North American/General Aviation GA-38X transport aircraft

[hesham]

Hi,

the North American/General Aviation GA-38X was three engined
low-wing medium transport aircraft project of 1932,powered by
three P&W Wasp engines.

http://www.aerofiles.com/_noram.html

 

[Stargazer]

Funny... I had a feeling this had already been posted elsewhere, but I can't find it...

 

[archipeppe]

An American Ju-52/3m????

 

[Jemiba]

"..I had a feeling this had already been posted elsewhere..."

Me too, but perhaps it was just this :

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1345.30.html, reply 32

 

[Stargazer]

Nah. I can tell a US project when I see one! I used to have that selfsame 3-view on my HD and I was certain it came from this here forum. Perhaps it was another one?

 

[Jos Heyman]

Let's not worry wether it had been posted before .
Arthur Pearcy's book 'Douglas Propliners DC-1 to DC-7 on page 25 states that the GA-38 project was in response of Jack Fry's letter of 2 August 1932 that spawned the DC-1. The GA-38 was to have 3 Pratt & Whitney Wasps, a length of 59'8" and a span of 76'6". It would have flown in 1933.
The drawing in Aerofiles was from the 1934 edition of Aircraft Year Book.
As to who got it to Aerofiles, I plead guilty.

 

[hesham]

From l'Aeronautique 1933,


anther drawing to GA-38.

 

[cluttonfred]

Neat! For those who don't speak French, the caption to the second image points out that only the nose engine used reduction gear. Note the larger prop diameter for the center engine in hesham's first image.

 

[Stargazer]

Did no-one notice something strange about the Electra? It's a SINGLE-TAIL design!!!

 

[JimK]

This is a fairly well-known story, but I'll quote from the book Kelly, More Than My Share of it All, by Johnson and Smith:
"When we got to California in 1933, I was hired at Lockheed by Cyril Chappellet . . .
"Practically the first thing I told Chappellet and Hibbard was that their plane was unstable and that I did not agree with the university's wind tunnel report.
. . .
"Hibbard sent me back to the University of Michigan wind tunnel with the Electra model in the back of my car. It took 72 tunnel runs before I found the answer to the problem.
"It was a process of evolution. On the seventy-second test, I came up the the idea of putting centrollable [?] plates on the horizontal tail to increase its effectiveness and get more directional stability. That worked very well, particularly when we removed the wing fillets, . . .
"We then added a double vertical tail because the single rudder did not provide enough control if one engine went out. That was so effective we removed the main center tail. And there you had the the final design of the Electra."

 

[hesham]

Hi,

as we heard before,there was a designations from GA-1 to GA-15,and when the company became North American,it began with NA.16,was that right ?,
and who know those earlier concepts ?!.

 

[hesham]

Hi,

as we heard before,there was a designations from GA-1 to GA-15,and when the company became North American,it began with NA.16,was that right ?,
and who know those earlier concepts ?!.

From a book about T-6.

 

[hesham]

By the way,

the GA-37 was a high-speed mail carrier aircraft Project.

AAHS 2022

 

[hesham]

By the way,

the GA-37 was a high-speed mail carrier aircraft Project.

AAHS 2022

That's proof of the series was completed,GA-39 to GA-43 as I think ?.

 

[Stargazer]

That's proof of the series was completed,GA-39 to GA-43 as I think ?.

Since these were neither Fokker, nor Fairchild, nor North American model numbers, it is possible that General Aviation had their own project numbering system which might have included other things than just aircraft. Or perhaps #1-36 never even existed!
The only thing we know for sure is that Fairchild took over that numbering system when the GA-46 became the Fairchild 46.

 

[hesham]

Since these were neither Fokker, nor Fairchild, nor North American model numbers, it is possible that General Aviation had their own project numbering system which might have included other things than just aircraft. Or perhaps #1-36 never even existed!
The only thing we know for sure is that Fairchild took over that numbering system when the GA-46 became the Fairchild 46.

As you mentioned,we want to know the beginning of series,from number 3x
or 2x ?.

 

[Stargazer]

Interesting info: the GA-38 (-38X) design was not JUST a project. The aircraft was actually started, and a fuselage and wings were built. Here are selected entries from Gert P. M. Blüm's GUIDE to the AMERICAN FOKKER PHOTO FILES:



The best guess is that when General Aviation folded, North American Aviation scrapped just everything they could see no use for (we already know, for instance, that NAA dismantled the Fokker-Hall H-51 prototype, so they likely did the same for a number of prototypes they had no use for). Let's face it: the GA-38 was already an obsolete design in 1934, after Douglas's superior designs suddenly made the entire competition redundant. And the fact that it was a trimotor probably didn't plead in favor of completing it, however advanced its assembly might have been!

Also, here is a beautiful, detailed plan of the GA-38 and its structure, published by Model Airplane News in March 1935: