Subject: Number Fifty-Three in the Series--Curtiss XP-53

From: [email-masked]
Date: 2 Mar 93 17:26:13 GMT

>From [email-masked]

Following the failure of the XP-46 to win any Army production orders, 
the Curtiss company proposed another design in their search for the 
eventual replacement for the P-40.  This was the Curtiss Model 88, 
which was an improved XP-46 powered by the yet-to-be-built 1600-hp 
Continental XIV-1430-3 twelve-cylinder liquid-cooled inverted Vee 
engine.  

The Model 88 was to use the fuselage and tail assembly from the P-40D 
combined with a NACA laminar flow wing.  Armament was to have 
consisted of eight wing-mounted machine guns.  The mainwheel 
retraction scheme reverted to the sequence used by the original P-40, 
with the mainwheels rotating 90 degrees before they retracted 
rearwards into wing wells.  Maximum speed was projected to be 430 mph.  

On October 1, 1940, the USAAC ordered two examples of the Model 88 
under the designation XP-53.  Serials were 41-140 and 41-19508.  In a 
conference held six weeks later, the USAAC informed Curtiss-Wright of 
its need for a fighter combining laminar flow wing technology with the 
British Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.  Since the XP-53 was already being 
designed for laminar-flow wings, Curtiss proposed to convert the 
second XP-53 airframe (41-19508) to the Merlin engine while it was 
undergoing construction.  This airframe was redesignated Model 90 by 
the company.  The USAAC accepted this idea, and assigned the 
designation XP-60 to the new aircraft.  The other XP-53 airframe was 
to retain the Continental engine.  

However, while the XP-53 and XP-60 were both undergoing construction, 
the Army cancelled the XP-53 order because of the excessive delays in 
the temperamental Continental XIV-1430 engine.  The XP-53 never flew.  
As it turned out, the Continental engine never did enter production, 
and all of those aircraft projects which had planned for it ultimately 
failed.  

In November 1941, the XP-53 airframe was converted into a static test 
airframe in support of the P-60 project, and its bullet-proof 
windshield, self-sealing fuel tanks, and armament were scavenged and 
transferred to the XP-60.  

Sources: 

  Curtiss Aircraft, 1907-1947, Peter M. Bowers, Naval Institute Press, 
  1979.  

  War Planes of the Second World War, Fighters, Volume Four, William 
  Green, Doubleday, 1964.  

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

Joe Baugher       AT&T Bell Laboratories    2000 North Naperville Road 
		  Naperville, Illinois 60566-7033.   (708) 713-4548