My neighbor was a pilot for Curtiss in the late 1930's and spent a lot of time on the P40 and up til 1944. I asked him what the biggest trouble was with the P40 or other variants he said..the u.s. army aircorp..haha! He said the Army or war department would say..We need a sleek fighter,fast,light maneuverable and have 1500mi range. Then when Curtiss got one layer out..the army would show up and say..add this add that..increase that reduce this and when it was done..and didn't meet expectations and refuse the plane saying..because it's not a bomber. He said it was constant bickering with the army,navy the war department..the branches all wanted one single plane that could simultaneously beat the zero and bf109 in a dogfight while carpet bombing Berlin and Tokyo all on one tank of gas and a single bomb
There were also doctrinal changes from year to year. The 1930s military still had to appease an isolationist Congress that only cared about opponents who could actually reach American soil, presumably via a naval armada or bombers. So job #1 was level-bombing warships, which was the original rationale of the B-17, and I assume job #2 was shooting down unescorted bombers since no escort had the range to threaten America. This leaves no priority for dogfighting in fighter design. But your account is credible because it matches the story of the Bell P-39.
@@warheadsnation The neighbor said another headache was officers and the upper ranks of the Aircorp didn't seem to fully grasp physics Navy was the same way. After the war started,Representatives of both the Army and Navy would show up at Curtiss and say something like We just had several engagements and we got wreckage of a bf109 and it has fuel injection so go ahead and install that on P40s..we need them in a few weeks...the only thing that was tried was adding nitrous oxide to a test P40..it did improve climb rate but only for a few seconds..dive speed..which at the time the P40 didn't need help with,It was already a plane with a dive speed greater than most,Straight line level flight speed was increased by only 10mph and only for a few seconds..nitrous was causing problems with detonation,Higher engine and oil temperatures..timing the ignition was a problem,the Allison needed a different ignition set up with more ability for adjusting when running nitrous all for negligible gains
The USA and USSR were by far the most discombobulated powers in WW2 and had significantly higher levels of infighting between bureaus and branches than all others combined
@@BenJamInn-q3o I don't know if they were as cold about it as the Japanese. The Navy would just chuck the Army's supplies into the sea & make them swim for it.
with how confusing this was as a viewer, I shudder to imagine the frustration of researching this video and having to deal with all the designations. I admire your perseverance.
@@fredhagman387 The Wright engine part of the company was also putting the features that engineer Rudy Daub had designed into the R3350 back in after the team that took over the R3350 when Rudy was transferred to the I'll fated R2160 Tornado project, took all of Rudy's features out. So now the R3350 that powered the B29 was a hot running oil leaky firetrap. The new team did however add a Magnesium crankcase making it a spectacularly burning firetrap that you couldn't extinguish. So amid Congressional hearings and investigations into the matter they were putting Rudy's features back in which solved the problems in every instance but one . . . And that was solved by taking the design committee's Magnesium crankcase feature out.
@sim.frischh9781 right? It was good enough for the majority of engagements but if you came up against a late model Axis fighter or didn't play it to its strengths you were going to have a bad time.
@@จักษ์นาถะพินธุ the Zippo/Ronson nickname is a myth, unless you're talking about the Shermans with a flamethrower, which were nicknamed zippo, but that name relates to the weaponry of the tank.
Not only that, the famous Ronson ad slogan "It lights the first time every time" was actually a post war creation. The Sherman believe it or not was statistically speaking one of the safest tanks of the Second World War. If you're a Sherman crewman, and your tank's taken a hit, your odds of surviving are roughly 97 percent. Also consider that two thirds of American tank crew casualties happened when the crew were outside the vehicle, at which point it clearly isn't from any fault in the tank. The poor Sherman was a very effective design that was really done dirty post war.
The P-40 was a great plane for what it did. The Flying Tigers got good service from them. It was just outdated by the start of the war. A supercharger would certainly have helped.
Even at the end of the war...while unable to deal with the very latest machinery at high altitudes the P-40 was still able as any to do 95% of the job of war. And it was inexpensive to build lots of them which is why they put in a good showing in most of the theaters they were flown. And in the few poor showings...it was more to command tactical mistakes and the aircraft weren't being employed as smartly as they could have been. Hard to blame the tool when the guy using it makes a mistake.
I have several photos of Jimmy DeSanto and the YP-60E "Connie II". He modified the aircraft to try to be faster, by cutting the wing length down, which also included part of the control surfaces. At the1947 Cleveland Air Races, he had to bail out during one of the test runs. He was a paratrooper during WWII so he had experience with jumping out of aircraft with a parachute. He also had to bail out of a P-51D "Connie III" at the 1948 Cleveland Air Races, while practicing.
Also, don't forget while all this is happening the Helldiver saga is also happening. The Helldiver was a plane so bad it both a) made politician's careers talking about it was (Truman) and b) literally got redesigned multiple times and still wasn't great.
Plus in the same time frame they had the Seamew and the later Seahawk under development. The Seamew only misses being the worst US military aircraft of WWll by not being a Brewster product.
And Curtis’s was also contracted to build the P-47 under contract (P-47G). In the time that they finally produced a couple of examples Republic had built a new plant in Indiana, and had planes rolling off that line. The P-47s that Curtiss did produce were deemed unfit for combat. The contract was terminated. Ironically, at least two of the still flyable razorbacks are Curtiss P-47Gs.
Older guys here will remember when the P-40 Warhawk was a well known and respected aircraft post war from the 50's to the 80's, it was along with the Lighting Thunderbolt Corsair and Mustang part of Americana as it was fighter that the famed Flying Tigers of the AVG flew in China with their shark mouthed Warhawks taking on the Japanese. As for the P-60 I never knew of that aircraft from Curtiss, which is why I enjoy your channel so much as you investigate obscure aircraft and prototypes.
Curtis gets a worse reputation than I think it deserves. On one hand developing a successor to the P-40 was compromised by the government who wanted Curtis to crank out P-40’s as fast as possible and at the same time develop better models of the design. The successor aircraft had power plant and equipment changes imposed on Curtis by the AAF. Although a big company Curtis had only so many draughtsmen and engineers. Supermarine spent the war tweaking the Spitfire and kept it at the cutting edge - but there was no successor. Hawker moved back into its premiere position post war. The point being Curtis could not develop new models of the P-40, produce it in large quantities, and develop successor aircraft all at the same time. Curtis was a big company, but even Curtis had its limits.
But then North American came out of nowhere. It was the former Fokker US division, but its salad days were behind it. Where did it get the draftsmen, engineers and factories that Curtiss couldn't spare? If there was a fundamental problem here, it was that Curtiss was plugged into prewar USAAF doctrine that ignored high altitudes, and an Allison engine that couldn't deal with high altitudes unless it had a turbocharger which required a specially designed fuselage like the P-38. North American designed the Mustang for Britain, using wartime RAF doctrine, using non-US standards, and unsurprisingly when it was found disappointing, it quickly got tried out with a Merlin which transformed it. (Also, it had a new airfoil and thrust boosting that the P-40 didn't, so even a Merlin couldn't make a P-40 as fast.) However, the sheer number of Curtiss fiascoes suggests a problem in management, and I've seen a little bit about that.
They didn’t adapt very well. They had a clear winner for a very specific and short period of time - during which the aviation geniuses around the world were already LASER focused on what would become war-winning designs. I kinda feel sorry for them, the Warhawk is an iconic aircraft (center-stage when you walk into the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum for example.) At the end of the day, it really is their own fault for not thinking outside of the box. Evolution was the norm at the time (ie pre-war), but a revolution was required to secure a meaningful contract entering WWII.
