Citizendia
Your Ad Here

Hughes D-2

Howard Hughes inspecting the port engine c. 1943
Type Fighter aircraft, Bomber
Manufacturer Hughes Aircraft
Designed by Howard Hughes
Maiden flight 20 June 1943
Introduced Cancelled
Retired 1944
Primary user U.S. Army Air Corps (intended)
Number built 1 prototype
Variants Hughes XF-11

The Hughes D-2 was a mysterious American fighter and bomber project begun by Howard Hughes. A fighter aircraft is a Military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other Aircraft, as opposed to a Bomber, which is designed A bomber is a Military aircraft designed to attack ground and sea targets primarily by dropping Bombs on them An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing building testing selling and maintaining Aircraft, Aircraft parts Hughes Aircraft Company was a major aerospace and defense company founded by Howard Hughes. Howard Robard Hughes Jr (December 24 1905 – April 5 1976 was an American Aviator, Industrialist, Film producer / director, Philanthropist The maiden flight of an Aircraft is the first occasion on which an aircraft leaves the ground of its own accord Events 451 - Battle of Chalons: Flavius Aetius ' defeats Attila the Hun. Year 1943 ( MCMXLIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC was the predecessor of the U WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A fighter aircraft is a Military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other Aircraft, as opposed to a Bomber, which is designed A bomber is a Military aircraft designed to attack ground and sea targets primarily by dropping Bombs on them It never proceeded past the flight testing phase but was considered the inspiration for the later Hughes XF-11. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout [1]

Contents

Design and development

Howard Hughes began the design of an advanced twin-engine, twin-boom interceptor prior to World War II that was similar to the Lockheed P-38 that won the 1939 United States Army Air Corps design competition. Howard Robard Hughes Jr (December 24 1905 – April 5 1976 was an American Aviator, Industrialist, Film producer / director, Philanthropist World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC was the predecessor of the U Rather than abandoning the project, he later recounted in the 1947 Senate investigation that he "decided to design and build from the ground up, and with my own money, an entirely new airplane which would be so sensational in its performance that the Army would have to accept it. " [2]

Most of the airframe of the "DX-2" was made of Duramold plywood, a plastic-bonded plywood molded under heat and high pressure. Initially, the aircraft was to have been a "taildragger," but the landing gear was later changed to a tricycle configuration with the main undercarriage units retracting rearwards into the twin booms and the nosewheel retracing rearwards and rotating 90 degrees to lie flat in the small central fuselage. The powerplants were to have been a pair of experimental Wright Tornado forty-two cylinder, liquid-cooled radial engines. The Curtiss-Wright Corporation ( was once a leading Aircraft manufacturer of the United States, but has since become a component manufacturer specializing in The D-2 was built in secret at the Hughes Culver City, California factory with longtime associate, Glenn Odekirk, providing engineering inputs. Final assembly was done at the Hughes Harper Dry Lake facility in the Mojave Desert. The fighter that emerged from the Hughes experimental shop looked like a scaled-up P-38 Lightning and, on paper, sported similar performance potential.

Difficulties encountered in obtaining the Wright Tornado engines led to the substitution of proven Pratt & Whitney R-2800s. Pratt & Whitney is an American Aircraft engine manufacturer of products widely used in both civil and military aircraft. During the development of the fighter, Hughes considered changing the aircraft into a high-speed bomber, resulting in the USAAC issuing two different designations, the XP-73 and XA-37 to the fighter and bomber versions, respectively. The Hughes Aircraft XP-73 was a temporary designation applied to the Hughes D-2 after the Material Command at Wright Field obtained approval to purchase "one Hughes DX-2 The A-37 was a proposal by Howard Hughes for a twin-engine attack aircraft that to conserve the scarce supply of Aluminum for other uses would be built primarily out of

Testing

After it was readied for flight in 1942, Hughes himself took over the flight test program. However, after only a few brief hops, it was clear that high control forces were a problem. When full flight tests were finally conducted in 1943, modifications still had not be made to correct this problem. Hughes reluctantly concluded that the D-2 needed major modifications, including a complete redesign of the wings and a change in aerofoil section. The wing center section, which was continuous through the fuselage nacelle, was to be revised to increase the size of the proposed bomb bay. Following these changes, the aircraft was to be assigned the company designation D-5. After only a few test flights, the sole prototype was destroyed by a freak lightning strike at its desert hangar in November 1944. [3]

Aftermath

In 1943, Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, the President's son, had recommended that the D-2 or its successor be ordered as a photo reconnaissance aircraft. Colonel ( RP ˈkɜnəl GA ˈkɜrnəl is a Military rank of a Commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every country Elliott Roosevelt ( September 23, 1910 &ndash October 27, 1990) was an United States Army Air Corps officer and an Reconnaissance (also scouting) is a military and medical term denoting exploration conducted to gain information Despite his leadership in a military reconnaissance mission, the USAAC did not immediately act on Roosevelt's recommendation, partly due to Hughes' insistence that the D-2 development costs be factored into the proposed contract. Finally in mid-1944, Hughes agreed to develop a high-altitude, high-speed version of the D-2/D-5, known as the XF-11. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout [3]

Specifications

McDonnell Douglas Aircraft since 1920: Volume II[4]

References

Notes

  1. ^ Winchester 2005, p. 114.
  2. ^ Barton 1982, p. 14-15.
  3. ^ a b Barton 1982, p. 15.
  4. ^ Francillon 1990, p. 58.

Bibliography

External links

© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic