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Hughes D-2
| Hughes D-2 | |
|---|---|
| Type | Fighter aircraft, Bomber |
| Manufacturer | Hughes Aircraft |
| Designed by | Howard Hughes |
| Maiden flight | 20 June 1943 |
| Introduced | Cancelled |
| Retired | 1944 |
| Primary user | U.S. Army Air Corps (intended) |
| Number built | 1 prototype |
| Variants | Hughes XF-11 |
The Hughes D-2 was a mysterious American fighter and bomber project begun by Howard Hughes. It never proceeded past the flight testing phase but was considered the inspiration for the later Hughes XF-11. [1]
Contents
Design and development
Hughes began the design of an advanced twin-engine, twin-boom interceptor prior to World War II that was similar to the Lockheed P-38 that won the 1939 United States Army Air Corps design competition. Rather than abandoning the project, he later recounted in the 1947 Senate investigation that he "decided to design and build from the ground up, and with my own money, an entirely new airplane which would be so sensational in its performance that the Army would have to accept it." [2]
Most of the airframe of the "DX-2" was made of Duramold plywood, a plastic-bonded plywood molded under heat and high pressure. Initially, the aircraft was to have been a "taildragger," but the landing gear was later changed to a tricycle configuration with the main undercarriage units retracting rearwards into the twin booms and the nosewheel retracing rearwards and rotating 90 degrees to lie flat in the small central fuselage. The powerplants were to have been a pair of experimental Wright Tornado forty-two cylinder, liquid-cooled radial engines. The D-2 was built in secret at the Hughes Culver City, California factory with longtime associate, Glenn Odekirk, providing engineering inputs. Final assembly was done at the Hughes Harper Dry Lake facility in the Mojave Desert. The fighter that emerged from the Hughes experimental shop looked like a scaled-up P-38 Lightning and, on paper, sported similar performance potential.
Difficulties encountered in obtaining the Wright Tornado engines led to the substitution of proven Pratt and Whitney R-2800s. During the development of the fighter, Hughes considered changing the aircraft into a high-speed bomber, resulting in the USAAC issuing two different designations, the XP-73 and XA-37 to the fighter and bomber versions, respectively.
Testing
After it was readied for flight in 1942, Hughes himself took over the flight test program. However, after only a few brief hops, it was clear that high control forces were a problem. When full flight tests were finally conducted in 1943, modifications still had not be made to correct this problem. Hughes reluctantly concluded that the D-2 needed major modifications, including a complete redesign of the wings and a change in aerofoil section. The wing center section, which was continuous through the fuselage nacelle, was to be revised to increase the size of the proposed bomb bay. Following these changes, the aircraft was to be assigned the company designation D-5. After only a few test flights, the sole prototype was destroyed by a freak lightning strike at its desert hangar in November 1944. [3]
Afermath
In 1943, Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, the President's son, had recommended that the D-2 or its successor be ordered as a photo reconnaissance aircraft. Despite his leadership in a military reconnaissance mission, the USAAC did not immediately act on Roosevelt's recommendation, partly due to Hughes' insistence that the D-2 development costs be factored into the proposed contract. Finally in mid-1944, Hughes agreed to develop a high-altitude, high-speed version of the D-2/D-5, known as the XF-11.[4]
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Hughes Aircraft Aircraft
- Crew/Passengers: one pilot, crew of two (in bomber version)
- Powerplant: two 2000-hp Pratt and Whitney R-2800-49 (2000 hp)
- Dimensions
- Length: unknown
- Height: unknown
- Wing Span: unknown
- Wing area: unknown
- Weights
- Empty: unknown
- Gross: unknown
- Performance
- Maximum speed unknown
- Cruising speed: unknown
- Rate of Climb: unknown
- Service ceiling: unknown
- Armament: None
References
- Barton, Charles. "Howard Hughes and the 10,000 ft. Split-S." Air Classics, Vol. 18, no. 8, August 1982.
- Winchester, Jim. "Hughes XF-11." Concept Aircraft: Prototypes, X-Planes and Experimental Aircraft. Kent, UK: Grange Books plc., 2005. ISBN 1-84013-309-2.