@@EstorilEm There is a lot more to it than that. I liked the video but the AAF and government did force Curtis down some paths such as engine choices. The video makes it sound like Curtis picked the engines and persisted with the prototypes when they should have ended the program. The problem is the power plant was requested but it was up to the government to allow the power plants to be made available. Also, Curtis had a contract with Uncle Sam to provide the P-60. Breaking the contract and cancelling the program would have resulted in fines. And to top that off, while all this drama is going on, they have to produce the P-40 in large numbers while also tweaking any performance upgrades and adding equipment to the airframe. They also had the C-46 to build, the SB2C to sort out and develop the float plane replacement for the Kingfisher…. Oh, and the workforce has to be replaced with new workers because production is ramping up and the men are being conscripted. None of those points were brought up in the video. They matter.
@@warheadsnation...you are wrong as NAA did NOT design the Mustang for the Brits as Dutch Kindelberger and Lee Atwood already had been studying and researching a modern fighter and when the begging Brits showed up Dutch refused to build the P40 and sold the Brits HIS new fighter design, The brits had no choice, Brits also only wanted a V12 engine and the Allison was the only V12 AVAILABLE, RR was over at Packard begging for Packard to build the merlin for the Brits, and remember only the 20 series single stage supercharged version existed AT THAT TIME !!! The 60 series 2 stage merlin went into service late 1942 early 1943......the time lime !!! The real problem was Allison id not go ahead and add a second speed to the supercharger or a second stage, the Navy was sing 2 stage and also single stage with a second speed supercharger on all its planes. there were some real bone heads in purchasing in the USAAC.
P.40s were notoriously tough. They could still land with part of a wing shot away or part of the tail. As such, the Germans found them difficult to shoot down, depite the fact that the 109s and 190s had superior performance. Add to this the vast numbers employed in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, together with the aircraft's versatility and we could argue that the P.40 helped win the war in the Mediterranean. I should also add that they held their own in the PTO until better types came along and the Red Air Force used them to good effect, preferring its ruggedness over the lend lease Spitfire Vs Finally, as one commentator notes below, they equipped the Flying Tigers fighting with the Chinese against Imperial Japan..
What a wonderful time and place to be an aeronautical engineer. So many concepts, so much innovation and by situation of geography too far away to be bombed. I think if I could choose another life, I would choose to live in the States working on new aircraft designs during the late 30s early 40s.
Great video. It's so memorable that I ended up watching twice hoping the story would end more happily. Thankfully the two famous names still honor the engines that power the planes we fly today. Hoorah!
The P- 40 was a very sturdy design , Curtiss seemed to have a nack for building sturdy planes,but not quit top shelf performance wise,but real work horses! Luck seems to have been against them to!
Your research sadly failed to uncover the well-known fact that the chin was designed specifically to make the eyes and teeth look good. I think that 2:04 admirably proves my point. Apart from that glaring omission - another totally on-point and thoroughly enjoyable video. Greetings from the UK.
Loving your channel. Ever thought of doing a vid on the Northrop P-61 Black Widow, the only purpose-built night fighter that had a 10yr career and served in nearly every WW2 theater, yet so few people have even heard of it? Just a suggestion...
Love the P-40! All Allisons used in P-40s were supercharged. The picture you’re showing when discussing hemispherical cylinder heads, is that of a piston.
On another channel, where they did a deep dive on the P-40 itself, what really held the P-40 back as far as speed and high altitude performance, was the Allison engine, and the lack of an available alternative. When Curtiss went back to Allison, and asked about developing a more powerful version of the V-1710, along with a more capable supercharger to give adequate high altitude performance, Allison said that the geartrain of the 1710 wouldn't be able to handle more than X amount of horsepower, and wouldn't be able to handle the stress of driving a more advanced supercharger to help generate that horsepower and high altitude performance. They did look at putting the Merlin into the P-40, but the Army Air Corps decided they wanted to reserve the Merlins for use in the P-51. And to be fair, the initial version of the P-51 with Allison engines, suffered the same high altitude handicap as the P-40. In theaters where high altitude combat wasn't the order of the day, the P-40 was a more than capable workhorse, otherwise it wouldn't have been produced in the numbers it saw, and been upgraded thru so many variants. I'd say that part of the P-40's reputation as being "obsolete" or an inadequate aircraft, is that it was what was on hand during the first dark months of the war in the Pacific, when the Japanese and their A6M's seemed unstoppable, and the P-40 wasn't proving to be clearly superior to the Zero for a variety of reasons, therefore QED the P-40 was a poor aircraft.
The Merlin engine was put into the P-40. The P-40F and L models used the Merlin, it provided more performance but not enough to justify the added supply line problems. Of course, the Merlin engine used had basically the same single stage supercharger as the Allison engine P-40s so a 2-stage version might have been a more significant improvement.
1:25 That would be the engine coolant radiator that was under the nose. The oil cooler was on top, except for the Merlin powered P-40F and L. And the P-40B/C would have a pair of .30s in each wing, not just 1.
The coolant radiator and oil radiator were mounted in the chin position on the P-40s. The Allison powered models had 2 round coolant radiators, and a round oil radiator. Merlin powered models had a rectangular coolant and a rectangular oil radiator. The scoop above the engine was for intake air - the Allison was fitted with a downdraft carburetor, the Merlin an updraft.
During wartime, a lot of 'average' is better than zero of 'brilliant'. The P-40 was every bit as good as the Hawker Hurricane, something we had quite a lot of during the Battle of Britain. The Soviets had tens of thousands of the T-34 tank, an 'average' machine compared to the Tiger or Panther tanks. There is power in numbers.
I think what hurt the P-40's reputation was two other fighters were out produced. The P-40 was there early, but not comparable to the zero when turning.
@@neilfoster814 Wing, larger internal fuel, 6x .50 cal of the P-51 doomed the P-40s to receive the "less desirable" engine. This was a British decision to use their limited Merlins for the Mustang. They needed a long range high altitude fighter at that time. Limits on Merlin production resulted in Packard built engines going into P-51s, Ford built Merlins into bombers, and RR built engines into British fighter designs and the Mosquito.
Very interesting, knew very little about this development nightmare so well done putting this together. I was amused that (bar wings) as the P60 evolved, got "stubbier" and a bubble canopy, and moved to a fatter nose to house the radial, Curtis had turned the YP-60E into the P-47D's long lost brother 😄
I read memoirs of a new Army Air Corps pilot who had one " big " combat mission close to the end of the war over New Guinea. He was flying a brand new P40 and shot down 2 Japanese fighters. Notable in the account was that P 40 was still in production, and that however few, the Japanese still could put planes in the air in New Guinea... Since by then their avgas was moved by submarine... But also the P40 which was inferior to Zero or Nakajima fighters air to air wound up winning a lot of engagements
The Zero was uncontrollable in a dive - so pretty much any allied fighter could just dive away from it. Getting into a turning fight with a Zero was suicidal however. The Zero was optimised above everything for maximum manoeuvrability and range - both required the lightest possible construction and no armor at all.
@@allangibson8494 well the point of one of his notes was that he actually got the Nakajima in something of a turning engagement, not a one pass haul ass as common wisdom would have it. He noted having an energy state advantage but it wasn't like the classic dive until mach buffet energy state commonly presented. He said the P 40 did better than advertised.
@@jaytowne8016 On the other hand an Australian Wirraway (the predecessor to the AT-6 Texan) got a Nakajima fighter too… (and no one ever mistook a Wirraway for a high performance aircraft (having a dozy pilot in the opposing aircraft’s cockpit helps too)).
