McDonnell shipboard single-seat pusher fighter (1942)

[Triton]

McDonnell Aircraft Company advertisement from 1942 showing a pusher concept.

[link no longer active]

 

[Triton]

This McDonnell aircraft resembles the Vultee XP-54 Swoose Goose. Could this aircraft have been McDonnell's response to a U.S. Army Air Corps request for an unusual configuration that also created the Curtiss XP-55 Ascender and the Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet?

 

[Antonio]

Could this aircraft have been McDonnell's response to a U.S. Army Air Corps request for an unusual configuration that also created the Curtiss XP-55 Ascender and the Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet?

No

Request for data R40-C goal wasn't an "unusual configuration fighter". It was a requeriment for a high performance fighter. Designers were invited to an uncomplexed research exploring into the unconventional if necesary to get a 500 mph propeller driven aircraft flying by 1942. This air superiority fighter would help to keep USA frontiers free from hypotetical Japanese or German agression.

McDonnell entry was the Model 1, a design very different from the one you found on eBay. McDonnell received funds to develop his concept into Model 2, which was later procured as the XP-67.

I'm not sure but there is a strong possibility for this drawing to be just an ornamental design.

There is some info here in the forum about R40-C

Comprehensive coverage of R40-C here:

American Secret Pusher Fighters of World War II by Gerald H. Balzer. Speciality Press. 2008

http://www.cartechbooks.com/vstore/showdetl.cfm?User_ID=2753633&DS_ID=4&St=257&St2=-86504&St3=-51273&Product_ID=1847&DID=8

 

[Triton]

Thank you for the information, pometablava. ;D

 

[Stargazer]

Very likely McDonnell's Model 6.

Model 6 is described as a shipboard (Navy) single-seat fighter with an Allison pusher engine.
Model 8 is described as a shipboard (Navy) single-seat fighter with an Pratt & Whitney R-2800 pusher engine.

Personally I would pick the Allison-powered design myself since the engine in the picture is inline, not radial.

 

[Triton]

Thank you very much, Stargazer. I was beginning to wonder if it was a real project.

 

[Antonio]

Personally I would pick the Allison-powered design myself since the engine in the picture is inline, not radial.

I agree with you

To get an idea of how a pusher V-1710 installation looks see the Bell Airacuda, and look at the Bell XP-59 (Model 20) for pusher R-2800 installation.