Bell XP-59B

[Justo Miranda]

P-80 ancestor

 

[Stargazer]

More like the P-83's elder stillborn brother.

 

[Apophenia]

The story is widely circulated that the contract for, and data on, the GE I-63-powered* XP-59B design was transferred to Lockheed. The Skunk Works then applied that data to a refined concept powered by the Halford H.1 (later DH Goblin). The end result was the Lockheed L 140/XP-80.

Can anyone validate this story or know its origin?

[* Baugher says a single GE I-16/J31 ]

 

[Justo Miranda]

My source
please see pp.31

 

[Steve Pace]

I found this online - anyone know who drew it? -SP

 

[Stargazer]

I found this online - anyone know who drew it? -SP

I could be wrong, but this looks like typical Green/Swanborough material to me.

 

[Arjen]

It looks very much like the XP-59B 3-view from 'Bell Aircraft since 1935' by Alain J Pelletier, Putnam, 1992.
Identical relative positions of front, upper and side view.

Solid black air intakes in front view, solid black tires, absence of wheel positions in front view and Putnam's size bar are the only differences.

 

[Steve Pace]

Thanks Skyblazer and Arjen. -SP

 

[sienar]

Related patent

 

[Steve Pace]

Related patent

WOW! How cool is this!! Thanks so much!!! -SP

 

[sienar]

Related patent

WOW! How cool is this!! Thanks so much!!! -SP

There is another from the same time and same people. Probably an alternate layout that was studied.

 

[Steve Pace]

Related patent

WOW! How cool is this!! Thanks so much!!! -SP

There is another from the same time and same people. Probably an alternate layout that was studied.

Very interesting, indeed. Thank you! I need your full name for proper crediting. -SP

 

[Stargazer]

Very interesting, indeed. Thank you! I need your full name for proper crediting. -SP

Not that I mean to diminish anyone's contribution here, but all this patent art can easily be found on Google Patents with the proper keywords. It's not like somebody actually researched library archives and dug it out for all to see...

 

[Anachronus]

That intake under the wing would have been a very bad idea me thinks.

 

[lark]

The drawing Steve Page is askin' for more info (rep#4) is taken
from : Air Force Legends number 208 "Bell P-59 Airacomet"

Page 25 . A lot of contributors are mentioned but not
a particular one for the drawing.

 

[Stargazer]

The drawing Steve Page is askin' for more info (rep#4) is taken
from : Air Force Legends number 208 "Bell P-59 Airacomet"

??????

The book you're mentioning is on my bookshelf and it was written by... Steve Pace himself!!!

So why would he ask for more info about his own book?

 

[Steve Pace]

Mr. Ginter inserted it after the fact and I asked him who it was by and he said he can't remember...."SO DON'T CREDIT IT."

 

[Arjen]

Apart from the 1992 Bell title, Alain J Pelletier also wrote Putnam's 'Beech Aircraft and their Predecessors' in 1994.
Peter W Brooks wrote Putnam's 'Zeppelin: Rigid Airships 1893-1940' in 1992.
John Wegg wrote Putnam's 'General Dynamics and their predecessors' in 1990.
Hans G Andersson wrote Putnam's 'Saab Aircraft since 1937' in 1989.

In the Beech, Zeppelin, General Dynamics and Saab prefaces, the authors thank Carl G Ahremark for producing most/all of the general arrangement drawings.

Who drew the image - I believe that would be Carl-Gustaf Ahremark.

 

[Stargazer]

Mr. Ginter inserted it after the fact and I asked him who it was by and he said he can't remember...."SO DON'T CREDIT IT."

Oh, okay... Thanks for explaining, it didn't seem very logical from the outside but now it makes sense!

 

[Justo Miranda]

Bell XP-59B

​

On August 27, 1939, the German jet prototype Heinkel He 178 V-1 was flown, powered

by one Heinkel-Hirth HeS 3B centrifugal flow turbojet, with 500 kgf static thrust and 3.9 feet of diameter.

Late in 1939, the Heinkel team in Rostock was working on the development of the

HeS 8 centrifugal turbojet, which was expected to be used to propel the He 280 fighters.

With a planned thrust of 700 kgf and a diameter 20 per cent shorter than the HeS 3, the

new turbojet required a great research effort and an extensive test program. Numerous

technical problems had to be solved before starting its large-scale production and the

HeS 8 suffered numerous delays. By March 1941, it only produced 500 kgf static thrust,

550 kgf by early 1942, and 600 kgf in early 1943.

The root cause was the reduction of the diameter, recommended by the aerodynamicists

to minimize the drag produced by the engine nacelles when installed under the wings of

the He 280. Trials experience revealed that the most effective way to increase thrust in

this type of turbojets was to also increase their diameter, to improve the performance of

the centrifugal compressor.

The British jet prototype Gloster E.28/39 (W4041/G) made its first flight on May 15,

1941, powered by one Power Jets W1 centrifugal flow turbojet, with 390 kgf static

thrust and 3.5 feet in diameter. In March 1942, the Power Jets W1A produced 525 kgf.

In early 1943, the Power Jets W2/500 produced 734 kgf and 770 kgf in August.

By mid-1943 it became clear that the future Bell P-59A fighter would not be able to compete in dogfight and speed with the piston fighters of the time, let alone the new Luftwaffe’s jet and rocket fighters.

In June 1943, the British turbojet de Havilland Halford H.1, with 4.2 feet in diameter, produced 1,225 kgf static thrust. With this power, it was possible to build a single-engined jet fighter, with the centrifugal turbojet installed inside the fuselage.

Bell's design team proposed the XP-59B, a single-engined derivative of the YP-59A with the wingspan reduced to 65 percent and the tail surfaces reduced to 93 percent.

The proposed armament for the new light fighter was one nose mounted 37-mm M4 cannon and two 0.5-in machine guns, but the USAAF decided to entrust its development to Lockheed.

 

[hesham]

My dear Justo,

why you always repeat the same topic ?!,

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/bell-xp-59b.8075/

 

[T. A. Gardner]

With German turbojets in general, it didn't help that the engineers designing them had only limited access to turbine blade profile libraries as Germany didn't have any leading steam turbine / gas turbine manufacturers at the time. Their only source once the war started was Brown Boveri in Switzerland.

The US and Britain on the other hand, had a number of companies with vast turbine experience like Vickers, GE, Westinghouse, and de Havilland. This gave them a clear advantage in designing turbojets when they turned to it.

v. Ohain at Henkel took what might be called a Solomonic approach to the problem combining a centrifugal compressor section with an axial one to get the necessary compression ratios. BMW, after their near disastrous flight of the Me 262 V1, turned to Brown Boveri and spent about two years redesigning the compressor section on their 003 engine.

In the US, you had Nathan Pierce at Lockheed--Pierce was a protégé of Abner Doble a wizard in steam engineering--design the incredibly complex J 37 with 2 16 stage axial compressors (after trying mixed centrifugal, reciprocating, and even gear driven compressor sections) to get fuel economy close to what piston engines of the era gave but ended up being a complex failure.

So, these early jet engine developers all met with their problems, but the advantage lay with the Allies who had access to better materials and far more basic research than the Germans did.

 

[Antonio]

merged topics

 

[Justo Miranda]

merged topics

If Linnaeus had not been so obsessed with classification, he might have discovered evolution