@@allangibson8494 a Nakajima " Oscar" had very comparable performance to a zero ..they were Army, zero's Navy... Nakajima made more than one fighter during the war
I enjoyed the video and I'm glad you made it. Seems that the engineering of the fuselage streamlining may have been the problem. Too many inlets and scoops, that slowed it from slipping through the air. They converted to the laminar flow wing and it looked slippery than the p47. I'm sure they had access to a wind tunnel. It's hard to figure because Curtis was big in air racing as a young man. I liked the P40. As a kid it was one my first model airplanes and I had it for years. I always liked the design. I had a gas flying model and it flew great and was easy to handle. Anyway, thanks for the info on a struggle I didn't know the company had during a critical time in aviation history.
The P40 held the line for the commonwealth countries in the desert war and for Australia against the Japenese. It's not the best, but it's certainly not the worst. Australia's aces flew the P40 for most of the war. 🇦🇺
@vulgar_potato4992 YES. Having a lead element of 4 Raptors spotting and brawling and 50 miles away a flight of 20 Eagle IIs SPAMramming is a good strategy
at low altitudes the P-40 was faster than the P-47 and more maneuverable. And it could also outturn the Bf109. NOTHING was as maneuverable as the Zero. But at high speeds, about 350mph, it COULD outturn the Zero. The P-40 could also out turn the P-51.
@@David-q1k4k yes, the P-40 had a reputation for toughness same as the P-47 had. it was a very strong airframe. But at low altitudes such as in the pacific or north africa, the P-40 was both faster and more maneuverable than a p-47. Both the Germans and Japanese hated the P-47, describing it as a slow pig until it reached 25k ft or higher. The Japanese even claimed it took four P-47 to dogfight a single japanese plane.
A good read is "Whatever Happened to Curtiss Wright ?" by the late Bob Fausel. Bob was a young executive at Curtiss Wright and got to fly the first captured Zero. You can laugh about C-W now, but in WW II they were the second biggest contractor after General Motors.
your photo showing a P-40 captioned "in Australia" is in fact New Guinea, Milne Bay to be precise, where a mixed force of Militia and AIF (the main infantry force) repelled an amphibious landing by the Japanese. The P-40s were supporting the infantry, the Japanese got so close to the airstrip that the P-40s were firing their guns as they were raising their wheels.
You poor man! This is as confusing to me as an auctioneer rattling stuttering numbers. Thanks for this info. I almost always turn my interest to the more 'S-X-Y' types: P51, P47, P38, F4U, Spits, etc., but the 'also rans' are a part of that emergency call to fight.
Curtis wright did what everyone else ended up doing, super props. They just tried doing it 2 years before everyone else. So they had less engine options than the other guys. In the end, all of the super props were STUPIDLY SCRAPPED ! And, if you wanted to continue in the fighter plane business you should be testing your first jet by 44.
Curtiss was used to taking airframes and modifying them to create new aircraft. Many of the biplane Hawks were one off models with different design features or rebuilds of earlier Hawks.
They put Packard Merlin engines in some of them. It didn't help. The propellor was junk, very inefficient, and fairly unreliable. A better Allison (G series) and a Hamilton Standard 4 blade paddle prop would have helped. But the P-40 did have considerable included drag.
The P-40Q had a bubble canopy and an Allison with a two-speed supercharger and a top speed of over 400 mph. Still wasn't good enough to make it into production
@@dukeford8893 The P-40Q didn't make it into production because it was far too late. There were 3 P-40Qs made, each different to the next. The 2 stage Allison required modifiaction of the fuselage, as they were considerably longer than the single stage units, and longer than the 2 stage Merlin engines. The P-40Q first fights were in late 1943, early 1944, by which time the P-61B was in production and in service in Europe, with far superior performance.
Curtiss wasn't done yet; they followed this up with the XP-62, a super interceptor concept which resembled a fighter version of the Helldiver and only made a few test flights.
The P-40 was a good plane at low altitude, the Alison engine didn't have the appropriate superchargers or turbos for altitudes above 20.000 ft. It was sturdy and maneuverable and was good at ground attack and strafing. It's quite underrated.
@@Pikilloification By 1943, the P-51B/C and the P-47D was way out-performing the P-60 prototypes already. Curtiss should have ended the P-60 program right there.
The XP-60, the plane that you can’t beat, but it can beat itself. 😂 Interesting video! The last bit of the video was an absolute mess of parts being flung at models in all directions.
What i find interesting is the way the exhausts were configured on those P-60 models with the P & W R2800 engines. Apparently, someone had been paying close attention to the design of the FW190A. It does appear that he R2800 engines had turbo-superchargers similar to those on the P-47, but smaller? I am surprised that they did not use the mechanical supercharger units that the R2800 had when used on the F6F and F4U. Was the turbo-supercharger a USAAF requirement? If so, they had to make an exception for the P-51B, C, D, & K variants as they all had V-1650 engines with mechanically driven 2 speed, 2 stage intercooled superchargers.
The poor old P-40. I agree that it is to a point underrated. The thing about the P-40 (to my thinking) is that it was average, but it was there. It was able to be produced in number and with good training and tactics it could do a creditable job. There was an Australian squadron in Papua New Guinea that is famous (to Aussies at least) as one of the first squadrons to really come to gripes with the Japanese air force by using better tactics (more zoom and boom type stuff). The squadron was basically decimated but it helped to stop the Japanese in their tracks and considering how the Japanese air arms were slow to train pilots and couldn't produce aircraft anything like the US could, well this caused them significant issues. Sometimes you don't need the best aircraft, you just need a good one in numbers, right now.
Nice video. I root for one of the P-40 follow ones to be a winner, but alas. The complexity issue w a hemi is more in the valve train, namely each valve at a different angle, than in machining per se ... but yeah.
The P-40 is just plain fun-looking, like the F-5. We all understand that they will come up short against plenty of other planes, but they look really sexy and fun.
The XP-60 was powered by a British built Merlin 28, but would have used a V-1650-1, as was used in the P-40F. (The original production contract was for 1/3 of production to go to the USAAC/USAAF, which was 3,000 engines). The XP-60D was powered by the V-1650-3, which was the engine used initially for the P-51B. The V-1650-3 was the Packard version of the 2 stage Merlin 61. The comparison between engine lengths needs some more detail. The V-1710 shown throughout the video was the C model with the long nose case. Most P-40s, from the D onwards, the XP-46 and the XP-60A and XP-60B used the F model V-1710 with the shorter nose case and raised propeller shaft. The length and weight of the Merlin given was for a 2 stage model. The single stage models, like the V-1650-1, were 150-200lbs lighter and several inches shorter. The I-1430 powered XP-53 was never finished because the I-1430 program was slow and they didn't have a flight approved engine at that time.
Yeah, those XP-60 variants aren't confusing at all. 😆 But by the time it came along Curtiss was well and truly flailing. And who didn't look at the XP-60E and go "Why have you delivered a P-47D? With crappier performance." For whatever reason the Curtiss design team seemed to lack the kind of bright spark that was driving innovation at North American, Republic, and Grumman. They should have just gone with a clean sheet design back in 1941. But they suffered the same way other legacy aircraft companies did at the time, making conservative decisions that prioritized existing relationships and revenue streams over risky new ventures.
The Wright side of the business had their own issues. The P-40did get significantly more power in later variants. Over 1700 from the factory on War Emergency Setting. Plus crew chiefs in the RAAF were known to significantly raise boost levels from the single stage superchargers by adjusting the relief valves that limited boost. Even then they were still running out of power above 16000 ft/4877m. As to the P-60. Too little, too late. Plus having to use an R-2800 had to really hurt.
I find the very concept of "Curtiss-Wright" to be an oxymoron; since the Wrights suing Curtiss (and everyone else) for patent infringement anytime they did anything aviationish under the assumption that since they flew first that automatically made them owners of the entire aviation domain, led to the US not having an meaningful aviation contribution to WWI. About like a "Hatfield-McCoy" company...
