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comradeloganov β Northrop XP-61F Escort Fighter Prototype
Published: 2012-12-31 01:19:47 +0000 UTC; Views: 5255; Favourites: 30; Downloads: 149
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Description
Ordered in parallel with the P-82 Twin Mustang, the P-61F long range escort fighter was intended as a lower risk option should the radical Twin Mustang encounter development issues. This would prove to be a wise decision when the war ended and Rolls Royce began requiring a royalty to be paid for each Packard V-1650 Merlin produced. The uprated Allison V-1710 that was offered as an alternative powerplant for the P-82 Twin Mustang had so many reliability issues that it was referred to as the βAllison Time Bombβ! In contrast, the turbo supercharged Pratt & Whitney R-2800s that powered the P-61F were reliable and affordable. A P-61C (43-8338) was pulled from the Hawthorne production line and completed as the XP-61F prototype. The XP-61F was accepted by the Army Air Force and first flew in September of 1945. Having no need for additional P-61Cs, the USAAF converted the last 450 aircraft of the original order for 500 P-61Cs into day escort fighters. This order for 450 production fighters would continue to be revised into a final order for 150 escort fighters, 200 night fighters, and 100 photo-reconnaissance aircraft (designated F-15A Reporters).Related content
Comments: 41
The late Prop-era aircraft were incredible designs. The promise of extreme speed that jets offered was too good to pass up. The long endurance and loiter time a prop plane offers kept some types, Skyraiders, Bronchos in service for years.
Even after decades I imagine this old bird would do well in ground support roles. It can get where it is needed fast, and stay there longer than Jet aircraft.
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This thing would have been terrifying in the CAS role; four Hispanos and four M2 Brownings; plus a payload that makes the P-51 Mustang and even the legendary P-47 Thunderbolt look pretty bad. Although it probably could carry much more due to not having to lug around a heavy radar.
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For Ground support, and COIN it wouldn't need its radar so you could drop it and its operator... or swap it out for the smaller units they fitted on single-seat fighters Like the modified F6 Hellcats.
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The scariest part is that if its still flying by Vietnam, replace them Hispanos with M39s or Colt Mk12s and then hilarity ensues whenever a MiG-15/17/19 is stupid enough to go head-on rather than use a missile.Β
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The Skyraider was a very useful aircraft and managed to shoot down two Mig-17s. So the XP-61 might have been equally successful
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Oh yeah, undoubtedly. Hell, if it could sucker the MiG into a low-speed fight, due to the spoilerons and zat flaps, the XP-61 would be able to kite around like a goddamned butterfly
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It's true, I think it would have served well for decades in the COIN and CAS role. The late WWII prop aircraft never really get the credit they deserve. I think it's understandable why jets replaced them almost wholesale, but it's more than a little sad that they did.
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I think when The Air force had to decide where to spend limited funds flash and horsepower was the order of the day.
and in a lot of ways the ground forces paid a heavy price at times when all the Air Force had to support Them were fighters not well suited to the role.
Lets face it you dont need supersonic speeds, and Cutting edge systems when you are firing at a target on the ground.
what you need is a stable, agile aircraft that can stay in the area from more than a couple of minutes. For that nothing could beat a prop plane...
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Sure. The history of the USAF and CAS has never been a pleasant read.
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Its designs like this that make me wonder why the USAAF and the later USAF threw away so many promising designs, whether in service or prototypes.
For instance, the P-51 was used for ground attack over Korea, something it was poorly suited for due to how easily it could be shot down with shots to the engine, and as a result, losses were high. If it had been my decision, I would have sent P-47s to Korea instead for that role, and maybe some P-51s for escort fighters early on in the war (before the MiG-15 showed up).
Another example was the XB-42 "Mixmaster", which would have been AMAZINGLY effective as a tactical bomber or even as an early AWACS via use of radar and ECM equipment that existed at the time.
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Well, you had a few reasons, all of which make sense once you factor in the benefits that hindsight gives you. To be perfectly honest, the P-51s did good service in Korea. I agree the P-47s would have been better, but then the USAF would have had to keep an additional type in service, along with all the training, spares, and missed scrap metal that entailed.
The XP-61F wasn't pursued because the US had the Twin Mustang, which was a good aircraft. Only thing it had against it was the Allison and the plane was designed for WWII, in which case it would have had the Merlin.
The Mixmaster was probably the least likely of them all to succeed. A neat plane, but not worth the cost. You can't blame the USAAF for that one, Douglas actually asked the USAAF to cancel it! They said they wouldn't be able to make it meet specifications economically and the USAAF wisely opted for the B-45, instead. The B-26 Invader did just fine in Korea, however.
A lot of problems, however, came about from the USAF deciding that it didn't want to do the attack mission. That killed a lot of promising designs and retired many aircraft before it was wise (F-47 Thunderbolt, as you mentioned).
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Okay, I see your reasoning there, but World War II would have shown how vulnerable inline-engined fighter-bombers were, even if heavily armored for the day (i.e. the P-40 and Typhoon), whereas aircraft like the P-47 (F-47 in Korea) and F4U Corsair, which have radial engines, had a higher survivability rate as tank busters.
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Agree completely, but that plays into my last point. The USAF totally abandoned the idea of attack aircraft upon its inception. Basically, if you were flying low enough to worry about AAA, then you were doing it wrong. That was the USAF's idea.
