The P-47 Thunderbolt's Controversial Ancestor - Seversky P-35 | Aircraft History 112

foreign such aircraft as the bell P-39 era Cobra the Curtis P40 Warhawk the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and the North American P-51 Mustang there were two aircraft that paved the way for monoplane fighter development in the United States one was the Curtis P36 an aircraft already featured on this channel and which was the direct precursor to the P40 and the other pioneering monoplane fighter was the seversky p-35 which is the focus of today's video today's video is also very kindly sponsored by Icarus art who produced Aviation themed prints and posters whether you're into catalinas corsairs stukas Spitfires or ansons there's sure to be a piece that takes your fancy and if not they're constantly adding new designs and art pieces to their collection you can purchase them as printed canvas or posters and they come in a variety of sizes to suit your desk space or your office or living room walls so to check out their collection click on the link below or go to icarusart.net and use the code Rex to get a 10 discount on your order now let's take a closer look at the seversky P35 the P35 can trace its Origins back to the Seb 3 which was the first and craft developed by the recently formed ziversky Aircraft company founded in 1931 it was in fact a Revival of the seversky era corporation which itself had been founded back in 1923. now that company had never actually produced an aircraft itself instead they focused on manufacturing instruments into parts and it had not been big enough to survive the Wall Street Crash of 1929. the scb-3 was the work of Alexander desaversky the company founder and Alexander cartvelli his chief designer ziversky had a long association with aircraft he'd served with the Imperial Russian Air Services in the first world war becoming a flying ace with 13 victories before fleeing to the states in 1918 to avoid the turmoil of the Revolution also hailing from Russia Kant Valley was a gifted engineer who had spent most of his professional life living in France before immigrating to the United States in the late 1920s his name might be familiar to some viewers of this channel as codvelli's list of aircraft designs includes things such as the p-43 Lancer the P-47 Thunderbolt the f-84 thunderjet the f-84f Thunder streak and the f-105 Thunder Chief just to name a few but those achievements were for the moment at least ahead of him as far as debut aircraft went the sev3 was quite impressive it was an amphibious three-seat low Wing monoplane that in a time when biplane amphibians were still the norm represented a huge upgrade for its class it was powered by a 420 horsepower right j6 Whirlwind and this along with its Sleek or metal design allowed seversky himself to set a new world speed record for the type of 179.7 miles an hour which was around 289 kilometers an hour its performance was good enough that seversky believed it could easily compete for military contracts with this in mind the floats were removed and a pair of fixed main landing gears with aerodynamic spats were installed instead redesignated as the sev3 xar it was then sent to right field to compete in a competition for a new general training aircraft for the Army Air Corps in 1935 it won the competition and became the first all-metal low Wing monoplane trainer selected for U.S service production models were known as the bt-8 and seversky would end up producing around 30 for the Army Air Corps in general it was well liked by Army Pilots it was sturdy reliable and was easy to take off and land however there was one glaring issue and that was it was woefully underpowered this wasn't a result of the design itself but an army mandate that all training aircraft should have an engine of no more than 400 horsepower as such the bt-8 had been re-engined with a pratt and Whitney wasp Junior to prove that the airframe would be perfectly viable with a much more powerful engine ziversky modified the original SUV once again a right r1820 Cyclone was installed rated at around 750 horsepower and the floats were also reinstalled as well Alexander saveski himself then took it upon himself to set yet another world speed record this time clocking in at 230.4 miles an hour which was around 370 kilometers an hour in September of 1935. unfortunately an upgraded version of the swiversky bt-8 would not be produced by the time the bt-8s were entering service in 1936 the prototype for what would become the North American bt-9 had already flown this aircraft the Forerunner to the famous T6 Texan would quickly go on to replace the bt-8s in the latter parts of the 1930s however buoyed by the improved performance of the sev3 the swiversky built a second aircraft specifically to enter in a new Pursuit fighter competition that had been opened by the Army in 1935. the scv2 XP was basically a land plane version of the upgraded Seb 3 with a fixed landing gear it's inherited to the aerodynamic spats from the sev3 land plane and it mounted three machine guns a 50 caliber and a 30 caliber weapon in the nose and a 30 caliber in the rear for defense as well built as a two-man aircraft in a time when the single cockpit fighter was the norm and not looking like the sleekest aircraft around either it was