Subject: Number Seventy-One in the Series--Curtiss XP-71

From: jfb200
Date: 21 May 93 16:41:19 GMT

>From jfb200 

The Curtiss XP-71 was the result of a 1941 proposal to the Army by the 
Curtiss-Wright Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri for a large escort 
fighter.  The Curtiss design called for a high-wing monoplane with a 
tricycle landing gear.  It was to be powered by a pair of 
turbosupercharged 3450 hp Pratt & Whitney R-4360-13 Wasp Major 
28-cylinder air-cooled radials.  The engines were to be situated in 
underwing-mounted nacelles and were each to drive a pair of contrarotating 
propellers in a pusher arrangement.  The pressurized cockpit was to 
have had two crew members seated in tandem.  The proposed armament 
consisted of two 37-mm cannon and one 75-mm (!) cannon mounted in the 
nose.  

Estimated maximum speed of the XP-71 was 428 mph at 25,000 feet.  
Service ceiling was to have been 40,000 feet, and an altitude of 
25,000 feet was to be reached in 12.5 minutes.  Estimated weights were 
31,060 pounds empty, 39,950 pounds gross, and 46,950 pounds maximum.  
The dimensions were wingspan 82 feet 3 inches, length 61 feet 10 
inches, height 19 feet 0 inches, and wing area 602 square feet.  

The USAAF ordered two XP-71s, but later had doubts that such a large 
and heavy warplane would ever be viable, and the project never reached 
the prototype state.  It was officially canceled on August 26, 1943.  

Sources: 

  The American Fighter, Enzo Angelucci and Peter Bowers, Orion, 1987.  

  American Combat Planes, Third Enlarged Edition, Ray Wagner, Doubleday, 
  1982.  

Joe Baugher		AT&T Bell Laboratories   	
2000 North Naperville Road      Naperville, Illinois 60566-7033