NA-73X Pics

[Mark Nankivil]

Greetings All -

In transfering some older CD archived photos to an external hard drive, I came across a number of scanned North American photos that were passed on to me by a friend a number of years ago. For Martin/SwissMustangs, I'll start off with the Papa of the Mustangs, NA-73X.

Enjoy the Day! Mark

[Zachary]

Hi Mark,

Where were you a week ago with these great photos of the NA-73X and the Apaches??? I JUST finished writing April's "Airplane of the Month" feature for EAA's Young Eagles website, and it is about the P-51 and its history. These pics would have been really handy. Ah well.

Hope all is well in ole St. Louie...

Zack

[Swiss Mustangs]

Mark... two very nice NAA factory shots - thank you so much.... and for comparison - below the same photo as yours, but retouched for propaganda purposes - used as postcard (black anti-glare panel, US insigna and letters "ARMY")



Martin

[Mark Nankivil]

Hi Zack!

Gee, all you had to do was ask Hope all is well with you and your family as well. My 3 year old has now caught the airplane bug big time - wants to go to the airport every evening. Here's hoping it is a life long addiction....

What are you doing for the magazine next month - maybe I can help you out!

Enjoy the Day! Mark

[Mark Nankivil]

Very interesting Martin - thanks! Mark

[Ztex]

Those are great!

The photo retouching is interesting...we think we live in a great age of photo tampering...those guys were real artists.

Thanks for sharing.

Z

Anybody find the little "intakes" outboard of the guns interesting?

[hang the expense]

Sure looks similiar to the XP-46 built by CURTISS!

[Zachary]

Sure looks similiar to the XP-46 built by CURTISS!

According to some sources, North American actually purchased the XP-46 windtunnel data from Curtiss, which was then incorporated into the NA-73X design.

Zack

[hang the expense]

Hey zack,My sorces told me they did a heck of alot more than buy the xp-46. It is incorporated into the na73(wing).How else do you build a whole airplane in 120 days. You just cant unless..... you have something to start with. There are no records as to the disposition of the xp-46.Hmm...

[TAdan]

I'd love to hear more about the XP-46 and NA-73X relationship... I am intrigued...I love the P-40 family. (And Mustangs too!)

[Mark Nankivil]

There's no way that the XP-46 wing was used or otherwise morhped into what was on the NA-73. Curtiss evolved the XP-46 from there ongoing developments from the P-36 on and nothing in that lineage used the airfoils or planform on the NA-73X. Curtiss showed little more than evolutionary development (versus revolutionary) in their fighter design line up which certainly reflects in their disappearing from the scene.

You can learn a lot from wind tunnel data both good and bad. I would suggest that a look at the XP-46 data allowed North American to bypass going down dead end design choices and make the design decisions that lead to the NA-73X and on to the Mustang.

http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p46.html

http://www.geocities.com/pentagon/quart ... rtiss.html

This one is interesting in that it references North American as an affiliate company of Curtiss - I cannot recall see/reading that anywhere else:

http://glennhcurtiss.com/id39.htm

Other than being bare metal and having a prop and an inline engine, the two really do not look alike...

Enjoy the Day! Mark