perhaps a little strange that ziversky felt confident of winning the upcoming competition luckily for zaverski the Prototype aircraft was damaged on route to The Proving Ground at right field I say luckily because during this time Curtis Wright had unveiled their prototype for the model 75 Hawk which would have completely dominated seversky's entry in the competition and led to some serious embarrassment owing to the damage prototype the competition was delayed allowing seversky and cart Valley to carry out repairs they also carried out an extensive redesign having now seen what the competition actually was retaining the wing and engine the fuselage was modified to have a single-seat cockpit with a Razorback spine something that would become a bit of a Hallmark for cart Valley designs moving forward and the fixed landing gear was replaced by a rearward retracting landing gear with fairings that completely enclosed the mechanism in Wheels this not only dramatically improved to the streamlining of the aircraft but it would also act as a slight buffer in a wheels up Landing with the fairings taking the worst of the impact before the fuselage made contact with the ground with said modifications made the aircraft was redesignated yet again as the sev-1 XP and it returned to right field to take part in the competition in late 1935. Curtis Wright then immediately complained that the swiversky model had been improved upon rather than just repaired and they demanded that the competition be delayed again so that they could make modifications to their prototype as well fast forward to early 1936 and both sides had finally stopped complaining for long enough that the Army could actually get on with things and then the Army immediately complicated Matters by stipulating a change in power plant one of the conditions of the competition had been a top speed in excess of 300 miles an hour and thus far neither aircraft had achieved this one problem had been reliability issues with the early versions of the right Cyclone which were failing to produce their advertised horsepower and the Army pushed for a change to the Pratt and Whitney r1830 twin wasp which promised to deliver upwards of 850 horsepower this turned out to be something of an exercise in futility as as it turned out the engine barely managed to produce 750 horsepower on a good day rather than 850 and during the final tests of the competition the seversky Prototype only achieved a top speed of 277 miles an hour which was over 10 miles an hour slower than when it was running with the right Cyclone engine instead that being said the Curtis prototype was faring even worse with the engine change and although the top speed requirement wasn't meant by either aircraft seversky was awarded a contract to produce 77 Fighters as the P35 the production P35 differed from to type in a number of ways firstly it had a more powerful engine the 950 horsepower r1830-9 version of the twin wasp a version that actually produced its advertised horsepower for a change the carburettor intake was moved from the upper cowling to a position on the side of the fuselage where it met with the wing the landing gear fairings were reduced in coverage to save weight although they were still useful in a wheels up Landing situation the shotgun's shell starting system was replaced with an all-electric starter and the bulged canopy was replaced with a more streamlined design following these changes the specifications of the P35 were as follows the wingspan was of 36 feet or around 11 meters it had a length of 25 feet 2 inches or 7.7 meters and a height of 9 feet 1 inch or 2.76 meters it had a maximum weight of around 5600 pounds or 2.5 tons and it had a slightly improved top speed of 281 miles an hour or around 452 kilometers an hour the Armament remained the same one 30 caliber gun and 150 caliber gun being in the nose but a standout feature of the P35 was its deeply impressive range of over 1100 miles this was thanks to the Innovative use of a so-called wet Wing which represented a fair amount of foresight on the part of Alexander cartvale the entire inner structure of the wing was coated with a special sealant which made the entire thing into a large single fuel tank tank which gave the P35 a very long range U.S aerial Doctrine at the time didn't put the greatest emphasis on Range as most fighter aircraft were designed to be used for coastal defense rather than you know things like the long range escort or intercept emissions you'd be seeing in the second world war and there were also the vast distances of the Pacific to consider as well and a lot of the time that wasn't really being factored into a fighter design in the US especially with the Army Air core the the Navy had it considered a bit more but for the Army this was a considerable departure to have an aircraft with such a long range but because of the Army's sort of doctrinal thinking at the time the superior range of the P35 was not as appreciated at the time as what it could have been though this may have also something to do with the fact that the wet Wing was a complete nightmare from the point of Maintenance the sealant in the wing dried out rather quickly which resulted in minor and then not so minor fuel leaks this meant that the wing had to be disassembled at regular