitted with them.

The tail guns at least always worked well because they where manually controlled and a 20mm cannon was fitted along with the machine guns. Given the B–29's high speed most non jet attacks would and did come from behind and IIRC by the end of the war many B-29's only had their tail guns installed.

[phongn]

I bet that would have annoyed the Soviets had we deployed them in numbers.

Only when combine with the scheme to resupply them via submarine.

One crate fresh rations, one 5MT nuclear warhead, fillup on jet fuel...

Skybolt never seemed that pointful too me. Accuracy and yield would have been too limited for hard targets while soft targets could be hit by things like Hound Dog. Land based ICBM's seem like a better investment then a huge bomber force to fly standing Skybolt patrols.

It looked like they wanted to keep the BUFF viable against projected Soviet air-defenses by keeping them away from said air-defenses. Might soak up ABM capacity better spent on intercepting the ground-launched missiles too.

You know I seem to recall one mod that went the other way and added more armor, guns, ammo and a few other things with the bomb load cut to almost nothing so it could fly as an escort for other bombers.

...

[Sea Skimmer]

One crate fresh rations, one 5MT nuclear warhead, fillup on jet fuel...

And check the oil and wash my windows! I wonder if Friedman's design histories include any cargo sub proposals to support the things? I'll have to look that up next time I'm at the bookstore, which happens to have a copy of post 1945 subs on the shelves.

It looked like they wanted to keep the BUFF viable against projected Soviet air-defenses by keeping them away from said air-defenses. Might soak up ABM capacity better spent on intercepting the ground-launched missiles too.

I suppose so, I'm just questioning if it was worthwhile to spend so much money for that added yet limited capability.

...

It may just have been a proposal, I really can't remember the details. Anyway I'm going ahead with the air-to-air super bombers. Think a B-36 frame could take the recoil from a 75mm automatic cannon?

[phongn]

It looked like they wanted to keep the BUFF viable against projected Soviet air-defenses by keeping them away from said air-defenses. Might soak up ABM capacity better spent on intercepting the ground-launched missiles too.

I suppose so, I'm just questioning if it was worthwhile to spend so much money for that added yet limited capability. [/quote]
Well, the UK wanted it too so they could ensure their Vulcans wouldn't get slaughtered on the way in ...

It may just have been a proposal, I really can't remember the details. Anyway I'm going ahead with the air-to-air super bombers. Think a B-36 frame could take the recoil from a 75mm automatic cannon?

Probably. With a VT round as well, I presume?