I've read that the P-40 could 'lose' a Zero at low altitude, but only by over-revving the engine (and propeller - the propeller tips were exceeding mach 1)
The main problem with Curtis was they didn't have a powerful enough engine to build a plane around. The Allison V-1710 was never developed past it's original design because the company;s engineers were too busy correcting problems etc. For the same reason Curtis could barely work and re-design the P-40 while also developing it's replacement. The British had the Merlin engine and they could barely keep up with demand. But they only needed to improve the fighter version as the version for the bombers was good enough. Think about it, the best fighters all used one of two engines, the Merlin or the Wasp 2800.
Claire Chennault created a lot of animosity with Washington he relayed information about using boom and zoom tactics with the zero but it was dismissed because of the animosity.
Switch to a laminar flow wing, two stage supercharged Merlin engine & four bladed prop, trim the aft fuselage down and install a bubble canopy and remove the .50 cal guns out of the nose along with the timing gear and install six .50 cal guns in the wing. BANG! A front line fighter.
The P-40 Tomahawk and Kittyhawk gave excellant service in N.Africa . A number of allied Aces flew them , A Canadian was credited with 17 kills . Fact that was double the score of any P-38 pilot in the Med. Australian Clive Caldwell was the Top Scorer flying P-40s with 28 accredited victories including two German Aces in Bf 109s .
It had its difficulties but in an experienced pilots hands, it had a lot of strengths. Including taking a good amount if punishment. Not bad for an airplane 👍 that was considered, obsolete at the start of WW2.
Perhaps Curtiss ' engineers should've tried a new airframe, instead of trying to improve the P40's one, but naturally, with a war ongoing and the necessities to produce others aircrafts, there was no time to try totally new designs. This affected severely Curtiss, that, after an ill-fated try to build a new jet aircraft, pratically ended its regular production of aircrafts.
The large chin or mouth due to the air intake is not exclusive to the P-40 though, the Brits had a few like that as well, like the Hawker Typhoon, and later there of course were jet fighters with sometimes comically large air intakes (like that one failed US VTOL/STOL jet)
The P-40/360 mph was often used in theaters that were somewhat secondary. It was better than the Zero/330 mph and Oscar/308 mph and italian Mc 200/313 mph and close in speed to the Mc202/370 mph.
Ahhh my beloved P-40. This is what an airplane looks like when you set all of the attributes in the character sheet to 13. If you add it all up you're actually a little above average, but you're never as strong as the barbarian or as smart as the wizard. If you were a good pursuit plane driver the aircraft was almost never going to surprise you but it was almost never going to let you down due to its design either.
The boomerang was more agile than the zero, it didn’t help. The photo captioned in Australia, looked more like Milne bay. The P60 has a touch of the fw190s about it
I'm much more familiar with the P-40 Warhawk (due to it's wide international service in the war it pops up a lot in the stories of it's enemies I find) I am completely unfamiliar with the P-47 though - in fact I don't think I was aware the P-47 even existed until just now - or recall it every doing anything of note ; or if I was aware, i'd already forgotten it because it didn't stand out to me. Either way the result is I have little to no idea what the the P-47 all about ? (Something I need to look up perhaps) but the warhawk comes up I occasionally as a "workman like" design of the war. Kinda like Britain and some of its crappier Bombers like say the Manchester.. It is a crappy plane but it is also the plane that Sired the Lancaster - which is a much better plane (and way more iconic though creaking like an old man by the end of the war)
The 60 very much resembles a Jug and a sea fury together. Not really a super prop but sure could have been if engine technology was up to par. One thing I heard a while back was that like the Packard Merlin, most of these engines ran with around 7 or 8 to 1 compression ratios. Kinda low knowing we had fuel with a 150 octane rating. I think that was at sea level. ? Could have been at altitude too. 130 / 150 . Don't know. But I do know that that same engine, the Allison, with say 12 to 1 comp. Would have been a completely different monster. You wouldn't be jamming more air in it with a turbo or a blower but NOS could be used as military power+++ P. Or, + P + in ammo power ratings. 😂 But all of those things shorten the life of an engine pretty quickly. Give the Allison a 10 to 1 compression ratio and anice Lunati Voodoo Cam and look out Merlin, going by. 😂
![The Fighter That Tried To Replace The Spitfire | Martin-Baker MB.5 [Aircraft Overview #82]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1CJWEc_sQkQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Fighter That Tried To Replace The Spitfire | Martin-Baker MB.5 [Aircraft Overview #82]](/img/tr.png)
My neighbor was a pilot for Curtiss in the late 1930's and spent a lot of time on the P40 and up til 1944.
I asked him what the biggest trouble was with the P40 or other variants he said..the u.s. army aircorp..haha!
He said the Army or war department would say..We need a sleek fighter,fast,light maneuverable and have 1500mi range.
Then when Curtiss got one layer out..the army would show up and say..add this add that..increase that reduce this and when it was done..and didn't meet expectations and refuse the plane saying..because it's not a bomber.
He said it was constant bickering with the army,navy the war department..the branches all wanted one single plane that could simultaneously beat the zero and bf109 in a dogfight while carpet bombing Berlin and Tokyo all on one tank of gas and a single bomb
There were also doctrinal changes from year to year. The 1930s military still had to appease an isolationist Congress that only cared about opponents who could actually reach American soil, presumably via a naval armada or bombers. So job #1 was level-bombing warships, which was the original rationale of the B-17, and I assume job #2 was shooting down unescorted bombers since no escort had the range to threaten America. This leaves no priority for dogfighting in fighter design.
But your account is credible because it matches the story of the Bell P-39.
@@warheadsnation The neighbor said another headache was officers and the upper ranks of the Aircorp didn't seem to fully grasp physics
Navy was the same way.
After the war started,Representatives of both the Army and Navy would show up at Curtiss and say something like
We just had several engagements and we got wreckage of a bf109 and it has fuel injection so go ahead and install that on P40s..we need them in a few weeks...the only thing that was tried was adding nitrous oxide to a test P40..it did improve climb rate but only for a few seconds..dive speed..which at the time the P40 didn't need help with,It was already a plane with a dive speed greater than most,Straight line level flight speed was increased by only 10mph and only for a few seconds..nitrous was causing problems with detonation,Higher engine and oil temperatures..timing the ignition was a problem,the Allison needed a different ignition set up with more ability for adjusting when running nitrous all for negligible gains
Enter the F-111
The USA and USSR were by far the most discombobulated powers in WW2 and had significantly higher levels of infighting between bureaus and branches than all others combined
@@BenJamInn-q3o I don't know if they were as cold about it as the Japanese. The Navy would just chuck the Army's supplies into the sea & make them swim for it.
with how confusing this was as a viewer, I shudder to imagine the frustration of researching this video and having to deal with all the designations. I admire your perseverance.
And at the same time Curtis was trying to figure out how to make the Helldiver stay in the air.
And fit on a carrier lift. That must have taken up a vast amount of resources. 😂
Enterprise: Give me back my Dauntlesses.
@@fredhagman387 The Wright engine part of the company was also putting the features that engineer Rudy Daub had designed into the R3350 back in after the team that took over the R3350 when Rudy was transferred to the I'll fated R2160 Tornado project, took all of Rudy's features out. So now the R3350 that powered the B29 was a hot running oil leaky firetrap. The new team did however add a Magnesium crankcase making it a spectacularly burning firetrap that you couldn't extinguish. So amid Congressional hearings and investigations into the matter they were putting Rudy's features back in which solved the problems in every instance but one . . . And that was solved by taking the design committee's Magnesium crankcase feature out.