intervals to get at the problem lest the P35 become a flying sieve and this was a time-consuming and very costly addition to the aircraft's regular maintenance cycle putting aside the proclivity to distribute aviation fuel across various parts of the US Mainland the Caribbean and Pacific Waters when its entered service in 1937 the P35 was the first fight aircraft in the U.S to incorporate all of the modern features that would soon become the norm in a fighter in World War II a cantilever monoplane Wing or mental construction a fully enclosed cockpit and a retractable main landing gear in essence it was a huge upgrade when compared to anything else that had come before and indeed the most modern fighter in the Frontline service at the time was the Boeing p26p shooter which featured a fixed landing gear an open cockpit and externally braced Wings the first squadrons to receive the P35 were those of the first Pursuit Group which were based at Selfridge field in Michigan it was an easy aircraft to learn being rugged and quite forgiving on rough Landings but in general it did not earn a particularly good reputation with the US Pilots it was often viewed as being underpowered and the constant fuel leaks from the wet Wing made it Public Enemy Number One for most of the squadron's ground Crews this and the fact that delivery of all 77 aircraft took well over a year to complete contributed to the air core placing a larger order for the Curtis p-36 Hawk the aircraft that the p-35 had initially beaten out in the competition however another contributing factor may have been Alexander seversky's poor political slash business decisions in parallel with the P35 a two-seat version known as the a12 or 2pa or A8 V1 depending on which exact model and Country you're looking at had been developed there is a bit of a debate as to whether this was developed from the original two-seat fighter prototype the SUV xp2 or if this was a separate 2C model but either way ostensibly it was designed as a light bomber it only saw use as a trainer within the air core but it did receive some foreign interest now this foreign interest included the somewhat under the counter sale of 20 of these aircraft to Imperial Japan in 1937 which considering the political climate of the time rather annoyed several prominent people within the US Military and various government offices funny that this meant that for a Time both America and Japan would essentially field one version or another of the P35 in their a units however the Japanese would not use them in a combat role by the time they were at war in the Pacific they did see some action in the sino-japanese conflict but by the time of Pearl Harbor they had been relegated as training aircraft but getting back to savesky as a result of that sale and a slew of whole other things no further orders for the P35 were forthcoming and following the Air corps expansion program in 1940 the p-35s in service were simply split across the various Pursuit groups to plug gaps until better Fighters could be delivered this would either come in the form of the improved variance of the p-36 which didn't suffer from their earlier self-immolating exhaust problems or more hopefully the shiny new Curtis P-40 Warhawk now this left severe scheme and the company in a bit of an embarrassing position for they had invested a lot of money in the P35 and their production lines and they suddenly had very little to show for it Additionally the company was also in a fair amount of debt owing two production costs and seversky's gallivanting around the country building racing models at the P35 which were great for publicity but didn't really earn them much in the way of money thankfully two things came to the rescue Sweden and then an internal business hostile Takeover in 1939 with the imminent threat of War looming the Swedish Air Force was looking to overseas aircraft suppliers to help modernize its inventory their own domestic production of aircraft was slowly getting up to speed but Saab had yet gotten to the point where it could build true fighters on its own and so one of the big things Sweden was looking for was a modern fighter to replace the biplanes that they were currently Fielding one of the many aircraft that took Swedish attention was the soversky p-35 Alexander seveski immediately jumped on the opportunity and he took personal charge of the effort to cure the Swedish order and this involved producing a more powerful and updated version of the P35 now in the previous two years seversky had pursued a fairly successful racing program building multiple fast aircraft based on the P35 airframe didn't always make them a lot of money but from the standpoint of speed performance and racing they were successful during this time several experimental aircraft were also produced such as the AP1 the ap4 and the ap7 with the letters standing for Army Pursuit though with the exception of the ap4 little attention was actually paid to them by the Army at all the ap7 was used by female Aviator Jackie Cochran to set several new records including one for 320 miles an hour over a 2 000 mile circuit and it was this aircraft that became the basis for the new p-35a known internally as the ep-168 with the EP standing for export Pursuit the aircraft had a slightly lengthened fuselage