>be Curtiss>make first effective American fighter of the war>decent performance stats, can absorb damage, modular construction for easy field work>get contracts out the ass for America, Britain, New Zealand, 'Straya>"Great, and we can work on new fighters with all the incoming money!">oh_no.ww2>P-40s become increasingly important in nearly every theater>engine production bottlenecks keep hampering US orders for better newer Curtiss designs>the new designs are having troubles with wing lamination, proper streamlining, underperforming engines, and other shenanigans>improved P-40 variants keep getting ordered en masse, so the money keeps flowing>besides, these new Curtiss fighters can't quite match 'Stang or Thunderbolt stats, so why put more into their development? change the orders to more P-40A/B/D/N/whatever model is in vogue>but Curtiss cannot expand, properly design new products, or catch a break because "Ha ha, P-40 machine go 'BBBBBRRRRRRRR'">by the end of the war they're flush with cash but falling way behind everybody else on aircraft developmentAnd that's the story of how a good enough and highly successful fighter put a venerable and well regarded aircraft manufacturer out of business.
>>64483237Yeah
>>64483237why didn't they simply make the P-41?
>>64483277You joke, but...
>>64483302HOLY SHIT
Meanwhile, some yokel named "McDonnell" will start manufacturing aircraft parts in 1939 and by '43 he's already throwing his hat in the ring when the Navy is looking for a fighter that uses this newfangled Kraut space magic called "jet engines." That war shuffled manufacturing around so damn much. The most advanced engines in the world and you could just slap together a fighter with two of them after a few years of grinding out plane parts.
>>64483237>>64483266>>64483277>>64483302made obsolete when this flew in late 1940yes the USAAC could have (but refused to) replaced the P-39 / P-40 from 1941 forward with the standard Allison-powered version of these which were then being supplied to England as Mustang Mk I(the much later re-engined B/C/D are a totally separate topic)
>>64483336Curtiss was more durable and had modular construction, far better for oper8ing from remote airstrips in Tunisia/New Guinea/China. The rational was the same as keeping with the Sherman: rugged reliable equipment at the end of long supply chains.
Something I've always wondered. Did the P-40 have the development potential of its contemporaries? For example, late war Bf-109s and Spitfires were on an entirely different level than their early war iterations. If Curtiss had invested more in R&D and changing their production lines to make more advanced versions, could upgraded P-40s have been competitive in the late war?
>>64483354Yeah, that's the whole point of the thread. There were a few Merlin engin'd models which did much better at higher altitudes, and Curtiss took the airframe and made improved versions which ultimately went nowhere because they weren't needed.The Tragedy of P-60 the Superfluoushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_P-60
>>64483324>Kraut space magic called "jet engines."u wot m8?
>>64483361First jet: Germany, '38. Yeah, the Bonglos developed their own independently, but still technically a German invention. Turboprops are Hungarian, though.
>>64483358Man, the inline versions of the 60 give me raging erections.
>>64483358it's weird how it basically became a naval fighter shaped plane
>>64483373
>>64483383
>>64483358>There were a few Merlin engin'd models which did much better at higher altitudesnope. they had a version of the early merlin with the single-speed supercharger. the high-altitude version came later. merlin-engined P-40s had pretty much the same performance as the allison models, which is why they switched back.
>>64483365frank whittle patented the turbojet in 1930. well before the germs started tinkering with them.
>>64483354The XP-40Q was essentially that. It was about as good as a Mustang in performance but with less range. So in theory yes, in practice, not worth it to try and rush it into production when you already have an airframe that's superior in virtually every way already on the production line.
>>64483358Jesus Christ what an ugly fucking plane. also see Picrel, RIP.
>>64483386I said "higher" altitude, not "high" altitude. The Merlin 40s did better at 20,000 than the Allisons, which peaked around 15,000 or so.
>>64483373Fugg me that's gorgeous.
It looks like someone cobbled together the most hideous parts of a P-40, P-47, and P-51.
>>64483416Throw in a little Raiden.
>>64483416It's kinda cute, in a fugly sort of way.
>>64483406>we have Mustang at home
>>64483351>oper8ing from remote airstrips in Tunisia/New Guinea/ChinaP-51A and A-36 did all that and more for two straight years in CBI and North Africa>more durableEqual with edge to the all-metal NA-73It was a far better and more advanced airframe and airplane periodP-40 and P-39 = instantly totally obsolete
>>64483412the reason for the switch to the Packard-Merlin was that they made more power, not any altitude performance. about 1390hp for the V-1650-1 compared to 1240hp for the V-1710-39. when Allison caught up with the V-1710-73 (1325hp) they switched back.
>>64483358>whole point of the threadIs that Curtiss needed to *completely abandon* its fighter aircraft projects after 1941and concentrate on the SB2C Navy dive bomber which it repeatedly kept fucking up the design development and production of, so much so that its introduction into operational service was delayed two years and impacted the U.S. war effort in PacificCurtiss and Brewster both as a pair are an example of wartime aviation industrial complex fuckery corruption and graft(along with the USAAF administrative mil complex inability to recognize that the Allison P-51A should have totally completely replaced the P-39 and P-40 starting in January 1942 but that is another separate story)
>>64483412>>64483495>Merlin v. AllisonNot this shit again.Difference between was not the engines themselves but the supercharger installations and carburetion. By the time of the later P-51 variants two years after the Mustang Mk I it was a completely different engine installation and airframe configuration with two stage supercharging.Allisons performed excellent at high altitude with for example the P-38 turbosupercharged installations in J-25 and L variantsIt's all about the accessories and airframe installation/configuration
>>64483396And Maxime Guillaume patented the first jet engine in 1921 while the first actual plane with jet engines flew in 1928 (Ohain), all well before that Timmy.
>>64483553>*vampiric Romanian laughter*
>>64483510that's what i am saying. early merlins without the speshul 60-series supercharger were comparable to the allisons. those didn't really enter service until 1943 by which point the P-40 was entering obsolescence and there was no point putting the new hot-shit high altitude engine into an old airframe.the reason the P-40s got them was that they had them available and for a short period of time in early 1942 the packard-merlin had better LOW altitude performance than the allison -39 used in the D/E. this didn't last long because they came out with the -73 and -81 which trumped the (now in demand) packard-merlin at low altitude so they switched again and never looked back.
When it comes to the 2000 hp class and above, does the liquid-cooled engine design suddenly become disadvantageous?
>>64483553>1928 (Ohain)when he was 17 years old?
>>64483610I wanna say yes but also no and that's because the Homare exists in that class and it's a bizzare little outlier.
>>64483594Yep, (You) get it anon
