Probably the biggest set back was the cancelation of the engine they were designed for. That had the most impact on weight, speed, performance, and design. I find it interesting that they just didn't go back to the drawing board after that.
Failed engines - piston and jet - doomed many promising aircraft projects. The lucky ones were modified to use reliable though sometimes less powerful engines.
And every fighter built after 1950 was a pusher aircraft… (Jets are inherently pushers). The Gloster Gladiator fighter entered service in 1937 (a year after the Swordfish). Gloster never built a monoplane piston engine tractor fighter, moving directly from the Gladiator to the Gloster Meteor. Gladiators remained in service into the Battle of Britain (although they were too slow to catch the German bombers). The Gloster Meteor was actually substantially faster than the Me262 and actually entered service before (in 1943) the Messerschmitt product (due to faulty German engines). The first American jet, the Bell P-59 entered service in 1943 but was a bit of a disappointment and superseded by the P-80 in 1944 with some being deployed to Europe during WW2.
About 60% of the thrust of a turbojet is produced at the inlet. Thus, the higher the bypass ratio, the greater the thrust. It's also why the highest speed jet fighters have variable geometry inlets. Think Mach 2.2+ F-15 with variable geometry inlets -vs- the much slower and cheaper F-16 with fixed inlets.
The first variants of the Meteor (the contemporary ones to the 262) were not faster than the 262. They were much slower. And props are inherently pushers just as much as jets are.
@@dogeness The first OPERATIONAL Me262 flew in April 1944. The Me262 had a Mach 0.84 limit with a loss of control at Mach 0.86 (with several disintegrating in testing). Messerschmitt listed the top speed for the Me262 A-1a at 560mph in level flight. The Meteor was close behind in July 1944 with 616 Squadron. The 1943 built Welland Meteor F.1 was limited to 415mph until it had its engine cowls reshaped and were cleared to 490mph in December 1944. The more powerful Derwent I F.4 reached squadrons in May 1945 and could reach 585mph and Mach 0.82. So it is very dependent on exactly which era in terms of months you are talking about. The F.1 Meteor was slower but the F.4 Meteor was faster in level flight - and both were less likely to crash due to engine failure.
'Corps' is pronounced like 'core' even when plural. So be careful when you say "I sent XXX Corps" that people know you didn't say "I sent thirty corps."
Wow ! ! ! I'm surprised You're channel is not even 2 years old, I'd really like to see you do the same but with Tanks and Armoured fighting vehicles, I have a great book that purports to have every single armoured vehicle produced since the beginning of the 20th century.
They designed them in pusher configuration to get rid of the blade wash across the lifting surfaces of the main wing This allowed for much smoother airflow across the lifting surfaces The other reason is the weapon 's fire rate would no longer be constricted having to shoot through the propeller or if counter rotating propellers 🤩
That's the kind of stuff I didn't really know about or understand all that well. I thought about putting some stuff about aerodynamics and the like in the video but I decided that, because I didn't really know enough about the science behind aerodynamics, that I should probably focus on other points that I know more about and understand better. I guess that's why I majored in history, not science. But thank you for adding this. Any additional information you or anyone else has about these aircraft is more than welcome.
@@ihyls I'm hoping that you can look into the Doiner 335 Fifle That aircraft had both push and pull prop configuration. The results were uncanny but surprisingly well suited as a fighter intercecter pushing piston powered speeds up to 527 Mph Making it the fastest piston powered aircraft ever flew during World War 2.
@@charlesscott5076 I actually learned about that plane in my research for this video, believe it or not. It is definitely something that I want to look into a bit more sometime in the future.
@@ihyls I'm looking forward to your documentary of it There's not that many documentaries out this aircraft the other one is the Shinden from Japan It was a canard finally test flighted right at the end of world War 2
It is amazing the A0scender had swept back wings. Which was a major wind design changed that improved the performance of jet fighters. Plus pusher plane design should have helped with the design of jets because jets are pusher planes.
I enjoyed this video and am now subscribed and hope for more! Interesting content and discussion. If I may make a suggestion, spaces (like the 3:40-4:19) would be more enjoyable if we saw less of the admittedly Cool Logo(tm) and you had simply left the photos of the three fighters on the screen. A small matter. Mahalo and Aloha!
Thanks for watching and enjoying! I agree that there are quite a few spaces that are left overly blank and I'm trying to get better at filling that void more often. Before I started this channel, I had never done any kind of video editing whatsoever, so I'm still learning and (hopefully) getting better.