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Yeah, too bad that the USAF forgot the role of Tactical Airpower in modern warfare. They heeded this lesson after relearning it in Korea, only to ALMOST take it too far in the opposite direction by neglecting air-to-air combat,then Vietnam happened, and the USAF seemed to get a balance, further improved upon in the Gulf War. Now, however, all of this is almost a moot point, as THERE'S NO ENEMY AIRCRAFT TO FIGHT! Virtually every nation actively avoids an air-to-air engagement with the US because they know that we have an advantage, whereas we have a disadvantage in almost every other way, particularly in numbers and logistics (the latter due to the fact that our soldiers are fighting so far away from the US).
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Actually, the USAF ditched real Tac Air almost as soon as the Korean War was over. They had to relearn it for Vietnam. They convinced themselves that Tac Air would just be nuclear in the next "real" war. How wrong they were. They focused very heavily on air-to-air, but only from a technological standpoint, convincing themselves that the age of guns were over. It is true that US air supremacy is so great at the moment that adversaries have recently tried to avoid it altogether.
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Yeah...and now that I think about it, they refuse to fight a CONVENTIONAL war against the US altogether; almost all of our opponents since Vietnam, sans Iraq, employed Guerilla warfare and almost exclusively on the ground. Damn cowards - sure, you can call me out for condemning them for an intelligent strategic decision, but that doesn't change the fact that I personally have a sense of honor. Too bad honor in warfare is basically dead - there is no such thing as adversaries fighting on an equal footing anymore, where the only determining factor is the skill of the individual soldier, and neither has an underhanded advantage (like a bomb strapped to themselves so that if they're wounded they can blow themselves and the enemy up).
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It's quite likely that the British said similar things about the Colonists nearly 250 years ago, though. You have to keep everything in perspective.
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Actually, I did take that into account. People asked how America won their Revolution until the Vietnam War provided the answer; even so, we DID defeat the British in some major battles that weren't ambushes at all, even BEFORE the French joined the war.
Having a sense of honor is a handicap in modern war, not a benefit; in fact, whoever violates the Geneva Conventions first tends to be the winner in today's wars due to the relative impotence of the United Nations as a whole. It's the reason why we haven't won in Afghanistan, because our military leaders have simply become too afraid of collateral damage, when sometimes it's the psychological effect of a LOT of bombs dropping on your head that can make an enemy surrender, not a near-miss by a "precision bomb". Unlike our military, however, I firmly believe that if an enemy military or militant group won't stand up and fight like REAL soldiers, then likewise we should show them the kind of brutality they woul expect to see only in nightmares as retaliation.
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I understand your perspective, I'm just saying that people would do well to understand the adversaries' perspective, as well.
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And I do. I'm aware that the enemy may find it just because it's their land they're fighting on (usually), or in the case of Al-Qaeda, because the US is percieved as the larger part of the national incarnation of the Devil, hence why we're called the "Big Satan" over there; the "Little Satan" is Israel, who is hated, according to them, not because of their religion, which is still certainly part of it, but because they're seen as the US' pawn in the Middle East - In reality, Israel's interests usually draw US in to the Middle East, not the US' interest drawing Israel into different issues.
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The line of discussion is pretty far from the XP-61F prototype, so I think I'll leave it here.
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Thanks, Antonis! That means quite a lot considering how nice your work is! Were you familiar with the XP-61F variant?
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Yes i know the plane ,i have also a nice 3D model that i will use it to the future,Maybe you would like to see the topic here [link] of a guy building a very detailed p-61 3D model !
Happy new Year
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Many people know the P-61 Black Widow, just not the XP-61F variant, since it was never finished. We're still not really sure what it was going to be. That 3D model is lovely. The renders that use it will be fantastic. It is the more common P-61B variant that saw service in the war, though, a completely different animal than the -F.
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Not a MiG-21 per se. Lots of people do MiG-21s. I encourage you to check out my friend Gekko's MiG-21 What If profiles: [link]
I, however, do have a MiG-21ish aircraft planned for later this year, so watch this space!
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Better than the Chain Lightning or the XA-38 Beech for escort. Well Drawn!
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Thanks! I'll be putting it on Beyond the Sprues shortly.
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Thanks! Yeah, it's like a P-38 on steroids. It's actually about the size of a B-25!
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Wait, what? It's the size of a Bomber?!
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Indeed. Look at this photo to see what I mean: [link]
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Yeah. Here's another to give some indication of scale. [link]
That said, it could fly a P-38 into the ground in the right hands. [link]
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They're escort fighters though, right? Like the BF-110.
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Well, yes and no. The only service variants were the P-61A, -B, & -C. They were all night fighters. The XP-61D was the prototype for the P-61C night fighter. They also built an escort fighter prototype, the XP-61E, but the war ended before it could see service. The P-82 Twin Mustang would have fulfilled the role better, anyway. The modified the XP-61E escort fighter, however, into the F-15 Reporter photo-reconnaissance aircraft that did see limited service after WWII. The P-61G and -H were other proposed variants of the night fighter modified for weather reconnaissance and long-range ferry flights, respectively.
The XP-61F, however, is something of a mystery and even P-61 "experts" can't agree on what it was. Some think it was another night fighter prototype, others a nighttime interdictor, and still others a high-altitude escort fighter. What is known is that a P-61C was to be modified into the XP-61F, so we can assume that it would have been powered by supercharged R-2800s. I've elected to complete the aircraft as the long-range escort fighter variant. I'll be doing some hypothetical service aircraft later, so watch this space!
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A cool aircraft! With a cool design!
Still, I prefer the F-41 Exoatmospheric Multirole Strike Fighter "Broadsword". XP Joke.
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