XP-37 In The Cold

[Jack Cook]

Curtiss YP-37 at Ladd Field, AK 1940

[vg-photo]

Neat shot, Jack! It sure looks fast.

[Mgawa]

Red nose?

[Glyn]

Neat shot, Jack! It sure looks fast.

Ah, looks can be deceiving! According to the Flight Manual the maximum speed was 340 mph which was not too bad for 1,150 horses. VNE was
397 mph and it took off after a 713' run at 83 mph with 15 degrees of flap.

[vg-photo]

Indeed deceiving. With thatlong, huge nose, it looks like it's packing one heck of a powerplant.

[Warbird Mechanic]

The Curtiss XP-37 was concieved when it was decided to add an Allison inline engine onto the Curtiss P-36 airframe. Indeed, its long pointed fuselage with the cockpit just ahead of the tail fin gave the XP-37 a futuristic look that more closely resembled a race plane than a fighter. The radiator for cooling the Prestone was located behind the turbo-supercharged Allison V-1710-11 engine, which resulted in the relocation of the cockpit towards the rear. Unfortunately, this arrangement was very unpopular with the test pilots that flew these aircraft because of the poor visibility over the long nose. Performance of the turbo-supercharger was found to be unsatisfactory, although the XP-37 did achieve the guaranteed 340 mph at 20,000 feet when all systems were functioning properly. The Army ordered 13 YP-37's for service tests despite the shortcomings. The YP-37's weighed 450 pounds more than the XP-37 prototype and they fell short of achieving 340 mph by being 9 mph slower than the XP-37 prototype. The YP-37's fuselage length was 22 inches longer than the XP-37 when the cockpit was moved forward a bit, the radiator and turbo-supercharger were also modified. After extensive testing, the Army decided the P-37 was not what they were looking for in an inline engined fighter.

The YP-37's used the same exact wings as the P-36's, which measured 37 feet 4 inches. Overall length was 32 feet 10 inches and height was 9 1/2 feet. Armament was one .30 cal and one .50 cal gun in the nose. Service ceiling was 34,000 feet and range was 870 miles. Empty, each YP-37 weighed 5,723 pounds and loaded it weighed 6,890 pounds including 164 gallons of fuel.

Jim

[Jack Cook]

On one of my number visit with test pilot legend "Tailspin Tommy" Tomlison he recounted making the first flight in the XP-37.
I believe he also made first flights in the BC-1, NA-21 and DC series (co-pilot)

[Captain Jack]

Does anyone have copies of the YP-37 flight and maintenance manuals??

[Tiger Tim]

The snow, the pointyness of the airplane, the (I assume) red nose (and wings?) all make it look like it's trying to be a MiG-3...

-Tim