IMO mono wing aircraft during WWI were beyond the "experimental" stage. There were many mono wing aircraft in service on both sides from very early on. The Fokker Eindecker series of the infamous Fokker Scourge (1915) was a mono plane and ruled the skies.
I experimental in a more 'royal' sense as monoplanes were definitely a thing and were proven to work effectively, but they were still very much in the minority. I say experimental not to deny the existence of monoplane fighters at the time, but to point out their comparative rarity to biplanes.
The Swedes had a pusher design that was re-engined as a jet. With the German use of swept wings on the ME-262, I wonder why they didn’t try turning the canard XP-55 into a jet.
Bi planes..Gloster Gladiator and Fiat cr42 both entered service after 36 and served during the early years of the war. Mono plane.. The British and the French so feared the Fokker D8 (1918) , they made Germany destroy all of them in the armistice
When you're promised a 2400 HP engine, and what you end up with is a 1200 HP engine your kinda screwed... The US also never developed successful counter-rotating props (during the war) to a point where they were actually viable, and almost every design that incorporated this feature eventually dropped it in favor of conventional props resulting in a significant downgrade in performance. These "bad" designs were just designs that unfortunately picked a bad engine and in some cases a prop setup that took too long to perfect, counter-rotating props also killed the YB-49, they couldn't make the props work but when they removed them and replaced them with early jets it was found that the jets were too fuel hungry and range of the 49 was dramatically reduced, also the props and prop fairings gave the 49 yaw stability which was could not be replicated with jets, it was the primary reason (IMO) why the YB-49 failed.
Most failed designs of WW2 were killed by engine issues, regardless of aerodynamic configuration. If you wanted better performances than the current generation, you had to gamble on a new engine, which often had issues or didn't deliver, or even canceled. If you needed to change the engine, this would often delay testing to a point when your design was no longer needed, or outclassed by the competitors. A few new designs just got lucky: the Mustang was not designed for the Merlin engine, it fitted it by pure chance. But even if you happened to win your engine gamble, you had to compete with other lucky designs that used the same engine. This is probably why the Mosquito was not produced in much greater numbers: you could produce two Mustangs or two Spitfires with the engines of one Mosquito.
I don't think it's fair to classify the XP-55 as a failure. I guess it depends on how you're defining failure, but the XP-55 was ready for production and was as safe as any other fighter then in production, but it's performance did not warrant introducing a new type so late in the war. It was no better than the P-51, so there was no need for it. Whereas the XP-56 never overcame cooling and instability problems that rendered it unsafe and completely unacceptable as a military machine.
I get your perspective on it. It did have some stall issues in the beginning, it could still technically work just fine as a fighter/interceptor. I just view it in relation to what they wanted in the R-40C program and how it ended up comparing to that and what else they had at the time. In that regard, it is a failure. In a vacuum, it really isn't much of a failure. Besides, considering that most planes today use pusher engines and, specifically, pusher engines located on the end of the fuselage, these three planes can be viewed as a kind of success or, at least, as a stepping stone towards the modern fighters we now know and commonly see.
@@ihyls Yep. I see. Well, if they'd put a turbo-supercharger on the Allison, like they intended for the P-39, then the XP-55 might have surpassed expectations. I think the key item that doomed it was waiting for the intended Continental hyper-engine instead of just going full bore with the Allison. I actually wrote a paper about the XP-55 back in yester-century when I was at university. Sadly, my paper shared a similar fate to the plane.
@Julian Cate When you say the paper went the way of the XP-55, do you mean the paper was graded poorly by a professor or you tried to get it published and it didn't go anywhere? Because if it's the latter, then I feel your pain.
I cannot help but wonder what the performance would have been for those three planes if the engine would have been replaced with a jet turbine. After all the japanese planned to do that with their J7W Shinden Kai which never got realized.
Thank you both... one for calling it out, the other for accepting constructive criticism. Overall a very interesting and informative story. Too bad none of these x-planes worked out, but jets were the rising meteor.
@@shaunolinger964 English Pronounciation is always a gamble depending on wether the Word has French, Saxonian, Danish, Gaelic or Norman Origin. I too have asked for the Worcestshire Sauce instead of the Woostersheer Sauce and asked for Direction to Leicester instead of Lester.
1:30 your data is in error the last Biplane in active service was the Gloster Gladiator retired in 1953. 15:26 I would disagree with you on one point that would be powerplant the X-1800 had been successful and entered production at least one of these planes would have entered production.
