The Republic P-43 Lancer – A Giant’s Stepping Stone

in the mid-1930s the world's major air forces recognized that the rapid advances made in aerodynamics and engines in the first half of that decade meant that they needed to update their fighter fleets as a matter of urgency this led to some of the most famous fighters in history being developed aircraft such as the mesut schmidt bf-109 the hawker hurricane the supermarine spitfire and the saverski p-35 ok not the p-35 but this american fighter was the contemporary of these other aircraft and was selected by the united states army air corps to become their primary fighter in 1936 the fact that the p-35 will have to get its own forgotten aircraft episode one day gives a good indication that it wasn't exactly a particularly good design in fact in 1937 it lost a follow-up competition against the curtis p-36 hulk and only 76 p-35s would initially enter service with the usac where they would rapidly be replaced and shunted off to the philippines despite this saverski still thought the aircraft had potential especially with many countries at the time desperately looking for new fighters as war loomed in europe and so they built several one-off experimental and test bed types to improve on the p35 and hopefully acquire more orders and of these the ap4 model seem to offer the most promise this replaced the p35 semi-retractant undercarriage with one that was both fully retractable and wide based plus fitted a pratt whitney twin wasp engine that now had a turbo supercharger fitted and produced 1 200 horsepower this aircraft would be lost to an accident in early 1939 but the aircraft's performance especially at high altitude led to the usac aldewin 13 aircraft for evaluation in may of that year with the designation of yp43 in truth the american government's reasons for doing this seems to be twofold firstly the usac had placed a huge for the time order in april for the p40 warhawk and so it seems likely that they wanted to have a backup if that aircraft proved disappointing secondly the very same month saverski was forced out of the company that bore his name and the saverski aircraft company looked like it might go bankrupt and dissolve early 1939 was no time for manufacturers in critical military industries to go to the wall and it seems that the usac recognizing that factor placed the order as well to stabilize the company and allow it to keep its design teams and production workforce intact the yp43 differed from the ap4 by having a razorback fuselage and the turbocharger moved to under the engine armament was composed of two nose mounted 50 caliber browning heavy machine guns and two 30 caliber guns in the wings the intention was to place a follow-on order for 80 improved aircraft designated as the p44 which would have used the more powerful r2180 engine producing 400 horsepower saverski would go on to be renamed as republic aviation in september 1939 and a year later the first of the yp43s would be delivered by which point they were considered basically obsolescent the outbreak of war in europe the year before had allowed plenty of observations and lessons to be drawn on what was required in modern fighters and while the yp43 certainly had reasonable high altitude performance his lack of armor and self-sealing tanks mediocre maneuverability and limited armament meant that the usac recognized it was not really suitable for war indeed republic had also recognized this and in june 1940 had offered a fresh design that while having some family resemblance must be an absolute beast compared to its little brother the p-47b thunderbolt but this was way off in the future and the need to keep republic in production with something as well as the cancellation of the p-44 as pointless in the wake of the p-47 development plan led to an order for 54 p-43 fighters named the lancer being placed these were essentially the same as the pre-production models and were all delivered in 1941 between may and the end of august though they served with pursuit squadrons in the united states the lancers were very much recognised as not being up to european combat and no further orders were envisaged but the p47 has a largely clean sheet design using a brand new engine model whilst hitting delays and so a further order for 80 more lancers the p-43a was placed to once again tied republic over these were essentially the same as the previous aircraft but had the light wing guns swapped for 50 caliber heavies and the rf183049 twin wasp engine that could produce 1 200 horsepower at 25 000 feet and provided a top speed of 349 miles per hour 562 kilometers per hour even before these began to be delivered it was decided that actually the p-43 could be of use as a readily available fighter for the chinese though not officially at war at the time the us government had passed the len lee's act in march 1941 and with industry building up as fast as it could to meet american and british requirements for weapons the possibility of sending aircraft to the republic of china from an effectively untapped and available source in the shape