Warbird Information Exchange

I question the fact that this was mocked up on the fuselage of P-40C 41-13456, for a couple of reasons. When this was mocked up (in late 1942), 41-13456 was still in use by the USAAF (At Craig Field), and wasn't Condemned until Feb 1943.

Additionally have a closer look at the scallops behind the cockpit, that's no C model...........not sure why everyone looks solely at the number and however miss the biggest telling point

Buz

My guess is someone took a cockpit section and other mock up pieces and tried to cobble something together to see if there was any interest in a twin engine derivative. The nose is too short, the landing gear too narrow, wings way too small, and the fuselage entirely too short and the tail feathers would need to be twice that size.
Of course, this idea was fostered by the makers of the Curtiss O-52 Owl ( wings were 1/2 the needed size) and the Curtiss AT-9 Jeep. The AT-9 was more difficult to fly as a trainer than the fighters and bombers that were to follow.

You can see where the idea would have generated interest. The three-view drawings of it make it look pretty potent, particularly the top view, but in that form it's Vmc would have been spectacular, it's single engine performance abysmal, the view from the cockpit terrible, and it would have needed one hell of a lot of lead in the tail to get it anywhere near a reasonable center of gravity. I doubt that the landing gear would have stood the abuse very long, but it does make for a good looking comic-book fighter, though!

_________________
Defending Stearmans on WIX since Jeff started badmouthing them back in 2005.

The visibility outta that thing would be terrible for a combat aircraft.

_________________

VMC and weight and balance should have been easily calculated. I would have expected that to be addressed.The P-38 had counter-rotating props and this could have also, though that may not have been important to install on the mockup if they didn't have them readily available.

What I meant was that that thing's Vmc would have made a Mosquito or a Marauder look tame!

_________________
Defending Stearmans on WIX since Jeff started badmouthing them back in 2005.

Gents,
It may be better understood if you view a mock-up as a step in the proof of concept. The idea germinates, it's taken to a preliminary drawing - which look reasonable in 3-view. It then requires a mock-up to see where the problems are - i.e. visibility, cg balance, etc.

The mock-up is also instructive in evaluating how much extra work is required to make it flyable or operational. Recall that the Ju287 swept-forward wing flying prototype was a proof-of-concept flying test bed, with "bits" sourced from other available aircraft. This twin engine P-40 may well have been intended similarly - though perhaps as a non-flying mock-up.

You can imagine the conversation:
...Let's see if we can improve the P-40 as a long-range twin.
...Yeah, prelim-sketches look good, let put together a cut-n-paste mock-up.
...OMG, what have we done!
...Eurrrgh, quick bury it.

Realistically, visibility was not much worse than the Beaufighter IIf (Merlin-powered). A next stage viable design would have lowered the engine nacelles with the wing mounted mid-nacelle, and undercarriage recessing backwards into the nacelle. Perhaps the mock-up was used to determine that no-one wanted to pay for the extensive redesign, and that there were better alternative prototypes available...or just order more P-38s.

...geoff

What could have been.

Imagine the landing gear leg length on that!!

_________________
Zac in NZ
#avgeek, modelbuilder, photographer, writer. Callsign: "HANDBAG".
https://linktr.ee/zacyates

"It's his plane, he spent the money to restore it, he can do with it what he wants. I will never understand what's hard to comprehend about this." - kalamazookid, 20/08/2013
"The more time you spend around warbirds the sooner you learn nothing, is simple." - JohnB, 24/02/22