WS-300A (Fighter-bomber) Competition

[ivran]

Does anybody have 3 view of NAA WS-300 project, beautiful designe,thanks in advance

 

[Pioneer]

Just found this included in a comment at another website:

"....and also included an internal weapons bay, unlike either of the similar looking designs we were debating."

(Source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread79899/pg4)

Just wondering if circle-5 could possibly confirm or deny, by seeing if your marvelous desktop model might have a weapons bay on its underside please???


Regards
Pioneer

 

[acegeek9992]

Hi All!

WS-300A/FBX proposals:

1) North American Model NA-237
2) Republic Model AP-?
3) Martin Model M-315 (Fighter bomber (unconventional takeoff))
I think that participated.
4) Boeing Model B-7??
I think that participated.
5) GD/Convair Model ?
I think that participated.
6) Douglas model D-1???
I think that participated.
7) Lockheed Model CL-?
I think that participated.
8) McDonnell Model M-11?
I think that participated.
9) Northrop Model N-16? or PD-?
I think that participated.

What can we say about this?

Me here, I'd like to see a pic or two on what the Martin M-315 looked like. I've tried searching it up and I've got no results so far

 

[acegeek9992]

You know it comes to mind that if the CL366-2 had become a reality, a visual range dogfight between a CL366-2 equipped force and a Mig 21 group would have not been fun. For either side.

How so?

 

[acegeek9992]

By popular (PM) request, two more photos of the NAA WS-300A proposal model, including a profile view.

Lemme guess, is this the NA-237?

 

[yasotay]

You know it comes to mind that if the CL366-2 had become a reality, a visual range dogfight between a CL366-2 equipped force and a Mig 21 group would have not been fun. For either side.

How so?

Similar profiles. In classic air combat of the time where snap visions of swirling combat, high g's and good old fear can make you mind see things it could have been difficult for anyone to differentiate friend from foe.

 

[acegeek9992]

You know it comes to mind that if the CL366-2 had become a reality, a visual range dogfight between a CL366-2 equipped force and a Mig 21 group would have not been fun. For either side.

How so?

Similar profiles. In classic air combat of the time where snap visions of swirling combat, high g's and good old fear can make you mind see things it could have been difficult for anyone to differentiate friend from foe.

I see. In other words, some unlucky blokes on both sides end up mistaking their buddies for the enemy within the chaos of dogfighting and commit friendly fire

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

A paper by Alexander Kartveli, dated April 16th 1956, describing the Republic WS-300A design:

https://issuu.com/aviationmedia/docs/design_philosophy_all_pages
A high wing and low tail, like those of the XF-103 and F-105 would be adopted

The aircraft would have had a pair of air intakes, one on either side, underneath and projecting ahead of the leading edge of the wing, with a single all-moving tail fin, wing-tip ailerons, and would have also had a large folding ventral tail fin.

The aircraft would have had a single Pratt & Whitney JT9A-20, with the Allison J-89 as an alternative. An alternative design with a pair of General Electric X-275s was also apparently studied.

Avionics and cockpit displays would have been provided by RCA and Minneapolis-Honeywell. An XF-103-style escape was also considered.

 

[Scott Kenny]

North American Aviation factory model of WS-300A proposal.

Do we have any surviving specs for how big that was supposed to be? The cockpit windows make it look like it's MiG-25 or even -31 sized...

 

[Skyle775]

CL-366 was Lockheed-California submission to WS-300A for fighter-bomber with secondary interception capability due to enter service in 1962. At least two configurations were studied, one canard and one conventional. LCAC submitted CL-366-1 because it offered a better range (777 nmi combat radius versus 482nmi). Performance requested by RFP were inter alia max 1500 feet take-off run at combat weight and max speed in clean configuration of Mach 3.0 at 88.000 feet. Same general configuration was used for Navy/USMC of some months later. Navy version was CL-398. t is unknown if this last was in response to formal RFP or company tender. If former, could be a competitor of the unidentified USMC-marked NAA fighter found in model form by Tony Buttler some time ago.

the american Mig-21PF

 

[JFC Fuller]

A paper by Alexander Kartveli, dated April 16th 1956, describing the Republic WS-300A design:

https://issuu.com/aviationmedia/docs/design_philosophy_all_pages
A high wing and low tail, like those of the XF-103 and F-105 would be adopted

The aircraft would have had a pair of air intakes, one on either side, underneath and projecting ahead of the leading edge of the wing, with a single all-moving tail fin, wing-tip ailerons, and would have also had a large folding ventral tail fin.

