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    Martin Model 262 Convoy Fighter: The Naval VTOL Turboprop Project of 1950
    Martin Model 262 Convoy Fighter: The Naval VTOL Turboprop Project of 1950
    Martin Model 262 Convoy Fighter: The Naval VTOL Turboprop Project of 1950
    Ebook88 pages51 minutes

    Martin Model 262 Convoy Fighter: The Naval VTOL Turboprop Project of 1950

    By Jared A. Zichek

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    About this ebook

    The Martin Model 262 was an unconventional turboprop VTOL aircraft proposal submitted to the US Navy's convoy fighter competition of 1950, which ultimately produced the Convair XFY-1 Pogo and Lockheed XFV-1 Salmon. It was a swept-wing aircraft with triple vertical tails powered by an Allison XT-40-A-8 turboprop engine driving 16 ft contra-rotating propellers. The launch and recovery system consisted of a hinged vertical platform mounted on a merchant ship; the pilot approached the platform from the side and hovered vertically just in front of it, attaching the aircraft to the platform with a retractable nosegear spike and landing on two small retractable wing gear. The fighter was armed with four 20 mm cannon and was designed to protect convoy vessels from enemy air attack. In addition to the basic Model 262, Martin also presented Modifications A, B and C, the configurations of which were even more unorthodox than the main proposal. Finally, the book examines the Model 262P, a handsome scale demonstrator designed to verify the basic soundness of the concept. This ebook features a comprehensive description of the proposal and 56 high resolution illustrations, including detailed schematics, artist's impressions, and speculative color profiles of these remarkable secret aircraft projects. This is the author's second book covering the USN convoy fighter competition of 1950, the first one being devoted to the Goodyear GA-28A/B, which is still available from bookstores worldwide.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJared A. Zichek
    Release dateOct 3, 2015
    ISBN9781310209413
    Martin Model 262 Convoy Fighter: The Naval VTOL Turboprop Project of 1950
    Author

    Jared A. Zichek

    Jared Zichek is a freelance author and illustrator specializing in aviation history. He lives in La Jolla, California.

    Read more from Jared A. Zichek

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      Book preview

      Martin Model 262 Convoy Fighter - Jared A. Zichek

      Martin Model 262 Convoy Fighter: The Naval VTOL Turboprop Project of 1950

      Jared A. Zichek

      Retromechanix Productions

      First published in the United States of America in 2015 by Jared A. Zichek, 2750 Torrey Pines Rd, La Jolla, California 92037, USA.

      E-mail: editor@retromechanix.com

      ©2015 Jared A. Zichek. Access to this ebook is not digitally restricted. In return, I ask you that you use it for personal, non-commercial purposes only. Please don’t upload this ebook to a peer-to-peer site, email it to everyone you know, or resell it. I reserve all rights to its digital content and no part of this product may be copied, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise (except as permitted here), without the written permission of the publisher. Please support my writing and publishing by using this ebook responsibly.

      ISBN: 978-0-9968754-0-0

      www.retromechanix.com

      All images in this publication are scanned from documents held by National Archives II, College Park, MD, RG 72 unless otherwise indicated. All color profile artwork is ©2015 Jared A. Zichek.

      Contents

      Introduction

      General Overview

      Launch and Recovery

      Recovery

      Equipment on Surface Ship

      Recovery Method

      Launch

      Aerodynamics

      Hovering

      Transition

      Level Flight

      Controls

      Surface Controls and Boost

      Autopilot

      Automatic Control

      Electronics Installation

      Blind Landing (Electronics)

      Armament

      Power Plant

      Maintenance

      Structure and Producibility

      Modified Arrangements

      Modification A—Delta Wing

      Modification B—Central Propeller

      Modification C—Pusher Propeller

      Alternate Gearing Arrangement

      Wind Tunnel Program

      Isolated Propeller Tests

      Low Speed Tests

      Free Flight Tests

      Intake Duct Tests

      High Speed Tests

      Alternate Launch and Recovery

      Model 262P Convoy Fighter Prototype

      Cost Proposal

      Why Martin Lost

      Other Publications

      Social Media

      Imprint

      Introduction

      In my second book on the US Navy convoy fighter competition of 1950, I present the proposal from the Glenn L. Martin Company of Baltimore, Maryland. Martin was one of five participating contractors, the others being Convair, Goodyear (previously covered), Lockheed, and Northrop. Contracts were eventually awarded in May 1951 to Convair and Lockheed, who built the XFY-1 Pogo and XFV-1 Salmon, respectively.

      The turboprop tailsitter concept emerged in the late 1940s, with the US Navy Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) beginning to seriously examine the feasibility of developing a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) tailsitter aircraft to protect convoys, task forces, and other vessels. These specialized interceptors would be placed on the decks of ships to provide a rapid defensive and reconnaissance capability until conventional carrier-based fighters could arrive and assist. The Battle of the Atlantic was fresh in the minds of Navy planners, who were concerned that the Soviets would engage in a similar campaign against merchant shipping if the nascent Cold War erupted into open conflict. BuAer’s interest in a VTOL tailsitter fighter coincided with the development of new turboprop engines which provided enough horsepower to make the concept a reality.

      BuAer’s Outline Specification for Class VF Airplane (Convoy Fighter) OS-122 was dated July 10, 1950. It listed the requirements for such an aircraft along with a three-quarter scale demonstrator to verify the soundness of the concept. The document was distributed to the major aircraft manufacturers of the day, with the aforementioned companies responding in late November 1950. The products of this competition, the Convair XFY-1 and Lockheed XFV-1, never made it beyond the prototype stage, as they proved to be very difficult to land, suffered from power plant reliability issues, and were eclipsed in performance by contemporary jet fighters. The Pogo and Salmon became historical curiosities, regularly making the list of world’s worst/strangest aircraft; the VTOL turboprop tailsitter configuration proved to be a dead end.

      While not as bizarre as the Goodyear GA-28, Martin’s Model 262 distinguished itself from the other convoy fighter proposals in that it did not land on its tail; instead, it was designed to land on a vertical platform by means of a retractable nose spike and two small wing gears, hanging from the surface like a mounted insect. This deviation from BuAer’s expectations may have been one of several reasons the Model 262 never went beyond the drawing board.

      Martin devoted 3½ months of serious engineering effort toward a study of the problems associated with the development of a vertically rising fighter designed to be based on a merchant ship and to supply air defense for the convoy. These studies confirmed the feasibility of developing

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