a longer air scoop and it had an improved Armament it had two 30 caliber machine guns in the nose and a 250 caliber machine guns mounted in the wings to deal with the added weight to the aircraft also came with a beef dump version of the twin wasp which now put out around 1200 horsepower aside from the longer fuselage these aircraft were easily identified by the fairings installed underneath the wingmounted machine guns the wings themselves were too thin to safely catch the spent bullet casings owing to the wet Wing fuel tank style so a streamlined compartment had to be installed underneath Sweden placed an initial order for 15 aircraft on the 29th of June 1939 and this was quickly followed by another for 45 aircraft in October and then one more for a further 60 aircraft in January of 1940. however by this point there had been a big change Sweden was no longer receiving seversky aircraft they were instead receiving those from the newly renamed Republic Aviation Corporation a combination of financial loss and political Intrigue a topic of which is beyond the scope of this video had led to a major restructure of the company and Alexander seveski had been forced out of the company he had founded and the name change was part of an attempt to fix partially burned Bridges with the US government deliveries of the Republic aircraft began in early 1940 receiving the Swedish designation of j9 by mid-1914 the first 60 of these had been delivered coming by sea to Trondheim in Norway and then completing the rest of the journey by rail but the second batch of aircraft would never make it across the Atlantic with the ever increasing Prospect of the United States being dragged into a war in Europe the war department had impressed a number of aircraft on the production lines that had been purchased by other nations and the Swedish p-35s were one of their victims the j9s that had made it across to Sweden would go on to lead relatively long service lives indeed they served the longest out of all the p-35s that were actually built defending Sweden's neutrality the j-9s flew throughout the second world war often intercepting Allied bombers that had been forced to flee across into Swedish airspace after sustaining damage over Germany they remained in Frontline service for a long time being Frontline fighter aircraft until 1947 and several were still in use in the mid-1950s including two that were often flown by air staff on inspection tours in fact two of the surviving four p-35 fives are from the Swedish order one of which can be found in Sweden itself and the other one is currently under Restoration in Florida back over in the United States the remaining p35as that were on the production line were rapidly placed into service throughout 1940 and early 1941. though they were being thoroughly outclassed by emerging designs such as the Lockheed P-38 the Bell P-39 and of course the Curtis P40 these newer models were not always available in sufficient numbers for the rapidly expanding air groups of the Army Air corps at the time this was especially true for the more remote air units particularly those based in the Philippines who were in desperate need of more modern Fighters the need was in fact so urgent that a 45 p35s were taken straight off the production line as is and sent across the Pacific to the Philippines they arrived there with Swedish Insignia Swedish flight manuals and Metric flying instruments none of which made them particularly easy to adjust to and it took a considerable amount of time for everything to be put back to normal initially these p35s were assigned to all of the squadrons within the 24th Pursuit group that was based at Clark Air Base along with Curtis p36s and even a number of older p26p Shooters they formed the bulk of the Philippines Air defenses in the lead-up to the Pacific War now by the time of December the 8th itself had actually come around in 1941 newer P-40 warhawks were arriving but a large number of the p35as still equipped the 34th Pursuit Squadron which was based at Carmen field it was these aircraft that would make the types combat debut if you could call the loss of 12 p35s on the ground as such a thing but other p35s were soon in the air for the Frantic and desperate defense against the Japanese Onslaught as with the Curtis P36 and early models of the p40s the p35s suffered due to a lack of effective protection they possessed no armor for the pilot whatsoever and the fuel tanks were not self-sealing indeed some of the p35s were already quite worn out and the wet Wings apparently leaked abominably by this point with at least one aircraft being lost to a mid-air fire as the leaking fuel was literally ignited by either gunfire or simply the hot exhaust of the aircraft's engine now depending on what source material you read the P35 may have shot down two Mitsubishi a6m zeros however kill claims for this early chaotic part of the war are very difficult to substantiate the two claimed kills against zeros were made by lieutenants Stuart Robb and Ben Brown both flying with the 34th Pursuit Squadron but even if both of those victories did in fact take place they would have been an anomaly in an otherwise Grim situation for the p-35s in the Philippines by the 10th of December just two days into the fighting their numbers had