Interesting concept bringing two P-39s to the fight with you, just wondering the effects of dragging the glider had on the B-17
And it would be interesting to see the whole thing on take-off, too.
Sort of an inverted Mistel.
We winder how much more the glider weighed, compared with the maximum bomb load the a P-39 could carry?????
Bell P-39 had an empty weight of 6,515 pounds and a maximum take-off weight of 8,400 pounds, for a useful load less than 1,884. A pair of P-39s had a useful load of less than 3,768 pounds, only enough to lift a small glider ... perhaps only a British Hotspur. Those are landing gear limitations.
P-39 empty weight could be reduced by stripping out wing guns and some of the armour, but the 37 mm cannon and some of the nose armour would need to stay to maintain balance.
The second factor is the excess horsepower generated by the Allison V-1710-86 engines.
If we compare XCG-9 with the British Horsa glider (30 seater), we get a gross weight of 15,750 pounds. Add that to the empty weights of a pair of P-39s and you get an MTOW of 28,782, which leads to a power/mass of 0.083, similar to C-46 at 0.088 and C-47 at 0.095. So there was enough horsepower to fly this mysterious mistel.
Dear Moderators, please link this thread with the bigger thread about American cargo gliders.