The aircraft would have had a single Pratt & Whitney JT9A-20, with the Allison J-89 as an alternative. An alternative design with a pair of General Electric X-275s was also apparently studied.

Avionics and cockpit displays would have been provided by RCA and Minneapolis-Honeywell. An XF-103-style escape was also considered.

Its a shame that page 4 is missing, based on the imprint of it on page 3 it would explain the planform. In the absence of that, this sounds like a planform similar to the XF-103 (including the folding stabiliser) on an enlarged and refined F-105 style fuselage with enlarged air intakes. The section about the flush rotating bomb bay states that it would "also carry the defensive armament of the airplane", this leaves me wondering if air-to-air guided missiles were to be carried in the bomb bay alongside the Mark 27 or Mark 28. The AIM-4 was 6ft 6" long so 2-3 of them carried in the forward part of the bay, in a similar configuration to the F-101, ahead of the nuclear store should have been possible within a 20ft long bay. For reference, the F-105 bay was 15ft 10" long. Either way, this would have been a big aircraft for a single seat and single engine type.

The chosen Pratt and Whitney JT9A-20 was the J91, the attached table is from The Engines of Pratt & Whitney: A Technical History, the 40,000lb take-off thrust aligns with the J91-5. The experimental J91 was known as the X291. We have a thread on the alternative J89 here. We also have a thread on the J79-GE-200 series, elsewhere I have seen a thrust of 20,700lb for the J79-GE-275. It seems logical that the twin engine NAA submission would have used the J79-GE-275 too.

On the RCA angle, the October-November edition of the RCA in-house publication RCA Engineer (available at the Hagley Digital Archives) has a brief profile of L. B. Garrett who was responsible for "the evaluation of communications, navigation, and identification equipment for use in the WS.300A".

 

[Sferrin]

The chosen Pratt and Whitney JT9A-20 was the J91, the attached table is from The Engines of Pratt & Whitney: A Technical History, the 40,000lb take-off thrust aligns with the J91-5.

Huh. I always thought it was weird that the US never developed any turbojets much over 30k until the F135 (unless you jump all the way up to the SST engines). If you needed more power you added engines. Quite a few 4-engined fighter/interceptor designs out there as a result. Whereas the USSR had everything up to 55k. Learn something new every day.

 

[BlackBat242]

The J91 was also a candidate engine for the B-70A if it had entered production (the Allison J89-A-1 was another).

 

[Weasel Pilot]

Just found this on ebay, ludacris asking price but the pix answer some questions
Republic entry into WS300A was the AP-77. Big mother! There were proposed TF and RF variants. "TX-88 Special Store" should clear up aircraft's mission. And notice "folding fin Sidewinder" in weapons bay, predating F-22 and F-117 by about 30 or 40 years!

ebay item 127138877340 for those of you with $1500 burning a hole in your pocket
More pix with listing
If you buy it, please send me a copy....

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1271388773...74PJBE&hash=item1d9a114f9c:g:iA0AAeSw9DtoNhFq

 

[Antonio]

ebay item 127138877340 for those of you with $1500 burning a hole in your pocket
More pix with listing
If you buy it, please send me a copy....

Maybe Scott is considering a crowdfund to bid for it?

 

[Orionblamblam]

Maybe Scott is considering a crowdfund to bid for it?

At the moment no... $1500 is an *insane* sum. I've found $20 to be about the point where people rapidly lose interest in single reports, and this would take 75 people... never had a third that many sign on.

I'm contacting the seller to see about the possibility of buying a scan, but don't expect success there. If it doesn't sell, price may come down.

 

[hesham]

Maybe Scott is considering a crowdfund to bid for it?

We can ask our great painters here,to draw it,after please of course.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

At the moment no... $1500 is an *insane* sum. I've found $20 to be about the point where people rapidly lose interest in single reports, and this would take 75 people... never had a third that many sign on.

I'm contacting the seller to see about the possibility of buying a scan, but don't expect success there. If it doesn't sell, price may come down.

Yeah agreed - about $500 is realistically the highest you could go to break even.

 

[JFC Fuller]

Just found this on ebay, ludacris asking price but the pix answer some questions
Republic entry into WS300A was the AP-77. Big mother! There were proposed TF and RF variants. "TX-88 Special Store" should clear up aircraft's mission. And notice "folding fin Sidewinder" in weapons bay, predating F-22 and F-117 by about 30 or 40 years!