The P-40 is the Sherman of the sky.
That is a perfect analogy.
@sim.frischh9781 right? It was good enough for the majority of engagements but if you came up against a late model Axis fighter or didn't play it to its strengths you were going to have a bad time.
Zippo !
@@จักษ์นาถะพินธุ the Zippo/Ronson nickname is a myth, unless you're talking about the Shermans with a flamethrower, which were nicknamed zippo, but that name relates to the weaponry of the tank.
Not only that, the famous Ronson ad slogan "It lights the first time every time" was actually a post war creation. The Sherman believe it or not was statistically speaking one of the safest tanks of the Second World War. If you're a Sherman crewman, and your tank's taken a hit, your odds of surviving are roughly 97 percent. Also consider that two thirds of American tank crew casualties happened when the crew were outside the vehicle, at which point it clearly isn't from any fault in the tank. The poor Sherman was a very effective design that was really done dirty post war.
The P-40 was a great plane for what it did. The Flying Tigers got good service from them. It was just outdated by the start of the war. A supercharger would certainly have helped.
not outdated. just outperformed
Even at the end of the war...while unable to deal with the very latest machinery at high altitudes the P-40 was still able as any to do 95% of the job of war. And it was inexpensive to build lots of them which is why they put in a good showing in most of the theaters they were flown. And in the few poor showings...it was more to command tactical mistakes and the aircraft weren't being employed as smartly as they could have been. Hard to blame the tool when the guy using it makes a mistake.
@@recoilrob324 Yeah, it was a popular Lend-Lease plane, as I recall.
@@jussi8111 Same thing, right?
@@rocksnot952 no, the p-40 was a modern aircraft when it came out in 39
I have several photos of Jimmy DeSanto and the YP-60E "Connie II". He modified the aircraft to try to be faster, by cutting the wing length down, which also included part of the control surfaces. At the1947 Cleveland Air Races, he had to bail out during one of the test runs. He was a paratrooper during WWII so he had experience with jumping out of aircraft with a parachute. He also had to bail out of a P-51D "Connie III" at the 1948 Cleveland Air Races, while practicing.
Curtis were building fighters at the beginning of the war, when they were desperately needed, you cannot ask anymore.
Also, don't forget while all this is happening the Helldiver saga is also happening. The Helldiver was a plane so bad it both a) made politician's careers talking about it was (Truman) and b) literally got redesigned multiple times and still wasn't great.
Plus in the same time frame they had the Seamew and the later Seahawk under development. The Seamew only misses being the worst US military aircraft of WWll by not being a Brewster product.
And Curtis’s was also contracted to build the P-47 under contract (P-47G). In the time that they finally produced a couple of examples Republic had built a new plant in Indiana, and had planes rolling off that line. The P-47s that Curtiss did produce were deemed unfit for combat. The contract was terminated. Ironically, at least two of the still flyable razorbacks are Curtiss P-47Gs.
Older guys here will remember when the P-40 Warhawk was a well known and respected aircraft post war from the 50's to the 80's, it was along with the Lighting Thunderbolt Corsair and Mustang part of Americana as it was fighter that the famed Flying Tigers of the AVG flew in China with their shark mouthed Warhawks taking on the Japanese. As for the P-60 I never knew of that aircraft from Curtiss, which is why I enjoy your channel so much as you investigate obscure aircraft and prototypes.
Curtis gets a worse reputation than I think it deserves. On one hand developing a successor to the P-40 was compromised by the government who wanted Curtis to crank out P-40’s as fast as possible and at the same time develop better models of the design.
The successor aircraft had power plant and equipment changes imposed on Curtis by the AAF.
Although a big company Curtis had only so many draughtsmen and engineers.
Supermarine spent the war tweaking the Spitfire and kept it at the cutting edge - but there was no successor.
Hawker moved back into its premiere position post war.
The point being Curtis could not develop new models of the P-40, produce it in large quantities, and develop successor aircraft all at the same time.
Curtis was a big company, but even Curtis had its limits.
But then North American came out of nowhere. It was the former Fokker US division, but its salad days were behind it. Where did it get the draftsmen, engineers and factories that Curtiss couldn't spare?
If there was a fundamental problem here, it was that Curtiss was plugged into prewar USAAF doctrine that ignored high altitudes, and an Allison engine that couldn't deal with high altitudes unless it had a turbocharger which required a specially designed fuselage like the P-38. North American designed the Mustang for Britain, using wartime RAF doctrine, using non-US standards, and unsurprisingly when it was found disappointing, it quickly got tried out with a Merlin which transformed it. (Also, it had a new airfoil and thrust boosting that the P-40 didn't, so even a Merlin couldn't make a P-40 as fast.)
However, the sheer number of Curtiss fiascoes suggests a problem in management, and I've seen a little bit about that.
They didn’t adapt very well. They had a clear winner for a very specific and short period of time - during which the aviation geniuses around the world were already LASER focused on what would become war-winning designs.
I kinda feel sorry for them, the Warhawk is an iconic aircraft (center-stage when you walk into the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum for example.)
At the end of the day, it really is their own fault for not thinking outside of the box. Evolution was the norm at the time (ie pre-war), but a revolution was required to secure a meaningful contract entering WWII.
@@EstorilEm
There is a lot more to it than that. I liked the video but the AAF and government did force Curtis down some paths such as engine choices. The video makes it sound like Curtis picked the engines and persisted with the prototypes when they should have ended the program.
The problem is the power plant was requested but it was up to the government to allow the power plants to be made available. Also, Curtis had a contract with Uncle Sam to provide the P-60. Breaking the contract and cancelling the program would have resulted in fines.
And to top that off, while all this drama is going on, they have to produce the P-40 in large numbers while also tweaking any performance upgrades and adding equipment to the airframe.
They also had the C-46 to build, the SB2C to sort out and develop the float plane replacement for the Kingfisher….
Oh, and the workforce has to be replaced with new workers because production is ramping up and the men are being conscripted.
None of those points were brought up in the video. They matter.
@@warheadsnation...you are wrong as NAA did NOT design the Mustang for the Brits as Dutch Kindelberger and Lee Atwood already had been studying and researching a modern fighter and when the begging Brits showed up Dutch refused to build the P40 and sold the Brits HIS new fighter design, The brits had no choice, Brits also only wanted a V12 engine and the Allison was the only V12 AVAILABLE, RR was over at Packard begging for Packard to build the merlin for the Brits, and remember only the 20 series single stage supercharged version existed AT THAT TIME !!! The 60 series 2 stage merlin went into service late 1942 early 1943......the time lime !!! The real problem was Allison id not go ahead and add a second speed to the supercharger or a second stage, the Navy was sing 2 stage and also single stage with a second speed supercharger on all its planes. there were some real bone heads in purchasing in the USAAC.
Grumman didn't seem to have a problem.
Great video. You have to admire the tenacity of not giving up.
Great video, but my head hurts trying to keep track of the variants and sub-variants. I think I'll lie down for a while. Cheers.
P.40s were notoriously tough. They could still land with part of a wing shot away or part of the tail. As such, the Germans found them difficult to shoot down, depite the fact that the 109s and 190s had superior performance. Add to this the vast numbers employed in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, together with the aircraft's versatility and we could argue that the P.40 helped win the war in the Mediterranean. I should also add that they held their own in the PTO until better types came along and the Red Air Force used them to good effect, preferring its ruggedness over the lend lease Spitfire Vs Finally, as one commentator notes below, they equipped the Flying Tigers fighting with the Chinese against Imperial Japan..
Thanks for telling and showing all of the mixed up Curtis P-60 aircraft = What a deal......
