NA-73X Pics

Mark Nankivil · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2007 12:31 pm

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 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2007 1:19 pm

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 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2007 1:31 pm

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 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:39 pm

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 · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:40 pm

Very interesting Martin - thanks! Mark

Ztex · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:44 pm

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

Ryan Harris · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2007 6:23 pm

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

hang the expense · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2007 10:41 pm

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

Zachary · **Posted:** Thu Mar 29, 2007 10:57 am

hang the expense wrote:

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 · **Posted:** Thu Mar 29, 2007 2:48 pm

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 · **Posted:** Thu Mar 29, 2007 7:58 pm

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 · **Posted:** Fri Mar 30, 2007 10:09 am

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

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