Curtiss' Final (Failed) Fighters Of World War II: Curtiss XP-62 & XF14C

Video Description

In this video, we take a look at a pair of planes from Curtiss-Wright in the XP-62 and XF14C, two high-performance quasi-superplanes for the US Army Air Force and the US Navy. We first talk about why Curtiss is one of my favorite companies, seemingly having terrible luck past the P-40 Warhawk. We then talk about the beginnings of both of these projects in 1941, with both the Army and Navy searching for high-altitude, high performance fighters that used the most powerful engines available. We start by looking at the XP-62, with its projected performance and armament that would, ideally, make it an incredible superplane, better than anything seen in WW2. We talk about its sheer size and strange, stubby design, and how, right out of the gate, the project suffered delays and issues that ended up dooming it to fail. We then move to the XF14C, a similar design for the US Navy that was initially intended to use a liquid-cooled engine. We talk about that engine's failure, how the XF14C adapted, and how it too suffered from delays and issues that doomed it as well. We end by talking about the current success of Curtiss-Wright, and how them moving away from aircraft production was the right move. Archive link to book mentioned: U.S. Experimental & Prototype Aircraft Projects by Bill Norton https://archive.org/details/usexperimentalpr0000nort/mode/2up