May 202011
OK, back to contests with actual VALUABLE PRIZES. Specifically: $20 in downloadables for whoever can identify the vehicle that this was a part of.
The contest will run until either sometime Sunday, or until someone posts the correct answer.
I’m really not sure if this one will be universally tricky or not. I suspect that few have seen this drawing… but many have seen similar.
17 Responses to “Contest: What is this?”
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is it the XP-79Z?
Just a shot in the dark, but is this a diagram of the Northrop XP-79? The XP-79 was intended to be a rocket fighter made of magnesium. Anyone who combines magnesium with a rocket engine in an airplane is either brave or nuts or both. It is undoubtedly apocryphal, but I have read claims that the XP-79 was intended to ram enemy aircraft. I really doubt this, but it is often reported.
The picture above makes me think of the XP-79 because the pilot in that craft lay prone in the cockpit (i.e. on his stomach.) This was intended to enable the pilot to withstand higher ‘g’ loading.
Perhaps it’s a Gotha P-60?
I think it is the XP-79B, not the XP-79Z that James mentions above. The Z had the engine below and aft of the pilot while the B had the engines podded (sort-of) on the wings.
The lower profile doesn’t fit iwth the -79Z that is shown in American Secret Projects: Fighters and Interceptors
The guns (two, one-behind the other appear) to be Browning .50 caliber, so this is probably a US aircraft design of WW II vintage.
What’s got me going is what appears to be a reversed airfoil canard shown behind the pilot.
Stabilizing fin on the escape pod to make it fall feet-first?
The whole thing looks Northrop, although a German influence might be visible in what looks like a skid landing gear.
Lippisch Li DM-2 derivative designed just after the war?
I’m thinking a Convair Skate.
Note the flying boat hull form
(And the waterline indicated in the drawing)
It’s not the -79B. The B had a big antenna blade right aft of the cockpit. It’s not the -79Z either. This beast has sleeker nose. So I stand corrected.
This screams Lippisch P 01-117. The gun placement is similar.
maybe a Heinkel HE “LERCHE II”
one of Convair Division, flying sub proposal ?
Martin Mighty Midget, methinks.
I believe this to be the nose section of one of several Convair designs for a “flying submarine” (possibly the Flying Submersible ASW Vehicle mentioned in report HP-62-016, from 1962.
Hm. I remember seeing a real prototype or scale model of something much like this at the Hiller Museum in San Carlos, but it’s been too long to remember the name 🙁 Being it was the Hiller Museum it was probably some sort of helicopter-derived personal flying platform, though.
After digging the matter a little further, I realize that it’s not the 1962 project (which was quite a different design), but the 1964 three-engined design called the “Subplane”, which received a contract from the Bureau of Naval Weapons in 1964.
Maybe the Vought F-5U flying pancake?
And as it turns out, we have a winner:
Peter Stickney says:
“I’m thinking a Convair Skate.”
See details here:
http://up-ship.com/blog/blog/?p=10112
Notice how I said the contest would run until someone got the right answer? Well, I lied. But it did end sometime on Sunday (by my clock, I have four minutes).
Well, I missed the plane, but was right about those being .50 caliber machine guns and postwar part.
The Skate looks like a Grumman Cougar in top view.
Were those wing rocket guns used on anything else? There was a prototype Sherman tank variant that had automatic rocket launchers on the turret sides, the T-31: https://specialeast.com/images/R72052.jpg
Though it fired 7.2″, not 5″ rockets.