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Yesterday's Airplane.

By The Armorer on March 13, 2006 | | Comments (9)

It took a little under a half-hour for Marcus to show up for partial credit - he knew what it was, but couldn't name it. Then Rod came along from a morning of reading Daily Kos or something, and named it the "XP-67 Moonbat," correcting himself 10 minutes later to the aircraft's proper name, "Bat." I was right, it took just about an hour, and that only because Marcus didn't name it, though he clearly knew the aircraft. Neffi came along with more details and named the Bat's fate, and well, we'll just ignore Murray. He's having sibling problems and felt the need to share. Don't mind him, we'll lock him back in the basement after we catch him. IBM finished it off with the posited armament for the type.

Here's a shot of McDonnell's project showing those aspects of wing and engine blending that Marcus was referring to:

XP-67 in flight

Another shot of her in flight:

XP-67 in flight

And lastly - her fate.

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9 Comments

By Neffi on March 13, 2006 11:39 AM
Six 37mm cannon firing from the wing roots, through the propellor arcs... with the pilot hoping the guy who adjusted the synch. mech. has a happy home life...
 
By cw4(ret)billt on March 13, 2006 12:15 PM
Tsk. The overhead shot is flopped. National insignia lives on the port wing, service branch lives on the starboard. The simplest way to remember it is to say, "The star goes on the starboard but it doesn't." Now, wasn't that easy? *turns left to exit and bumps into blogwall*
 
By Barb on March 13, 2006 1:03 PM
Bill - Here's one in the proper direction. And here's a compress for the bump on your head. Hmmm - what is This? The site names it an XP-67, but it is definitely different! I found it while seeking the other image.
 
By John of Argghhh! on March 13, 2006 1:11 PM
That's a Curtiss XP-55 Ascender. It was built to the same AAF spec that produced the Bat.
 
By cw4(ret)billt on March 13, 2006 1:46 PM
And because it was a pusher-prop design, the Curtiss nickname engendered a rather amusing variation from the tugger-prop pilots. Say "Ascender" slowly...
 
By Were-Kitten on March 13, 2006 1:53 PM
"asssss-ennnnnnn-der" (said while swinging from a chandelier, of course) Do I pass the test, SugarButtons?
 
By cw4(ret)billt on March 13, 2006 2:01 PM
*sticking gold star to w-k's forehead*
 
By steveH on March 13, 2006 8:29 PM
The XP-67 was one of a number of failed designs of the period; hung up on the rocky shoals of bad engines, and particularly inadequate cooling of same, with associated engine fires. The boys that built it, though, went on to design several successful fighters, including the F-4 Phantom series.
 
By Blake Kirk on March 14, 2006 4:28 PM
Yeah, the aircraft that came out of the McDonnell design team at St Louis were always interesting looking. And they tended to be versatile designs. The F-101 was originally intended to be used as a long-range bomber escort, but eventually became a mainstay of NORAD when it turned out to be 50% faster than the F-102, and then got turned into a pretty decent photoreconnaisance platform. And we all know about the F-4, which seemed to be able to do damned near anything...