Lindbergh and a few other Navy aviators, including Lieutenant Najeeb E. Throughout 131 hours of testing the oddness of how the V-173 operated came to the fore, with pilots Boone Guyton, Richard Burroughs, Charles A. Being only an experimental aircraft it was fed by a meagre 75 litres of fuel, giving it a top speed of 138 miles per hour, a cruise speed of 75 miles per hour, and the ability to climb up to 5,000 feet in 7 minutes.Īfter some testing had occurred, the V-173 had additional stabilising flaps. It was propelled by two rather underwhelming Continental A-80 piston engines which powered dual three-bladed propellers of around 5 meters each. Read More: B-25 Mitchell – The Aircraft Carrier based Bomber Made from wood and aluminium with a fabric covering and almost completely flat, it was extremely light weighing in at a mere 1,024 kilograms.Įlsewhere at its rear, it was fitted with an all-moveable ‘flying tail’ for stability, while beneath its fixed landing gear gave it a 22-degree nose-high ground angle. The V-173 was 8.13 meters in length, 3.9 meters high, and had a wingspan of 7.16 meters in addition to a wing area of 39.66 meters. Photo credit – Vought.įollowing Vought’s merger with Sikorsky in 1939, the Aeromobile piqued the interest of the US Navy, who authorized a contract stipulating that after Zimmerman and his team had conducted a series of wind tunnel tests with scale models, they were to assemble a full proof-of-concept prototype called the V-173. This model was important in testing the concept before a full-size aircraft could be built. Although impressed by what they saw they declined, principally because Chance Vought was primarily a US Navy contractor, one of their biggest interdepartmental rivals. In late 1938 believing it to have the potential for military use, Zimmerman offered his design and an attack bomber variant to the US Army. Evaluated inside a hangar, the prototype performed remarkably well with its chopper-like characteristics, with assessors confident it could be fine-tuned into an effective short takeoff and landing (STOL) air vehicle.Ĭonvinced he had stumbled onto a revolutionary new aviation layout and determined to protect his idea from prying eyes, in February 1938 Zimmerman filed a US patent registered 2,108093 for a semi-circular low aspect ratio aircraft he referred to as the ‘Aeromobile’. Provided with all the necessary resources by Wilson, Zimmerman started piecing together an advanced model demonstrator called the V-162. Leaving his role as chief of the Stability and Control Section at NACA, Zimmerman took up employment as a designer for Chance Vought Aircraft Division, a subsidiary company based in Stratford, Connecticut.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |