The Curtiss XF14C was an American naval
fighter aircraft
Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air supremacy, air superiority of the battlespace. Domina ...
. It was developed by
Curtiss-Wright
The Curtiss-Wright Corporation is an American manufacturer and services provider headquartered in Davidson, North Carolina, with factories and operations in and outside the United States. Created in 1929 from the consolidation (business), consoli ...
in response to a request by the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
in 1941 to produce a new
shipboard high-performance fighter aircraft.
Design and development
In 1941 the US Navy requested a better-performing carrier-based fighter plane, to be powered by the proposed
high performance 24-cylinder liquid cooled
Lycoming XH-2470 Hyper engine. This was an unusual step for the Navy, which had been adamant to that time that all its aircraft use air-cooled radial engines.
On June 30, 1941 a contract for two
prototype
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototype ...
aircraft, designated the XF14C-1, was awarded to the Curtiss-Wright company. On the same date prototype development contracts were also awarded to
Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation
The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a 20th century American producer of military and civilian aircraft. Founded on December 6, 1929, by Leroy Grumman and his business partners, it merged in 19 ...
for the single-engine
XF6F-1 and the twin engine
XF7F-1, both of which would use air-cooled
Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp
The Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp is an American twin-row, 18-cylinder, air-cooled radial aircraft engine with a displacement of , and is part of the long-lived Wasp family of engines.
The R-2800 saw widespread use in many important ...
radial engines.
Early in the development the Navy requested better altitude performance and, in view of unsatisfactory progress in the development of the XH-2470 engine, Curtiss adapted the design of the aircraft around the new
turbocharged
In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (also known as a turbo or a turbosupercharger) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake air, forcing more air into the ...
Wright R-3350
The Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone is an American twin-row, supercharged, air-cooled, radial aircraft engine with 18 cylinders displacing nearly . Power ranged from , depending on model. Developed before World War II, the R-3350's design requi ...
Duplex-Cyclone air-cooled radial engine. The aircraft equipped with this eighteen-cylinder twin-row
radial
Radial is a geometric term of location which may refer to:
Mathematics and Direction
* Vector (geometric), a line
* Radius, adjective form of
* Radial distance (geometry), a directional coordinate in a polar coordinate system
* Radial set
* A ...
air-cooled engine
Air-cooled engines rely on the circulation of air directly over heat dissipation fins or hot areas of the engine to cool them in order to keep the engine within operating temperatures. Air-cooled designs are far simpler than their liquid-cooled ...
and three bladed
contra-rotating propellers
Aircraft equipped with contra-rotating propellers (CRP) coaxial contra-rotating propellers, or high-speed propellers, apply the maximum power of usually a single engine piston powered or turboprop engine to drive a pair of coaxial propellers i ...
was designated the XF14C-2. The XF14C-1 was canceled. Also, looking at the problems of operation at altitudes of about 40,000 feet (12,000 m), the Navy also initiated work on a third version with a
pressurized cockpit designated the XF14C-3.
Ultimately, only the XF14C-2 prototype was completed, flying for the first time in July 1944. Moreover, disappointment with performance estimates and delays with the availability of the XR-3350-16 engine coupled with the evaporating tactical need for an extremely high-altitude fighter led to cancellation of the development.
Specifications (XF14C-2)
See also
References
Notes
Bibliography
* Bowers, Peter M. ''Curtiss Aircraft, 1907–1947''. London, UK: Putnam & Company Ltd., 1979. .
* Green, William. ''War Planes of the Second World War - Fighters, vol. 4''. London, UK: MacDonald, 1961. .
* Green, William and Swanborough, Gordon. ''WW2 Aircraft Fact Files: US Navy and marine Corps Fighters''. London, UK: Macdonald and Jane's Publishers Ltd., 1976. .
{{USN fighters
Curtiss FC14
Low-wing aircraft
Single-engined tractor aircraft
F14C
Aircraft with contra-rotating propellers
Aircraft first flown in 1944
Inverted gull-wing aircraft
Aircraft with retractable conventional landing gear
Single-engined piston aircraft