Pusher is faster than pulling because pulling the plane blows high speed air from the prop over the entire airframe pusher is faster because high speed air is free to blow out. You can prove it with radio control planes I have seen it
These airplanes where not failed aircraft. These where Experimental to find out what worked and what did not. So, your head line is just BS. And, this has all been hashed out by others a thousand times.
![The Forgotten First Grumman | Grumman FF 'Fifi' [Aircraft Overview #60]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/7JpsatWGeLE/mqdefault.jpg)
Probably the biggest set back was the cancelation of the engine they were designed for. That had the most impact on weight, speed, performance, and design. I find it interesting that they just didn't go back to the drawing board after that.
Failed engines - piston and jet - doomed many promising aircraft projects. The lucky ones were modified to use reliable though sometimes less powerful engines.
Interesting. Would love some three view drawings of these. It's giving me something to research. Thanks for making me aware of these strange birds
Check the Academy of model aviation plans service. They have something somewhere. What you're looking for.
Google Images is a good source of pics and drawings.
And every fighter built after 1950 was a pusher aircraft… (Jets are inherently pushers).
The Gloster Gladiator fighter entered service in 1937 (a year after the Swordfish). Gloster never built a monoplane piston engine tractor fighter, moving directly from the Gladiator to the Gloster Meteor.
Gladiators remained in service into the Battle of Britain (although they were too slow to catch the German bombers). The Gloster Meteor was actually substantially faster than the Me262 and actually entered service before (in 1943) the Messerschmitt product (due to faulty German engines).
The first American jet, the Bell P-59 entered service in 1943 but was a bit of a disappointment and superseded by the P-80 in 1944 with some being deployed to Europe during WW2.
About 60% of the thrust of a turbojet is produced at the inlet. Thus, the higher the bypass ratio, the greater the thrust. It's also why the highest speed jet fighters have variable geometry inlets. Think Mach 2.2+ F-15 with variable geometry inlets -vs- the much slower and cheaper F-16 with fixed inlets.
The first variants of the Meteor (the contemporary ones to the 262) were not faster than the 262. They were much slower. And props are inherently pushers just as much as jets are.
@@dogeness The first OPERATIONAL Me262 flew in April 1944. The Me262 had a Mach 0.84 limit with a loss of control at Mach 0.86 (with several disintegrating in testing). Messerschmitt listed the top speed for the Me262 A-1a at 560mph in level flight.
The Meteor was close behind in July 1944 with 616 Squadron. The 1943 built Welland Meteor F.1 was limited to 415mph until it had its engine cowls reshaped and were cleared to 490mph in December 1944. The more powerful Derwent I F.4 reached squadrons in May 1945 and could reach 585mph and Mach 0.82.
So it is very dependent on exactly which era in terms of months you are talking about. The F.1 Meteor was slower but the F.4 Meteor was faster in level flight - and both were less likely to crash due to engine failure.
I must make you aware of this. "Army Air Corps.'" The 'p' and 's' are silent. 'Corps' is pronounced the same as 'core.'
English has many weird spelling words but the spelling of "corps" bothers me the most for some reason
@@panumastubsee603 it's a word borrowed from French as are many military terms.
It always bothered me when that illegal Kenyan "resident" - 2008 through 2016 - would say "Marine Corpse". Pretty sadly uneducated.
The p I understand but the s why would the s be silent I'm suddenly glad the army Air corps is no longer a thing
'Corps' is pronounced like 'core' even when plural. So be careful when you say "I sent XXX Corps" that people know you didn't say "I sent thirty corps."
I like the XP-54 'Swing Goose' more than the 'Ass-ender' (Ascender) XP55 and the 'Black Bullet' XP-56.
Wow ! ! ! I'm surprised You're channel is not even 2 years old, I'd really like to see you do the same but with Tanks and Armoured fighting vehicles, I have a great book that purports to have every single armoured vehicle produced since the beginning of the 20th century.
What book is that?
THE XP54 HAD A DROOP SNOOT! ♥
Forget the Swoose Goose, Droop Snoot is where it's at.
