>US army air corps turned down the H1 in favour of biplanes

>US army air corps turned down the H1 in favour of biplanes
were they retarded?

  1. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    They'd have been retarded to buy them.

    Spending obscene amounts of money to buy cutting-edge fighters during peacetime is a terrible idea, particularly when aviation was still early enough that those fancy fighters were sure to become obsolete in like 5 years.

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      If you want to know what buying "cutting edge" in the mid 1930s looks like, look no further than the TBD-1 Devastator

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        >Devastators
        >most of the force was wiped out with little consequence except to distract the Zeros from the SBD Dauntless dive bombers
        Sacrifice me!

        • 3 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          >TBD is… LE BADDDD because uhh umm uhh IT GOT SHOT DOWN BY ZEROS A LOT OKAY SWEATY
          >Swordfish is… LE GOOOOOD because it CRIPPLED the EBIL NAHTZEE SHIP
          Yeah but there were no German fighters shooting at them when they were going after Bismarck, were there?
          >STOP MAKING SENSE CHUD TBD BAD SWORDFISH GOOD OKAY

          • 3 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            Yeah iToddler, it was bad. If Germany was capable of naval aviation people would talk just as badly about the swordfish.

            • 3 weeks ago
              Anonymous

              AAaaaaaaAAAAAA SCARY IPHONE

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Truth.

        • 3 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          >TBD bad!
          Classic midwit response.
          >B-B-BUT THEY FLEW INTO CONTESTED AIRSPACE IN MIDWAY AND GOT WHACKED OKAY
          That’s what happens when you fly into contested airspace, retard. Those crazy bastards were flying against purpose-built fighters.
          >B-but they didn’t sink shit!
          Mk.13 torpedos were known to be defective.

          Look dawg I’m not even a huge TBD enjoyer but the “muh midway” argument is pretty stupid. Picrel, a torpedo bomber that fucking worked

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      this is the stupidest comment I've seen in k

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        you stupid dumbo ass moron, look at the B18 Bolo, the best bomber in the air in the mid 1930s and absolute dogshit by 1940

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        >k
        obvious newgayry aside he's right and you're dumb, the USAAF had a tiny interwar budget and blowing it all on a squadron of meme race planes that would be obsolete by 1939 is not an efficient use of funds

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Let me put this in terms that an obese neet like yourself would understand. Buying a plane like that would be like buying a gen 1 threadripper 1950x in 2017 only to get beaten by a 5950x 3 years later for half the price. Planes in the 1930s leap frogged like crazy and to spend large amounts chasing a small advantage would have been futile as another design a year or two away would have been superior for cheaper

        • 3 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          >small advantage
          they were fucking slow biplanes you brainless dipshit. with some modding the H1 could have been great

          • 3 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            Name one characteristic (other than speed) which would have made the H-1 Racer a good fighter

            • 3 weeks ago
              Anonymous

              Wide undercarriage track.

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        >affordable and reliable choice
        vs
        >one off prototype built to go as fast as possible

        The US bought the P-36 about 3 years after the H1 was built, which later matured into the P-40. It made more sense to go with a more mature option than an H1 with guns strapped on to avoid needless costs on a miniscule budget. Think the Defiant vs Valor

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Raytheon shareholder chimes in

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        >k
        newfag says something dumb, checks out.

        You mean like all militaries do now?

        https://i.imgur.com/yRHFlmq.png

        >Spending obscene amounts of money to buy cutting-edge fighters during peacetime is a terrible idea,
        absolute state of this board

        fucking retards

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      You mean like all militaries do now?

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Fighters today don't go from first flight to total obsolescence in 36 months like they were doing in the mid-30s.

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Yes. Now they're intentionally wasting money.

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >Spending obscene amounts of money to buy cutting-edge fighters during peacetime is a terrible idea,
      absolute state of this board

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Did you miss the part about military aircraft having a five year shelf life back then?

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        For a technology in its infancy it absolutely is. A cheaper, more plentiful aircraft allowed the US to get more experienced pilots who could easily be typed on more advanced aircraft later. It also allowed them to build more infrastructure and industry for aviation.

        >Bu dah H1 better plane
        Again, technology in it’s infancy. Anything flying in 1935 would have gotten the shit beat out of it by 1940 aircraft, and anything flying in 1940 would have gotten the shit beat out of it by 1945 aircraft. Hell, the 1940 aircraft would already be struggling by 1942-43. It makes no sense to invest everything in a “state of the art” technology right now, when clearly that technology is going to advance by leaps and bounds in short order.

        You mean like all militaries do now?

        Fighters built in the modern era stay relevant for long periods of time because the technology has matured. Hell, most major powers are just now replacing aircraft that started production shortly after Vietnam. That’s because we know a lot more about designing planes and some revolutionary concept in aircraft design isn’t being discovered every week like it was in the 30’s and 40’s.

  2. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    This is like asking why the Bongs didn't adopt the Cookson repeater (the fact it had a shitty flaw is irrelevant, lets say it worked) in the 18th century or the Danes make everybody have a Kalthoff repeater in the 17th century. I mean, it's a 30 round repeating rifle, surely it would make sense to give everybody it so a group of 10 could out fire 100 guys? Or the Americans equipping everybody with the Belton flintlock.

    It's to do with money, proven designs, how quickly things can be built and so on.

  3. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >a 1-off racer made in 1935
    I mean ya it's better than anything else at the time but put some guns on it and it's going to be slower
    The real surprising thing to me is that the B-10 Bomber was significantly faster than any other plane that the Army air corps had

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Fast bombers were the meta at that very brief moment. Contemporary fighter aircraft being built stood a good chance of being biplanes.

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >B-10 Bomber
      Mid-30s designs always look so goofy and lovable.