Old F-4 pilot Shoe🇺🇸
What a wonderful time and place to be an aeronautical engineer. So many concepts, so much innovation and by situation of geography too far away to be bombed. I think if I could choose another life, I would choose to live in the States working on new aircraft designs during the late 30s early 40s.
I’m not so sure…. I spent 15 years on a drawing board before moving on to CAD. Technology has moved on……
When a Warhawk and a Thunderbolt have a kid that looks like a longer Raiden...
Great video. It's so memorable that I ended up watching twice hoping the story would end more happily. Thankfully the two famous names still honor the engines that power the planes we fly today. Hoorah!
The P- 40 was a very sturdy design , Curtiss seemed to have a nack for building sturdy planes,but not quit top shelf performance wise,but real work horses! Luck seems to have been against them to!
*knack
US Army had their hands in everything and doomed the Allison V1710 into mediocrity.
Your research sadly failed to uncover the well-known fact that the chin was designed specifically to make the eyes and teeth look good. I think that 2:04 admirably proves my point. Apart from that glaring omission - another totally on-point and thoroughly enjoyable video. Greetings from the UK.
Where did you get that from? Could you please cite a source? Thanks in advance…
I'm going to assume that was a sarcastic comment..... that cowl was designed long before any paint was put on it !!This is where emojis come in handy😂
I thought that was common knowledge😅
Loving your channel. Ever thought of doing a vid on the Northrop P-61 Black Widow, the only purpose-built night fighter that had a 10yr career and served in nearly every WW2 theater, yet so few people have even heard of it? Just a suggestion...
Love the P-40!
All Allisons used in P-40s were supercharged.
The picture you’re showing when discussing hemispherical cylinder heads, is that of a piston.
On another channel, where they did a deep dive on the P-40 itself, what really held the P-40 back as far as speed and high altitude performance, was the Allison engine, and the lack of an available alternative.
When Curtiss went back to Allison, and asked about developing a more powerful version of the V-1710, along with a more capable supercharger to give adequate high altitude performance, Allison said that the geartrain of the 1710 wouldn't be able to handle more than X amount of horsepower, and wouldn't be able to handle the stress of driving a more advanced supercharger to help generate that horsepower and high altitude performance.
They did look at putting the Merlin into the P-40, but the Army Air Corps decided they wanted to reserve the Merlins for use in the P-51.
And to be fair, the initial version of the P-51 with Allison engines, suffered the same high altitude handicap as the P-40.
In theaters where high altitude combat wasn't the order of the day, the P-40 was a more than capable workhorse, otherwise it wouldn't have been produced in the numbers it saw, and been upgraded thru so many variants.
I'd say that part of the P-40's reputation as being "obsolete" or an inadequate aircraft, is that it was what was on hand during the first dark months of the war in the Pacific, when the Japanese and their A6M's seemed unstoppable, and the P-40 wasn't proving to be clearly superior to the Zero for a variety of reasons, therefore QED the P-40 was a poor aircraft.
The Merlin engine was put into the P-40. The P-40F and L models used the Merlin, it provided more performance but not enough to justify the added supply line problems. Of course, the Merlin engine used had basically the same single stage supercharger as the Allison engine P-40s so a 2-stage version might have been a more significant improvement.
Absolutely love the Warhawk!
meh it was there and available is all I can say about it
1:25 That would be the engine coolant radiator that was under the nose. The oil cooler was on top, except for the Merlin powered P-40F and L. And the P-40B/C would have a pair of .30s in each wing, not just 1.
The coolant radiator and oil radiator were mounted in the chin position on the P-40s.
The Allison powered models had 2 round coolant radiators, and a round oil radiator.
Merlin powered models had a rectangular coolant and a rectangular oil radiator.
The scoop above the engine was for intake air - the Allison was fitted with a downdraft carburetor, the Merlin an updraft.
During wartime, a lot of 'average' is better than zero of 'brilliant'.
The P-40 was every bit as good as the Hawker Hurricane, something we had quite a lot of during the Battle of Britain.
The Soviets had tens of thousands of the T-34 tank, an 'average' machine compared to the Tiger or Panther tanks. There is power in numbers.
I think what hurt the P-40's reputation was two other fighters were out produced.
The P-40 was there early, but not comparable to the zero when turning.
@@External2737 I wonder what would have happened IF they had fitted a RR Merlin or Packard Merlin into the P-40 like they did with the P-51?
@@neilfoster814
Wing, larger internal fuel, 6x .50 cal of the P-51 doomed the P-40s to receive the "less desirable" engine.
This was a British decision to use their limited Merlins for the Mustang. They needed a long range high altitude fighter at that time.
Limits on Merlin production resulted in Packard built engines going into P-51s, Ford built Merlins into bombers, and RR built engines into British fighter designs and the Mosquito.
Very interesting, knew very little about this development nightmare so well done putting this together. I was amused that (bar wings) as the P60 evolved, got "stubbier" and a bubble canopy, and moved to a fatter nose to house the radial, Curtis had turned the YP-60E into the P-47D's long lost brother 😄
One could wonder why Curtis Wright didn't use their own Wright R2600 on the p40/xp60
I read memoirs of a new Army Air Corps pilot who had one " big " combat mission close to the end of the war over New Guinea. He was flying a brand new P40 and shot down 2 Japanese fighters. Notable in the account was that P 40 was still in production, and that however few, the Japanese still could put planes in the air in New Guinea... Since by then their avgas was moved by submarine... But also the P40 which was inferior to Zero or Nakajima fighters air to air wound up winning a lot of engagements
The Zero was uncontrollable in a dive - so pretty much any allied fighter could just dive away from it. Getting into a turning fight with a Zero was suicidal however.
The Zero was optimised above everything for maximum manoeuvrability and range - both required the lightest possible construction and no armor at all.
@@allangibson8494 well the point of one of his notes was that he actually got the Nakajima in something of a turning engagement, not a one pass haul ass as common wisdom would have it. He noted having an energy state advantage but it wasn't like the classic dive until mach buffet energy state commonly presented. He said the P 40 did better than advertised.
@@jaytowne8016 On the other hand an Australian Wirraway (the predecessor to the AT-6 Texan) got a Nakajima fighter too… (and no one ever mistook a Wirraway for a high performance aircraft (having a dozy pilot in the opposing aircraft’s cockpit helps too)).
@@allangibson8494 a Nakajima " Oscar" had very comparable performance to a zero ..they were Army, zero's Navy... Nakajima made more than one fighter during the war
@@jaytowne8016 The Wirraway took out a Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa on December 26th 1942…
It was described at the time as a Mitsubishi Zero however.
LOL Thank you! That was informative and funny all at the same time, Thank you for your dedication to my favorite topic...WW2 aviation
And all because it did not have a two stage super-charger. Just think what it might have been, if it had one.
Seen here in Australia??Nope Try New Guinea. P 40 was a lifesaver at that time. It was a master of ground attack early in the SW pacific
Interesting. Don't know that I've ever heard of the P 60
I enjoyed the video and I'm glad you made it. Seems that the engineering of the fuselage streamlining may have been the problem. Too many inlets and scoops, that slowed it from slipping through the air. They converted to the laminar flow wing and it looked slippery than the p47. I'm sure they had access to a wind tunnel. It's hard to figure because Curtis was big in air racing as a young man. I liked the P40. As a kid it was one my first model airplanes and I had it for years. I always liked the design. I had a gas flying model and it flew great and was easy to handle. Anyway, thanks for the info on a struggle I didn't know the company had during a critical time in aviation history.