@@ihyls y e s
They designed them in pusher configuration to get rid of the blade wash across the lifting surfaces of the main wing This allowed for much smoother airflow across the lifting surfaces The other reason is the weapon 's fire rate would no longer be constricted having to shoot through the propeller or if counter rotating propellers 🤩
That's the kind of stuff I didn't really know about or understand all that well. I thought about putting some stuff about aerodynamics and the like in the video but I decided that, because I didn't really know enough about the science behind aerodynamics, that I should probably focus on other points that I know more about and understand better.
I guess that's why I majored in history, not science.
But thank you for adding this. Any additional information you or anyone else has about these aircraft is more than welcome.
@@ihyls I'm hoping that you can look into the Doiner 335 Fifle That aircraft had both push and pull prop configuration. The results were uncanny but surprisingly well suited as a fighter intercecter pushing piston powered speeds up to 527 Mph Making it the fastest piston powered aircraft ever flew during World War 2.
@@charlesscott5076 I actually learned about that plane in my research for this video, believe it or not. It is definitely something that I want to look into a bit more sometime in the future.
@@ihyls I'm looking forward to your documentary of it There's not that many documentaries out this aircraft the other one is the Shinden from Japan It was a canard finally test flighted right at the end of world War 2
@@charlesscott5076 I don't know exactly when I'll do a video on it, but it is definitely on the list.👍
It is amazing the A0scender had swept back wings. Which was a major wind design changed that improved the performance of jet fighters. Plus pusher plane design should have helped with the design of jets because jets are pusher planes.
I enjoyed this video and am now subscribed and hope for more! Interesting content and discussion.
If I may make a suggestion, spaces (like the 3:40-4:19) would be more enjoyable if we saw less of the admittedly Cool Logo(tm) and you had simply left the photos of the three fighters on the screen.
A small matter.
Mahalo and Aloha!
Thanks for watching and enjoying! I agree that there are quite a few spaces that are left overly blank and I'm trying to get better at filling that void more often. Before I started this channel, I had never done any kind of video editing whatsoever, so I'm still learning and (hopefully) getting better.
@@ihyls Well, you are a promising rookie, with at least one fan so far!
This is a awsome video keep up the great work 👍
Good video. The p and s in “corps” is silent, though. Like “core.”
IMO mono wing aircraft during WWI were beyond the "experimental" stage. There were many mono wing aircraft in service on both sides from very early on. The Fokker Eindecker series of the infamous Fokker Scourge (1915) was a mono plane and ruled the skies.
I experimental in a more 'royal' sense as monoplanes were definitely a thing and were proven to work effectively, but they were still very much in the minority. I say experimental not to deny the existence of monoplane fighters at the time, but to point out their comparative rarity to biplanes.
The Swedes had a pusher design that was re-engined as a jet. With the German use of swept wings on the ME-262, I wonder why they didn’t try turning the canard XP-55 into a jet.
Bi planes..Gloster Gladiator and Fiat cr42 both entered service after 36 and served during the early years of the war. Mono plane.. The British and the French so feared the Fokker D8 (1918) , they made Germany destroy all of them in the armistice
To be fair, they also made the Germans destroy basically everything else about their military in the Treaty of Versailles.
Why does the Biplane line not start in 1903 with the Wright Flyer?
Purpose built Military aircraft. The pre 1914 aircraft were mostly civilian types pressed into military service.
When you're promised a 2400 HP engine, and what you end up with is a 1200 HP engine your kinda screwed... The US also never developed successful counter-rotating props (during the war) to a point where they were actually viable, and almost every design that incorporated this feature eventually dropped it in favor of conventional props resulting in a significant downgrade in performance. These "bad" designs were just designs that unfortunately picked a bad engine and in some cases a prop setup that took too long to perfect, counter-rotating props also killed the YB-49, they couldn't make the props work but when they removed them and replaced them with early jets it was found that the jets were too fuel hungry and range of the 49 was dramatically reduced, also the props and prop fairings gave the 49 yaw stability which was could not be replicated with jets, it was the primary reason (IMO) why the YB-49 failed.
Cool logo! 👍
Most failed designs of WW2 were killed by engine issues, regardless of aerodynamic configuration.
If you wanted better performances than the current generation, you had to gamble on a new engine, which often had issues or didn't deliver, or even canceled. If you needed to change the engine, this would often delay testing to a point when your design was no longer needed, or outclassed by the competitors.
A few new designs just got lucky: the Mustang was not designed for the Merlin engine, it fitted it by pure chance. But even if you happened to win your engine gamble, you had to compete with other lucky designs that used the same engine. This is probably why the Mosquito was not produced in much greater numbers: you could produce two Mustangs or two Spitfires with the engines of one Mosquito.
