Thanks folks.
Brian: You touch it with a needle! If yer gonna be called a 'pursuit', you'd better be able to catch something
Robert: My first thought was the ASh 82 too ... but there's not much to distinguish the Shvetsov (roughly 'R-2515') from the available R-2600. Power outputs are similar but so too are dry weights (~ 2,045 lbs for the R-2600, 1,900-2,000 lbs for most ASh 82 variants).
I'm not sure why but I was expecting the ASh 82 to be lighter. It occurred to me later that my whif engine was roughly the same size as a Gnome-Rhône 14N. The French engine was lighter (1,370 lbs dry) but, in our timeframe, only generating 1,180 hp for T/O
Jon: Thanks for that. I had P&W's
Hawk 81 testbed in mind but had never before seen in drawings.
I like your idea of less Junior Twin Wasp
Just because Armstrong-Siddeley couldn't get a triple-row radial to work, doesn't mean it couldn't be done. Indeed, at that time, Pratt would've been the one to put your money on to make it happen!
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Okay ... new stuff. I had another go at a P-36/radial P-40 evolution which I'm a bit happier about. (Still not really fitting into the GB though, I reckon.)
In this case, the top profile is a P-42B engine testbed for the Wright XR-2600-1. As before, the tail has been moved aft in an attempt to restore c/g. As shown, a small spinner has replaced the original, large spinner removed in a not entirely successful effort to cure engine overheating. Note the gun barrel aperture in the cowling for synchronized .50s.
The production-model P-60B
Superhawks eliminated the cowl guns in favour of four wing-mounted .50-calibres. A new, forward-fuselage fuel tank replaced the P-40's rear fuselage tank in some models of P-60 and augmented that rear tank in others. Less obvious is that the entire forward fuselage has been lengthened, pushing the cockpit aft (relative to the P-36/P-40).
The lower profile shows a P-60B-CU-2 - one of the longer-range
Superhawk models that retained the rear fuselage tank. The 18th Pursuit Group was based out of Hawaii but the 44th Pursuit Squadron was redeployed to the Azores in July 1940. [1] By the beginning of 1941, the 44th's P-40Cs were being replaced with higher-performing P-60Bs.
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[1] The US occupation of the Azores was completed under 'War Plan Gray'. Just as British forces invaded and 'secured' Iceland in May 1940, the US occupied the Azores without Portuguese permission on 22 June 1940.