The special store is TX-28, e.g. the ultimate Mk.28, a Class D bomb. The sidewinders are fascinating and definitively answer the defensive armament question.

I noted the side looking antenna running along the lower fuselage from the nose-gear bay to the fuselage break for the escape capsule, presumably a navigation aid as part of the wider nav-attack system.

If the asking price becomes more reasonable I would be very happy to contribute to a group buy in return for a copy of the full report.

Did anybody save the Kartveli pitch document @A Tentative Fleet Plan posted the link to in 2023? Its been removed from issuu.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

https://web.archive.org/web/2023022...viationmedia/docs/design_philosophy_all_pages
Its truly awful scan but needs to be preserved. Here's some screenshots, needs to be transcribed.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Yeah agreed - about $500 is realistically the highest you could go to break even.

If it was $500, I'd plunk my own money down *right* *now* for this gem from the same seller:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/116621318531
Sadly, it's also $1500.

 

[Orionblamblam]

You know, I'm not entirely sure if I'm kidding or not when I say shit like "Maybe I should start an Only Fans to help fund the acquisition of such things... videos would show me flipping through reports like this to the accompaniment of strip-tease music."

 

[Apteryx]

You know, I'm not entirely sure if I'm kidding or not when I say shit like "Maybe I should start an Only Fans to help fund the acquisition of such things... videos would show me flipping through reports like this to the accompaniment of strip-tease music."

Only Turbo-Fans

 

[Orionblamblam]

OK, what the heck... I'm going to *try* to crowdfund the WS-300 document. Haven't heard back from the seller regarding an affordable scan, so unless that changes I'm going to assume that option is unavailable.

If you'd be interested in helping fund this (and getting a full high-rez scan of all pages in PNG format, and the thing assembled into an OCR'ed PDF), let me know, and to what dollar value. With luck the price will come down to a sane level so that a realistic number of folks can get this for a constant and affordable price, but I don't know that the price will come down. So if you *really* want to help at a high dollar value, such as the previously mentioned anon who's willing to go $250, let me know. Typically the actual item goes to a relevant archive/museum at the end, but this time the highest donor will decide where... and if that means to the highest donors mailbox, it's only fair.

Seems proper to also come up with bonuses for high-value donors, but other than my own CD diagrams, I'm not sure what that might be. Open to suggestions.

Best way would be to email me your dollar-limit: [email protected]

 

[Orionblamblam]

I now have a decent fraction of the cost of the document "pledged." Going to see if I can do business with the seller. So if interested, let me know.


An aside: I *won't* be pursuing the XF-103 document, unless it undergoes a massive price drop. It seems I already have it. It'd be nice to get the original, as my copy was scanned from "meh" photocopies, but it's nowhere near worth $1500 to me.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Someone sniped it at literally the last second. Gone forever, I suppose.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Damn - US $1,631.00 - that's a hell of a price.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I spent that much on a single item close to 20 years ago, a big fat stack of nuclear powered aircraft designs. That expense was the end result of going temporarily insane. Had I not had backers there's no chance I would have put in my $1600+ bid on this (and still got outbid).

 

[JFC Fuller]

Thanks to @Orionblamblam for the heads-up, the Ebay seller is now listing a slightly later AP-77 progress report for an even more absurd price. This one is dated March 23rd 1956 versus February 29th 1956 for the previous listing. The Kartveli pitch document is dated April 17th, so just three and a half weeks after this report. The report shows an aircraft that is much closer to the one described in the Kartveli pitch, note the folding ventral fin and sharply angled air intakes. The sidewinder launching method is particularly fascinating.

The Aeroplane reported on June 1st 1956 that the WS-300A project had been cancelled so the decision must have been made sometime in late April through May, meaning its unlikely the AP-77 design evolved much from this point. It would have been a real looker.

@Orionblamblam I have emailed about you a potential group buy if there is enough interest.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I spent that much on a single item close to 20 years ago, a big fat stack of nuclear powered aircraft designs. That expense was the end result of going temporarily insane. Had I not had backers there's no chance I would have put in my $1600+ bid on this (and still got outbid).

Fairly scary that you got outbid...

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Sold - US $1,899.77.

Maybe its a money laundering scheme?

 

[hesham]

We can ask our great painters here,to draw it,after please of course.

So my suggesting is too logical.