of republic prior to the p-47 entering production seemed logical so at the end of june 1941 an order was placed for an additional 125 to be supplied to the chinese air force and for use with the american volunteer group flying with them these models the p43 a1 have some discrepancies surrounding their design with some sources stating that the aircraft were redesigned to have all four machine guns fitted in the wing as well as armor for the pilot and self-sealing tanks fitted this is disputed by other sources and i am inclined to agree with them while it seems likely that some armor was added that appears to have been a rather ad hoc affair probably carried out on an individual basis as for changing the armament layout and fitting self-sealing tanks that seems extremely unlikely i have not seen a single photograph of a p-43 that doesn't appear to have nose-mounted guns and single ones in the wings additionally the wings on the p-43 were wet in that they essentially made up the fuel tank with their construction this would have complicated changing the design in manufacture considerably especially considering the republic designers were all working on getting the p-47 ready for production diverting efforts for a major design change on what was effectively a minor order that was placed practically as busy work seems highly unlikely and we know that the wings on p43s stayed wet because once they reached asia they displayed an alarming tendency to burn the japanese found that compared to most american aircraft the p-43 would generally burst into flames if they scored a hit on the aircraft's wings on top of this p-43s displayed an alarming tendency to begin leaking fuel during flight from the wings and this led to several aircraft being lost while attempting to transit between british india and chinese territory leading to the deaths of several experienced pilots in fact it seems that elements of the american air command in india and china began to consider them as something of a liability with many apparently having their engines stripped out for use in c47 transports which will flat out flying suppliers across the mlas despite these issues p43s did get into action with the charlie's air force and with some american units by august 1942 despite the aircraft's obvious failings it did have the benefit of good high altitude performance with the p43a1 capable of a top speed of 356 miles per hour which enabled interceptions of japanese reconnaissance aircraft that were not possible with the more common p-40 warhawk in fact one american pilot took a photo of mount everest from an altitude of 44 000 feet that's 13 000 meters but despite this in american service the aircraft was very much considered unusable for combat and the now united states army air force redesignated them as the rp-43 to indicate that they should not be considered actual fighters in october 1942 however they continued to be used by the chinese air force against the japanese in combat until december 1943 though probably as much from a need to get anything viable into the air and replace the old soviet types that the chinese had been using in the first stages of the war but even this didn't spell the end of the aircraft service even as they were being dismissed for fighter duties by the americans the p-43's high-altitude performance offered another option as fast reconnaissance aircraft 150 of the aircraft located in the united states in 1942 were converted to p43b recon aircraft with another two rebuilt as p43c and another six as p43ds the differences being in camera layout and equipment these largely served as training aircraft for reconnaissance squadrons before transitioning to the lockheed f4s that would be their service aircraft but several of these reconnaissance p-43s did get used in theater including eight that were transferred to the royal australian air force in 1942 these the only ones to serve outside of the u.s and chinese air forces flew missions from the northern territory before being returned to the usaf in 1943. by 1944 it appears that the p-43s were gone from service entirely and today none remains in total 272 of all types were built and though that number is extremely modest compared to some of its contemporaries the fact that so many were built at all considering the aircraft's very definite shortcomings and that no significant initial production was planned makes this number somewhat surprising but perhaps the p-43's greatest contribution was in being the aircraft that allowed republic to both come into existence with the failure of saversky and stay in operation being that company's first production aircraft and the beginning of a legendary dynasty of combat planes

Channel: Ed Nash's Military Matters

Views: 70,130

Keywords: P-43, interceptor, ed nash forgotten aircraft, P-47, thunderbolt, Lancer, Seversky, P-35, USAAC, Republic of China Air Force, CAF, RAAF, WW2, fighter planes, 2nd world war, Republic aviation's first aircraft, Burma campaing, AVG, American Volunteer Group

Id: 8Zig_1Q6Ios

Length: 10min 12sec (612 seconds)

Published: Wed May 18 2022