dwindled from 45 airframes down to just 16. these were then thrown into the attack on the oncoming Japanese invasion Fleet where one p-35 flown by a lieutenant Sam Moret repeatedly strafed and eventually sank the Japanese Minesweeper w-10 making it the types only Naval kill unfortunately Morris himself would be killed in the attempt as when the Minesweeper went up the explosion was that powerful and the aircraft was that low that the shock wave literally tore one of the Wings off and his P35 was seen plummeting into the sea following the attack on The Invasion Fleet more ill Fortune soon followed the same group of Fighters that had gone out for the attack was caught by another wave of Japanese aircraft as they returned to their Air Base in the afternoon to rearm and refuel the result was 12 more p-35s being destroyed and a further six were damaged by the 24th of December just six p-35s were still operational in the area and they were then ordered to pull back to batan field on the 6th of January 1942 in a cruel sense of irony they were then mistaken for Japanese aircraft by the understandably anxious and somewhat trigger-happy U.S anti-aircraft Gunners defending the Airfield and at least two of those six p-35s were brought down or written off by Friendly Fire the last actual combat sortie flown by the p-35 involved the last remaining aircraft on the 3rd of May when Captain Ramon zoza of the Philippine Army Air corps carried out strafing attack on the Japanese Landings following this he landed the aircraft in a small jungle airstrip and the p-35's brief and bloody combat life came to a sudden end though all of the p35s in the Philippines had been wiped out it's important to note that a vast majority of them were actually brought down either by Japanese or unfortunately friendly ground fire only a small number were actually lost in air-to-air combat so assessing its capabilities as a Frontline fighter leaves a lot for interpretation however it was plain enough that it was simply no match for the opposition like many designs of its time the P35 was Innovative one year and then almost totally obsolete the next with fatal consequences for the men that would go on to fly it that being said aside from the issues with the wet Wing the P35 itself wasn't necessarily a bad aircraft it handled well and the rest of it was easy to maintain aside from the wet wing it just wasn't good enough by the time that it got a chance for real action this obsolescence had long been anticipated as far back as 1939 and steps had been taken to improve upon the design and this had resulted in several experimental aircraft designs two of which are of particular notes the first was the xp-41 now the last P35 off the production line was kept back and modified being equipped with a 1200 horsepower twin wasp engine with a new two-stage supercharger the supercharger was mounted in a ventral position under the fuselage and the landing gear now retracted inward rather than rear wood this aircraft flew for the first time in March of 1939 and it set a top speed of 323 miles an hour however development of the xp-41 would quickly stop due to the development of another prototype this second aircraft came with an even more potent engine the Pratt and Whitney 1830-25 now this aircraft produced the same horsepower as the xp-41 but it came with a turbo supercharger this allowed it to perform much better at higher altitudes and although this new fighter was heavier it was in fact faster clocking in at 351 miles an hour on its demonstration flight with these impressive performance figures in hand it was entered into the 1939 fighter competition for the Army Air core and it won seversky soon to become Republic was then given a contract to produce this fighter as the p-43 Lancer but the story of a Lancer is one for another day as always thank you all so much for watching and a big thank you of course to the patrons I apologize if I sound a little bit out of it today I'm recovering from a cold that I picked up on the flight coming back from England and that has not been fun to deal with in any way shape or form we should see some more long-form videos again coming soon I know some people have been asking you know what's with all the short videos it's because I've been away and I just haven't had time to record the really long ones because it's a multi-day affair otherwise I lose my voice but the long videos are coming back don't panic a big thank you of course to our wing Commander tier patrons our highest tier members and a big thank you to just everyone in General on patreon who voted on the video format poll that I put up the other day all of your feedback has been fantastic and with that I will be able to make some better plans for the future but for now thank you all so much for your continued support and I'll catch you all next time goodbye

Channel: Rex's Hangar

Views: 159,251

Keywords: rexs hangar, rex's hangar, seversky aircraft, seversky p-35, seversky p-35a, seversky fighter aircraft, republic aircraft, republic p-35, aircraft, aviation history, plane documentary, ww2 aircraft, aviation history documentary, history channel, air force, us army air corps, seversky p35, seversky j-9

Id: puL6WpGpP9A

Length: 29min 2sec (1742 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 27 2023