Hello all!
Blackkite, Tony Buttler and my new book, "American Secret Projects: Fighter, Bomber and Attack Aircraft 1937-1945", should be available next week. I will be attending the IPMS/UK at Telford and will be giving a talk going into greater depth on several of the aircraft featured in the book. In addition, Tony and I will be at the Crecy table signing books for those interested.
The "phantom" illustration in our book is from a scan of the original and differs from that in Bill Norton's in the aircraft's configuration, showing the amount of changes the aircraft went through prior to its final cancellation in 1943. I believe the 3-view drawing I did and that is shown in this thread is that of the original configuration, while the straighter wing was the final iteration. The problem with researching Curtiss is trying to find original documents. No one is quite sure where they all went although I believe I have a line on a great deal of them. The problem there is that they are in storage and the organization which has them has no real idea what they have and doesn't have enough funding to go back through them (and millions of other documents and photos), catalogue, index and make them available. And they will certainly not allow a "mere mortal" to go into the stacks.
I hope this answers your question satisfactorily. I have a great interest in the XP-71 and have a copy of the USAAF Case Study on the aircraft which I will be using in a future title.
AlanG