Favorite Warbirds That Never Were

[b29flteng]

The XB-28 looks like a Martin B-26 on a diet.

[AZ Flyboy]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the XP-67 Moonbat.
pretty sleek looking beast.

[JBoyle]

But you did (IMHO) imply that SSTs relied on the XB-70 - Boeing might have done, and the Concorde team (AFAIK) didn't. It would be interesting to know, if there was any passing on of XB-70 data. It's not impossible.
Regards,

According to my favorite UK aviation writer, Bill Gunston...
we should recall that the XB-70 relied on the technologies from the A-5.
In the late 50s, NOBODY knew more about high speed flight tecnologies than North American (look at their track record: P-51,F-86, F-100, A-5, X-15, XB-70). That research finally culminated in the Space Shuttle.

[CAPFlyer]

The XB-70 may have used some lessons learned with the initial A-5 research, but the technology used to create the XB-70 was leap-years beyond the A-5. You can make parallels between the XF-108 Rapier and the A-5, but the XB-70 had little in common with the A-5. It was a different design, much larger, and used new material construction, avionics, and powerplants than the A-5, so I'm not sure where any technology transfer could have been made.

[Malo83]

The X-B 38 is beautiful. I have never even seen a photo of one. Are those Alisons in there? Why didn't it go into production? It must have been faster than with the radials. Was it because they couldn't make the inline V-12s leak enough oil?

Yeah I heard it was very confusing for the Being mechanics because they always went by the rule if it doesn't leak there must not be any oil in it.

It had Allison V-1710-89 engines. The main ideas behind the concept were to improve performance and to show proof of concept for alternate engines in the case that the R-1820 production couldn't keep up. The aircraft number 3 engine caught fire on it's ninth flight June 16, 1943, the crew bailed out and the aircraft was of course destroyed. The concept was abandoned since at that time V-1710 factories were consumed with producing engines for other applications.

Ryan

If I remember correctly, I remember reading that the XB-38 crashed in the Calif. central valley by a town called Tipton???

[O.P.]

We have went around this a couple three times on WIX, and we all decided that the XP-67 Moonbat was the best airplane ever made, besides the T-28B of course...heheeee




Jezzzus maannn, the possibilities....very cool ride..

My Lotto money is going to that..and strippers...and beer....

[daveymac82c]

That is a pretty freakin' awesome ride!! Very cool. I almost totally forgot about that airplane. Got any more pictures of it?

Cheers,

David

[CAPFlyer]

Moonbat would have been good had they resolved 2 issues -

1) Cooling (major issue)
2) Power (way underpowered)

Sadly, it would take 20 more years before turboprops of sufficient power could be developed which would have been the only way to really solve the issue.

[Kdmoo]

I don't think it has been mentioned yet but I always thought the Douglas XB-42 was a neat design. From what I have read it performed pretty well. Too bad the jet era killed it off.



Kevin