I would expect in the fuselage
Yep. In Jeff Duford's article on Hughes in
Air Power History, he mentions that Palmer intended the twin gun armament for the XP-2 (militarized H-1 derivative) to be mounted in the wing fillets. Duford also speculated that a larger R-1830 might be adopted. So, more power but also increased frontal area.
Having recently played around with the notion of a militarized H-1, I can say that little or nothing of the original racer would be left. The fuselage has to be deepened for the
Twin Wasp (and for pilot visibility) and the XP-2 wings were to be extended (by comparison with even the long-span H-1 wings). Duford also mentions an elliptical wing profile ... although, I suspect, that means on the trailing edge (as per Seversky).
There is no mention of actual wing area for the XP-2 but the long, 9.67 m span H-1 wings were only 0.58% the size of the wing of the rival Curtiss Model 75A (0.62% of the Seversky SEV-1XP). So a
biiig increase in wing area would be needed for the Hughes pursuit to match the manoeuvrability of its rivals.
So, instead of meeting USAAC Spec X–603 for a pursuit, perhaps our militarized H-1 should be a fast-climbing, point-defence interceptor?