The P40 held the line for the commonwealth countries in the desert war and for Australia against the Japenese. It's not the best, but it's certainly not the worst. Australia's aces flew the P40 for most of the war. 🇦🇺
What if I told you the Curtis Hawk being mid has a butterfly effect that ends with the F-15EX Eagle II
Ha ha, SPAMRAAM go whoosh x how ever the missile truck carries
@@vulgar_potato4992 indeed the missile bus does go brrrrrt
Wait elaborate
@@Dysfunctional_Reprint that’s a nice si-57 but it’s a shame there’s a dozen EX’s guiding 30 AMRAAM D’s via a F-22’s data link to it.
@vulgar_potato4992 YES. Having a lead element of 4 Raptors spotting and brawling and 50 miles away a flight of 20 Eagle IIs SPAMramming is a good strategy
Thanks from Canberra, I really enjoyed that.
The P-40 had the most important of all qualities...it was available!
at low altitudes the P-40 was faster than the P-47 and more maneuverable. And it could also outturn the Bf109.
NOTHING was as maneuverable as the Zero. But at high speeds, about 350mph, it COULD outturn the Zero.
The P-40 could also out turn the P-51.
And could out roll a P-51
And could dive very fast, it recorded a dive speed of 661 mph in 1941 without structural damage !
@@David-q1k4k yes, the P-40 had a reputation for toughness same as the P-47 had. it was a very strong airframe. But at low altitudes such as in the pacific or north africa, the P-40 was both faster and more maneuverable than a p-47.
Both the Germans and Japanese hated the P-47, describing it as a slow pig until it reached 25k ft or higher. The Japanese even claimed it took four P-47 to dogfight a single japanese plane.
Outstanding coverage of another oddball aircraft! Thank you.
Its interesting to learn about the production and procurement process.I don't think that much has changed.
A good read is "Whatever Happened to Curtiss Wright ?" by the late Bob Fausel. Bob was a young executive at Curtiss Wright and got to fly the first captured Zero. You can laugh about C-W now, but in WW II they were the second biggest contractor after General Motors.
your photo showing a P-40 captioned "in Australia" is in fact New Guinea, Milne Bay to be precise, where a mixed force of Militia and AIF (the main infantry force) repelled an amphibious landing by the Japanese. The P-40s were supporting the infantry, the Japanese got so close to the airstrip that the P-40s were firing their guns as they were raising their wheels.
New Guinea was Australian territory during WW2. It remained Australian territory until 1975…
You poor man! This is as confusing to me as an auctioneer rattling stuttering numbers. Thanks for this info. I almost always turn my interest to the more 'S-X-Y' types: P51, P47, P38, F4U, Spits, etc., but the 'also rans' are a part of that emergency call to fight.
Curtis wright did what everyone else ended up doing, super props. They just tried doing it 2 years before everyone else. So they had less engine options than the other guys. In the end, all of the super props were STUPIDLY SCRAPPED ! And, if you wanted to continue in the fighter plane business you should be testing your first jet by 44.
Curtiss was used to taking airframes and modifying them to create new aircraft. Many of the biplane Hawks were one off models with different design features or rebuilds of earlier Hawks.
I never understood why not a bubble canopy and a Merlin or Griffin engine America was making the engines anyway at Packard in Detroit. MI.
They put Packard Merlin engines in some of them. It didn't help.
The propellor was junk, very inefficient, and fairly unreliable.
A better Allison (G series) and a Hamilton Standard 4 blade paddle prop would have helped. But the P-40 did have considerable included drag.
The P-40Q had a bubble canopy and an Allison with a two-speed supercharger and a top speed of over 400 mph. Still wasn't good enough to make it into production
@@dukeford8893 The P-40Q didn't make it into production because it was far too late.
There were 3 P-40Qs made, each different to the next.
The 2 stage Allison required modifiaction of the fuselage, as they were considerably longer than the single stage units, and longer than the 2 stage Merlin engines.
The P-40Q first fights were in late 1943, early 1944, by which time the P-61B was in production and in service in Europe, with far superior performance.
I guess the P40 should be seen as 'good enough' for most jobs
Apparently experimental aircraft don't stick vell - at least if they are thrown by Curtis. Great video, as usual!
Curtiss wasn't done yet; they followed this up with the XP-62, a super interceptor concept which resembled a fighter version of the Helldiver and only made a few test flights.
The P-40 was a good plane at low altitude, the Alison engine didn't have the appropriate superchargers or turbos for altitudes above 20.000 ft. It was sturdy and maneuverable and was good at ground attack and strafing. It's quite underrated.
The whole project was just a waste of time given that the P-60 was substantially inferior to the P-47, P-51 and F4U anyways.
We know that now, but they didn't back them. You need many of these failures to get great successes
@@Pikilloification By 1943, the P-51B/C and the P-47D was way out-performing the P-60 prototypes already. Curtiss should have ended the P-60 program right there.
15:23 - that's a domed piston CROWN, not a hemispherical cylinder head.. 😁
The XP-60, the plane that you can’t beat, but it can beat itself. 😂
Interesting video! The last bit of the video was an absolute mess of parts being flung at models in all directions.
What i find interesting is the way the exhausts were configured on those P-60 models with the P & W R2800 engines. Apparently, someone had been paying close attention to the design of the FW190A. It does appear that he R2800 engines had turbo-superchargers similar to those on the P-47, but smaller? I am surprised that they did not use the mechanical supercharger units that the R2800 had when used on the F6F and F4U. Was the turbo-supercharger a USAAF requirement? If so, they had to make an exception for the P-51B, C, D, & K variants as they all had V-1650 engines with mechanically driven 2 speed, 2 stage intercooled superchargers.
The poor old P-40. I agree that it is to a point underrated. The thing about the P-40 (to my thinking) is that it was average, but it was there. It was able to be produced in number and with good training and tactics it could do a creditable job. There was an Australian squadron in Papua New Guinea that is famous (to Aussies at least) as one of the first squadrons to really come to gripes with the Japanese air force by using better tactics (more zoom and boom type stuff). The squadron was basically decimated but it helped to stop the Japanese in their tracks and considering how the Japanese air arms were slow to train pilots and couldn't produce aircraft anything like the US could, well this caused them significant issues.
Sometimes you don't need the best aircraft, you just need a good one in numbers, right now.
Very enjoyable
Nice video. I root for one of the P-40 follow ones to be a winner, but alas.
The complexity issue w a hemi is more in the valve train, namely each valve at a different angle, than in machining per se ... but yeah.
Wowww Nice, I love this prototype
2:51 On Saturday morning, I was dusting off "284" so she'd look her best for our guests at The American Heritage Museum.
Interesting video.
The P-40 is just plain fun-looking, like the F-5.
We all understand that they will come up short against plenty of other planes, but they look really sexy and fun.
The XP-60 was powered by a British built Merlin 28, but would have used a V-1650-1, as was used in the P-40F.
(The original production contract was for 1/3 of production to go to the USAAC/USAAF, which was 3,000 engines).
The XP-60D was powered by the V-1650-3, which was the engine used initially for the P-51B. The V-1650-3 was the Packard version of the 2 stage Merlin 61.
The comparison between engine lengths needs some more detail.
The V-1710 shown throughout the video was the C model with the long nose case. Most P-40s, from the D onwards, the XP-46 and the XP-60A and XP-60B used the F model V-1710 with the shorter nose case and raised propeller shaft.
The length and weight of the Merlin given was for a 2 stage model. The single stage models, like the V-1650-1, were 150-200lbs lighter and several inches shorter.
The I-1430 powered XP-53 was never finished because the I-1430 program was slow and they didn't have a flight approved engine at that time.