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        *1932 voice* You may not like it but this is what peak performance looks like.

        • 3 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          >1932 voice
          Why did Trans-Atlantic accents die out? They were so nice to listen to

          • 3 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            >Why did Trans-Atlantic accents die out?
            It stopped being taught. It was never a natural accent, but a learned one.

          • 3 weeks ago
            Yukari

            fake and gay hollywood bullshit

            • 3 weeks ago
              Anonymous

              Unless you have a regional accent I guarantee you use a fake and gay Hollywood accent too, just a newer one

          • 3 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            It was an artificial accent created specifically because of the nature of audio recording equipment of the time. You can find recordings of people from the era sounding much more like modern American accents.

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        >a 1-off racer made in 1935
        I mean ya it's better than anything else at the time but put some guns on it and it's going to be slower
        The real surprising thing to me is that the B-10 Bomber was significantly faster than any other plane that the Army air corps had

        https://i.imgur.com/5rOpm52.jpg

        *1932 voice* You may not like it but this is what peak performance looks like.

        More needs to be done to educate the world about how much money the UK wasted in the 1930s on planes that they fielded like 100 - 150 of for a few years and then dumped for the next instantly obsolete design.
        This lad had contemporaneous service with planes like the B17 and blenheim.

  4. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >nose longer than the high rabbi of new york
    >zero forward visibility on the ground
    >extremely poor forward-down visibility in the air
    >race built aircraft have a reputation for making poor military aircraft (see Italy's attempts at CAS)

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >nose longer than the high rabbi of new york
      >zero forward visibility on the ground
      >extremely poor forward-down visibility in the air
      Hey

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        The Corsair had an excellent service history though. Once the Brits figured out the proper landing procedure for carriers it was proven viable for that role as well.

        Did have a big friggin garden gnome schnoz though, it did.

        • 3 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          The bongs didn't have proper naval aircraft, so they always had to take what the US gave them, in that case an immature Corsair that wasn't aerodynamically developed enough for safe service at sea. The US had other aircraft in their inventory suitable, until Corsair finished the aerodynamic developments required for safe sea service. The bongs had no such luxury, they were beggars, and neither did they participate in the required aerodynamic developments made to Corsair.

        • 3 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          That's what I meant. Corsair had the same issues but turned out to be one of the best planes of the war.

        • 3 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          >Did have a big friggin garden gnome schnoz though, it did.
          oro

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Yeah some of that applies to the Corsair, but compare the side profiles. The Hughes Racer makes the Corsair cockpit look positively forward mounted.

  5. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Performance of the Hughes racer (1935, short wingspan version) was comparable to the Bf.109G6 from 1943. Of course, the “Gustaf” achieved this performance while carrying guns, armor, self-sealing fuel tanks and a radio.

    I’d say that an armed Hughes racer would have been relevant during the Battle of Britain. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that anything that was relevant during the BoB got FUCKING KEKED by pic related in 1941.

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Also worth pointing out is the fact that the Hughes racer would’ve been the least manueverable fucking plane in the RAF inventory had it been adopted by the Brits. Even the late, cannon-armed versions of the Hurricane (picrel) had wing loadings around 25-30 lb/ft.sq. Hughes racer had a wing load of 40 lb/ft.sq while not carrying any guns or armor.

  6. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >soiposter thinks he's winning because he posted soishit

  7. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Hughes always claimed the Japs ripped off his racer when they designed the Zero. He was a based schizo though so I dunno how much truth there is to that claim.

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      The zero is the opposite in terms of design in many ways. Compare the wing loading of both planes, it's not even close.

  8. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    blowing your limited budget on le epic cutting edge wunderwaffe was the choice picked by the countries that got absolutely mogged in WW2 by the ones that decided to focus on efficient, tried designs
    your thread is fucking retarded, jakposter

  9. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Hughes' claims that the H-1 had been turned down because an all-metal monoplane was too futuristic for the hidebound Air Corps was pure cope. At the time, the Army was looking at the Curtiss Model 75 (picrel) which unlike the Hughes racer was a practical basis for a fighter. It became the P-36 Hawk (which the Army bought 200 of) and was further developed into the P-40 Warhawk (which they built 13,000 of).

  10. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >H1 Racer first flight
    >Aug 17th 1935
    >P-36 first flight
    >May 6th 1935
    Gee why did the USAAF turn down a racing plane in favor of a purpose built fighter aircraft that they had been working on since 34

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      thats a wrap, folks

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      and it underwent several changes and modifications, just like the H1 would have

  11. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >Hughes
    They probably wanted some fighters in service by the end of the decade.

  12. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >the USAAC turned down a plane not designed to carry any weapons and barely capable of maneuvering? Why?
    are you retarded?

  13. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Racing planes tend not to be built with the same standards as military aircraft, and they deliberately aren't designed with margin for future upgrades.
    The US air force had strict standards for structural loads that added a lot of weight to their aircraft.

    A good example of a record plane turned into a warplane was the He-100, it used a huge transpiration radiator to reduce drag and achieve incredible speed, however in combat it was incredibly fragile and would leak from almost any battle damage.
    The design was never turned into anything useful.

    At best, record and racing planes can push the technology and engineering doctrine, they make poor combat aircraft.

  14. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    ITT: here's why America's pre-war was dogshit, and that's a good thing

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Do you understand why the interwar USAAC spending its very limited resources on a (literally) insane millionaire's flying racecar instead of buying actual warplanes would have been a bad idea?

  15. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    They built 25 of this fella at the same time as the Heyford and kept a single squadron of them in active service along side the Heyford until 1938 for whatever reason.

  16. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >Power/mass: 0.13hp/lb
    I feel like this was a bit of an issue

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