Twin-Whirlwind & Catalina…

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- Go 244 designer, stand up!
- Yes your Honor...
- Tell us: why have you designed the best weapon to carry the bloody Nazi murderers to their slaughter areas?!
- Uh, my personal project was the Go 244T with T for Tourism, not Transport: all glazed panoramic windows, to fly quietly over tourist spots, admiring...
- The Transport version is signed with your name!
- Yes, your Honor, with the main Go 244T was considered a possible Go 244U with U for Utility.
- To bring killers?!
- I thought if was to bring flowers...
- Why were there seats?!
- For gentle people with arms full of roses...
- We don't believe it! Judgement: you will never draw an aircraft again, only washing machines, to clean your dirt!
- Alas, your Honor...

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Last night on another planet, somebody asked me "in the USAF program that was won by the XP-54, why was this P-54 twice bigger than the 55 and 56?  Wasn't that unfair to compare such different aircraft?" . Difficult question... I have investigated all night in the archives of the US Air Torphe, and got the very surprising answer: the XP-54 prototype was just a way to fool the spies: the P-54A program was not at all intended to be single-engined, but 3-engined . And as the engines were tandem V-3420 (double V-1710), the total was somehow 6 engines. Secretly...  The spies were fooled during the War, the Historians were fooled during 60 years, but Truth is revealed now!  50 copies of this P-54A were almost finished when the cancellation of the V-3420 engine killed them, alas. The maximum speed was calculated as 960km/h=600mph in level flight, and more than the Me 163 in a dive.


Dear Julhelm asked me my opinion about installing an helicopter nose on a supersonic aircraft... Pleasant idea, thanks.
Then I wondered: what-if the Bell team that designed the beautiful Model 206 Jet Ranger have improved aesthetics of their XP-52 twin-boomer in order to introduce the 206? The answer is the Julhelm/Bell YP-52: cute...

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this P-54A
960km/h=600mph
XP-52
YP-52

Of course, the YP-52 was a joke. Seriously, the XP-52 was more aerodynamic. That could have been used on the rocket-powered P-52R, scheduled in 1944 for a transonic speed 700mph=1130km/h. (Maybe...)

EDIT: logical, as Bell XP-52 --> Bell P-52R --> Bell X-1 !

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with a wonderful view ahead for first class passengers, without disturbing pilots... :dum:
the very top in aviation technology has been already reached: Constellation and DC-4.

- Sir, 2 special panoramic rooms would be better than only one.
- But the pilots!
- No need, remote on the ground...
- Impossible!
- On the tail: top-liner TN-29T Twin...
- Yes, you will see, there will be a comfortable room for modelism...
- Where?
- Kinda "hospital", with one room for our Queens Elizabeth, one room for our Napoleons, one room for What-if modellers...
- Nice.
- Yes, "remotely-controlled-aircraft", of course, like a cloud-airliner... Nurse, injection please.

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Today January 1st 1945, all serious people do understand those 'jet' engines will not work at all

– Sir, I have seen models actually flying with a jet, last year in 1944...
– Yes, the jet and other kinds of rockets may be pretty good for fire works. Your half ounce toy-model CAN fly, great! But tell me, how many ounces is an airliner like the civil B-29 SuperLiner, mh? Do you imagine the size of the necessary jet?! And where to install it on the plane if it's twice its size?!
– The fuselage could be outside, or 2 fuselages, and that would be even better an airliner: you fly from NewYork to Europe – you drop half of the passengers over Paris downtown, the rest over Warsaw downtown, then the huge jet flying wing land on a special runway. That would be a jet with 2 gliders, twins: JG-29T. What-if...
– We will see!  Maybe in 2005, in 60 years!!!  Or on another planet, more probably.

(thanks to Scooterman directing us to MAP dreamers of nowadays   at http://www.cardatabase.net/modifiedairlinerphotos/ )

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"remotely-controlled-aircraft" 1945...

The dreadful V-1 was a kind of automatic aircraft, and the Focke-Wulf family could have been turned this way by the Luftwaffe. But I will never build them: an aircraft without canopy is like a dog without eye: as cute as a vacuum-cleaner...
I have bought several Unicraft Models twin-boom UAVs, but I plan to paint black eyes on them, they need that to enter my collection... A 1/72 UAV will be read as 1/400 airplane...

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automatic aircraft, and the Focke-Wulf family could have been turned this way
A 1/72 UAV will be read as 1/400 airplane...

It will be something like that, here with the Fw 190Z UAV above:

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Yes 2 fuselages are better than one, twin-tails better than one, twin T-tail s better than one (Fw 189T above on April 2nd, not 1st...), one Twin-T tail better than one T-tail: P-47T² (if JHM approves, as holy pope of our T-tail church department)... Our dear engineer may argue about the airflow that need to flow even when the flaps are down (or up) but there is no airflow on a plastic model whose goal is to stand proudly on a shelf...

Thanks again to Scooterman and the MAP modified airliners pictures, at http://www.cardatabase.net/modifiedairlinerphotos/ ...

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Haven't you ever heard of the DC-3J (J for Jet)? Well, this 1945 project was not an updated Dakota (Douglas-Cargo-3-Jet) exactly, the 'Real' name was dC-3J: double-Cargo-3-Jet...  


Well, probably you know better the DC-3G and dC-3G , BUT... as what-ifers, you are enough open-minded to know the 'truth' I have discovered:
Historians told us that these gliders were copies of the Hotspur and Twin-Hotspur, thus G for Glider. Wrong! All fell down when I asked foolishly "why are the tailplanes raised up like on the jets?". And all became clear: below the tails were hidden rockets, with fire exhausts; thus the raised up tailplanes, and the swept wings... G for Grand Speed Dakota.  

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below the tails were hidden rockets, with fire exhausts; thus the raised up tailplanes, and the swept wings... G for Grand Speed Dakota.

Probably you doubted of a what-ifer words, but what about a photograph from the USAAF secret archives? Mh?

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(thanks to Scooterman directing us to MAP dreamers of nowadays  at http://www.cardatabase.net/modifiedairlinerphotos/ )

And once more, from this so rich source ideas...

P-82S means Starboard (nick-name: Mustang Star)

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Or: closer to this special 2-seat F-16 Fighting Falcon: P-82 FM Fighting Mustang.
The requirements were exactly the same: 1 radar nose, 1 engine with belly scoop, crew of 2 (radar operator aft, pilot front with very good view forward). That explains why the results were so similar, in 1943 and 2003...

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When I was a kid, I was much impressed by the amazing P-47: such a huge engine up to 2,800hp, such a huge aircraft, was it possible to build an even bigger propeller-fighter? Then I turned the page and... it was Douglas XP-48, tiny little thing with 500hp   . No, impossible, as next step after the P-47 ... Maybe a spy  could trust it but not me: I closed the book forever (joke  - I could have).
Then, in my twin-boom search , I have discovered the XP-69 with no relation at all to the secret P-69A, all right. And the P-38 Lightning that gave birth to the P-58 Chain-Lightning, but... why 38 then 58 ?! hey, the serial must have been 38/48/58 ! Sure! The little XP-48 was a toy to hide the secret P-48A, the missing link ^_^ !

Lockheed P-48A Chalightning ... This way, the family is complete . Alas most books do not reveal the secrets of the past, the hidden logics, they just tell sad and boring stories...

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In The end of Forked Ghosts, I mentioned the Messerschmitt Me-1109 as derivative of Me-909: 609+509 instead of 409+509, and I did not draw it, because not room enough, I add it now.

Of course other possibilities "exist" for 1109 : 1009+109, 909+209, 809+309, 709+409...and as 1009 may be 509+509, 609+409, 709+309, 809+209, 909+109... and as 909 may be... etc.
I am just sad the P-51s (A/C/D/FTB) & P-82s have not been numbered this way (as P-511/512/513/515 & 516), I would have drawn them all. Maybe.

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I know the P-38 is Number-One in the Universe of twin-boomers, though I disagree with its design... The goal was a twin-engined single seater with guns on the centerline (so push-pull rejected), all right, but why having so bad a view forward/below as there is no more nose engine? Guns could have been above or below, aft, keeping the nose for the pilot. Yes, on the single-seater basis, with a prone pilot and without the nose passenger of the P-38L Droop-Snoot version. That would have made the Lockheed-Toff (Lockhoff) P-38V Viewning... No, nurse, no injection, please, isn't there a pill doing the same? What... what is wrong in such a design?