Yeah, those XP-60 variants aren't confusing at all. 😆 But by the time it came along Curtiss was well and truly flailing. And who didn't look at the XP-60E and go "Why have you delivered a P-47D? With crappier performance." For whatever reason the Curtiss design team seemed to lack the kind of bright spark that was driving innovation at North American, Republic, and Grumman. They should have just gone with a clean sheet design back in 1941. But they suffered the same way other legacy aircraft companies did at the time, making conservative decisions that prioritized existing relationships and revenue streams over risky new ventures.
The Wright side of the business had their own issues.
The P-40did get significantly more power in later variants. Over 1700 from the factory on War Emergency Setting. Plus crew chiefs in the RAAF were known to significantly raise boost levels from the single stage superchargers by adjusting the relief valves that limited boost. Even then they were still running out of power above 16000 ft/4877m.
As to the P-60. Too little, too late. Plus having to use an R-2800 had to really hurt.
I find the very concept of "Curtiss-Wright" to be an oxymoron; since the Wrights suing Curtiss (and everyone else) for patent infringement anytime they did anything aviationish under the assumption that since they flew first that automatically made them owners of the entire aviation domain, led to the US not having an meaningful aviation contribution to WWI. About like a "Hatfield-McCoy" company...
I've read that the P-40 could 'lose' a Zero at low altitude, but only by over-revving the engine (and propeller - the propeller tips were exceeding mach 1)
The main problem with Curtis was they didn't have a powerful enough engine to build a plane around. The Allison V-1710 was never developed past it's original design because the company;s engineers were too busy correcting problems etc. For the same reason Curtis could barely work and re-design the P-40 while also developing it's replacement. The British had the Merlin engine and they could barely keep up with demand. But they only needed to improve the fighter version as the version for the bombers was good enough. Think about it, the best fighters all used one of two engines, the Merlin or the Wasp 2800.
The P40 was outclassed in air to air combat but it served well throughout the war and it made a name for itself with the AVK.
The New Zealand airforce flew then too, but we called them the Kittyhawk.
Claire Chennault created a lot of animosity with Washington he relayed information about using boom and zoom tactics with the zero but it was dismissed because of the animosity.
I was fairly certain the C had 2x .30 cal guns in each wing for a total of 4x 30s and 2x .50s. Not 2 and 2 you put in text at about 5:00
The workhorse that was needed in its time...just like the Hurricane. Bothe are iconic and instantly recognisable😎🇦🇺👌
Switch to a laminar flow wing, two stage supercharged Merlin engine & four bladed prop, trim the aft fuselage down and install a bubble canopy and remove the .50 cal guns out of the nose along with the timing gear and install six .50 cal guns in the wing.
BANG! A front line fighter.
They sorta did that with the P-40Q. It wasn't produced.
Dunno how you kept all the variants straight. Nice job.
The P-40 has always been my favorite Wll fighter. Something about the shark mouth.
TY-I get that Mid level was all it ever was, despite the confusing efforts , but flew everywhere , for any decent allied air force.
The P-40 Tomahawk and Kittyhawk gave excellant service in N.Africa . A number of allied Aces flew them , A Canadian was credited with 17 kills . Fact that was double the score of any P-38 pilot in the Med.
Australian Clive Caldwell was the Top Scorer flying P-40s with 28 accredited victories including two German Aces in Bf 109s .
The P40 was nasty at low altitude and on the deck !
It had its difficulties but in an experienced pilots hands, it had a lot of strengths. Including taking a good amount if punishment. Not bad for an airplane 👍 that was considered, obsolete at the start of WW2.
The Curtiss P-40b Warhawk acquitted itself well in China @American Volunteer Group, AKA Flying Tigers.
Man, Curtis must have HATED flowcharts with a BURNING PASSION XD
Perhaps Curtiss ' engineers should've tried a new airframe, instead of trying to improve the P40's one, but naturally, with a war ongoing and the necessities to produce others aircrafts, there was no time to try totally new designs.
This affected severely Curtiss, that, after an ill-fated try to build a new jet aircraft, pratically ended its regular production of aircrafts.
2:01 Bro that might be in Australian service but that looks like New Guinea......
My great uncle flew them in china against the Japanese invasion. He thought highly of the airplane
Ugh, I want a scale model of the P-60 so bad. ^_^
The Flying Tigers P 40 is so bitchin' looking tho, and historical to boot!
The pilot's position at 7:19 looks like the kind of anomaly you see in MSFS2020, only his head isn't poking through the top of a closed canopy.
The P40 was under powered sluggish in a fight and not very maneuverable. It was called the lead sled. Was a good stop gap aircraft.
The large chin or mouth due to the air intake is not exclusive to the P-40 though, the Brits had a few like that as well, like the Hawker Typhoon, and later there of course were jet fighters with sometimes comically large air intakes (like that one failed US VTOL/STOL jet)
24:49 Well that about sums it up for the XP-60.
The P-40/360 mph was often used in theaters that were somewhat secondary. It was better than the Zero/330 mph and Oscar/308 mph and italian Mc 200/313 mph and close in speed to the Mc202/370 mph.
The finished flowchart at 24:00 feels like it alone explains why the P-60 didn't go anywhere lmao
Ahhh my beloved P-40. This is what an airplane looks like when you set all of the attributes in the character sheet to 13. If you add it all up you're actually a little above average, but you're never as strong as the barbarian or as smart as the wizard. If you were a good pursuit plane driver the aircraft was almost never going to surprise you but it was almost never going to let you down due to its design either.
You know what would be cool? A video on the Bugatti model 100 and the subsequent Model 100P
Aye, I second this.
Why? It never did waht it was supposed to and killed the pilot. So did the replica. The video would be 5 minutes long.
Holy CRAP!!!!
Well, Curtiss is still in business, so that's something. Although they don't build aircraft anymore.
The Curtiss-Wright XF-87 Blackhawk was their last aircraft.
The boomerang was more agile than the zero, it didn’t help. The photo captioned in Australia, looked more like Milne bay. The P60 has a touch of the fw190s about it
Anyone who knows anything about WW II has seen the finest WW II film ever made, "1941", which features John Belushi flying a P-40.
I'm much more familiar with the P-40 Warhawk (due to it's wide international service in the war it pops up a lot in the stories of it's enemies I find) I am completely unfamiliar with the P-47 though - in fact I don't think I was aware the P-47 even existed until just now - or recall it every doing anything of note ; or if I was aware, i'd already forgotten it because it didn't stand out to me.
Either way the result is I have little to no idea what the the P-47 all about ? (Something I need to look up perhaps) but the warhawk comes up I occasionally as a "workman like" design of the war.
Kinda like Britain and some of its crappier Bombers like say the Manchester.. It is a crappy plane but it is also the plane that Sired the Lancaster - which is a much better plane (and way more iconic though creaking like an old man by the end of the war)
The 60 very much resembles a Jug and a sea fury together. Not really a super prop but sure could have been if engine technology was up to par. One thing I heard a while back was that like the Packard Merlin, most of these engines ran with around 7 or 8 to 1 compression ratios. Kinda low knowing we had fuel with a 150 octane rating. I think that was at sea level. ? Could have been at altitude too. 130 / 150 . Don't know. But I do know that that same engine, the Allison, with say 12 to 1 comp. Would have been a completely different monster. You wouldn't be jamming more air in it with a turbo or a blower but NOS could be used as military power+++ P. Or, + P + in ammo power ratings. 😂 But all of those things shorten the life of an engine pretty quickly. Give the Allison a 10 to 1 compression ratio and anice Lunati Voodoo Cam and look out Merlin, going by. 😂
RonCob doesn't work like that with a supercharged engine !!! Gotta have lower compression !!
The Helldiver was CW’s last major WW2 aircraft, not the seaplane you mentioned.