That sounded like Faulty XP-54! Lol!
The Ascender was my first true love.
I don't think it's fair to classify the XP-55 as a failure. I guess it depends on how you're defining failure, but the XP-55 was ready for production and was as safe as any other fighter then in production, but it's performance did not warrant introducing a new type so late in the war. It was no better than the P-51, so there was no need for it. Whereas the XP-56 never overcame cooling and instability problems that rendered it unsafe and completely unacceptable as a military machine.
I get your perspective on it. It did have some stall issues in the beginning, it could still technically work just fine as a fighter/interceptor. I just view it in relation to what they wanted in the R-40C program and how it ended up comparing to that and what else they had at the time. In that regard, it is a failure. In a vacuum, it really isn't much of a failure.
Besides, considering that most planes today use pusher engines and, specifically, pusher engines located on the end of the fuselage, these three planes can be viewed as a kind of success or, at least, as a stepping stone towards the modern fighters we now know and commonly see.
@@ihyls Yep. I see. Well, if they'd put a turbo-supercharger on the Allison, like they intended for the P-39, then the XP-55 might have surpassed expectations. I think the key item that doomed it was waiting for the intended Continental hyper-engine instead of just going full bore with the Allison. I actually wrote a paper about the XP-55 back in yester-century when I was at university. Sadly, my paper shared a similar fate to the plane.
@@juliancate7089
It was probably a good paper but your instructor couldn't wrap his head around it.
@@rudolphguarnacci197 Thanks, brother.
@Julian Cate When you say the paper went the way of the XP-55, do you mean the paper was graded poorly by a professor or you tried to get it published and it didn't go anywhere?
Because if it's the latter, then I feel your pain.
Love it
I cannot help but wonder what the performance would have been for those three planes if the engine would have been replaced with a jet turbine.
After all the japanese planned to do that with their J7W Shinden Kai which never got realized.
Canard is French for Duck and pronounced like Gerard, not Cay-Nard but Cuh-naaaaaard.
Huh. I've always heard it as cay-nard but yeah, just looked up how to pronounce it and it is indeed cuh-naard. TIL
Thank you both... one for calling it out, the other for accepting constructive criticism.
Overall a very interesting and informative story. Too bad none of these x-planes worked out, but jets were the rising meteor.
@@shaunolinger964 English Pronounciation is always a gamble depending on wether the Word has French, Saxonian, Danish, Gaelic or Norman Origin.
I too have asked for the Worcestshire Sauce instead of the Woostersheer Sauce and asked for Direction to Leicester instead of Lester.
1:30 your data is in error the last Biplane in active service was the Gloster Gladiator retired in 1953.
15:26 I would disagree with you on one point that would be powerplant the X-1800 had been successful and entered production at least one of these planes would have entered production.
Pusher is faster than pulling because pulling the plane blows high speed air from the prop over the entire airframe pusher is faster because high speed air is free to blow out. You can prove it with radio control planes I have seen it
The xp56 was used in Hollywood movies as Martian Rocket ships, and stood on their tails.
Do you have an article or something about that? I would love to read more about that.
@@ihyls hit your Google button and say "1950s Hollywood rocketship design"
id say biplanes were still pretty viable, such as the i-15 chaika
Cool logo
damn right it is😉
Seems they might have tried to adapt these planes to jet.
wym the xp55 is great in war thunder, it must been op irl
"The Air Corpse."
aren't all jets pusher planes ?
you forget the Fiat CR-42 which was made untill 1942.
Air 'Core', not 'Corpse'.
Realized I pronounced it as 'corpse' after publishing it and just said "well...shit"
@@ihyls”Canard” is also pronounced “kan-NARD” not “KANE-nerd”
I Wonder if bi or tri planes wuld make a grand return some day...
Today's pusher configurations are called 'jets". ;-)
"Cool Logo" tm, lol
คิดดูเอาละกันปูตินไม่เคยเห็นที่ไหนงานแรกเลยนะเนี่ย
Most prop-pushers fail. Physics.
Your constant pounding your damn logo all through the video isn't cool at all. It's annoying AF.
lose the over use of the Cool Logo - It is so annoying to the viewer. Your goal is to create "Interest" not "irritation".
Good video otherwise.
These airplanes where not failed aircraft. These where Experimental to find out what worked and what did not. So, your head line is just BS. And, this has all been hashed out by others a thousand times.