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Additional Information from Internet Encyclopedia
The Seversky P-35 is an American fighter aircraft
built by the Seversky Aircraft Company in the late 1930s. A contemporary of the
Hawker Hurricane and Messerschmitt Bf 109, the P-35 was the first single-seat
fighter in United States Army Air Corps to feature all-metal construction,
retractable landing gear, and an enclosed cockpit.
Design and development
The origins of the P-35 can be traced back to the
Seversky SEV-3 three-seat amphibian, designed by Alexander Kartveli, Seversky's
chief designer and Seversky's first aircraft. The SEV-3 first flew in June 1933
and was developed into the Seversky BT-8 basic trainer, 30 of which were
ordered by the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) in 1935.[2] This proved
grossly underpowered and was quickly replaced by the North American BT-9.
The second prototype SEV-3 was completed as a
two-seat fighter derivative, the SEV-2XP. It was powered by a 735 hp (548 kW)
Wright R-1820 radial engine, had fixed landing gear in aerodynamic spats and
was armed with one .50 in (12.7 mm) and one .30 in (7.62 mm) forward-firing
machine guns plus an additional .30 in (7.62 mm) gun for rear defence.
When the USAAC announced a competition for a new
single-seat fighter in 1935, Seversky sent the SEV-2XP, confident it would win
despite being a two-seater. However, the aircraft was damaged on 18 June 1935
during its transit to the fly-offs at Wright Field. To compete with the Curtiss
Model 75, a single-seat aircraft with retractable undercarriage, Seversky
rebuilt the aircraft into the single seat SEV-1XP, replacing the SEV-2XP's
fixed landing gear with a retractable undercarriage where the mainwheels
retracted backwards into the wing, and an 850 hp (634 kW) R-1820-G5 replacing
the -F3 of the SEV-2XP. The SEV-1XP was delivered to Wright Field on 15 August
for evaluation, which was generally successful, although the Cyclone failed to
deliver its rated power and the SEV-1XP only reached 289 mph (465 km/h) rather
than the 300 mph (483 km/h) predicted by Seversky.
Protests from Curtiss led to the formal flyoff between
the fighters to be delayed until April 1936. The delay was used by both
Seversky and Curtiss to improve their aircraft, while allowing additional
fighters from Vought (the Vought V-141) and Consolidated with a single seat
version of the PB-2. The SEV-1XP was re-engined again, with a two-row Pratt
& Whitney R-1830-9 "Twin Wasp" replacing the Cyclone and a
modified vertical stabilizer fitted, becoming the SEV-7.
The P&W also failed to deliver its rated power
as it put out only 738 hp, and top speed was again well below 300 mph. Whilst
more expensive than the Curtiss and Vought designs, the Seversky was a clear
winner of the Air Corps' competition, with an order for 77 P-35 fighters and
spare parts equivalent to eight airplanes being placed on 16 June 1936 at a
cost of $1,636,250. Modifications from SEV-1XP to production P-35 standard
included partial instead of complete mainwheel fairings and seven degrees of
dihedral to the outer wing panels.
The first production P-35 was delivered to the
USAAC in May 1937, preceded by a company owned pre-production aircraft and
demonstrator, the AP-1.[10] Only 76 P-35s were built, delivery being completed
in August 1938, with the 77th aircraft finished as the prototype XP-41. When it
wanted further fighters in 1937, the Air Corps, who were unhappy with both the
slow delivery of the P-35, and sale of 2PA two-seat aircraft to the Japanese
Navy, ordered 210 Curtiss P-36s.
Seversky continued to develop the design with the
hope of selling more aircraft both to the Air Corps and to civil and export
customers. It modified the prototype SEV-1XP as a single seat racer, the S-1
entering it into the 1937 Bendix Trophy, where it finished in fourth place. The
competition was won by the S-2 (registration number NR70Y), a similar aircraft
built for Frank Fuller of the Fuller Paint Company. S-2 also won the Bendix
Trophy in 1939[14] and placed second in 1938. The aircraft was used to portray
the "Drake Bullet" in the 1938 film Test Pilot.
Another civil aircraft was the DS, (or Doolittle
Special), a single seater for James Doolittle, employed at the time by the
Shell Oil Company, while the AP-7 was another racer, powered by a 1,200 hp (895
kW) R-1830 engine and used by Jacqueline Cochran to win the 1938 Bendix Trophy
race and to set a women's air speed record.[16][17] Seversky entered two
aircraft based on the P-35 in a 1938 competition for a new fighter for the Air
Corps. One was the XP-41 (which had the company designation AP-4D, which was a
P-35 with a 1,200 hp (895 kW) R-1830-9 engine fitted with a two-stage
supercharger) and the AP-4, which had a turbo-supercharger mounted in the belly
of a deeper fuselage. The Air Corps preferred the AP-4D, which was ordered into
production as the P-43 Lancer.
Aiming to increase sales, Alexander P. de Seversky
personally took a demonstrator on a tour of Europe in early 1939. As a result
of this demonstration, Sweden ordered 15 EP-106 fighters on 29 June 1939,[20] a
development of the P-35 powered by a 1,050 hp (783 kW) R-1830-45, which
improved performance by over 25 mph (40 km/h) and armed with two 7.9 mm (.311
in) machine guns in the cowl and two 13.2 mm (.52 in) machine guns in the
wings. A second order for 45 EP-106s was placed on 11 October 1939, with a
third order for 60 aircraft, placed on 6 January 1940, although by this time
Seversky had been thrown out of the company bearing his name by the board of
directors, with the company renaming itself Republic Aviation. The Swedish Air
Force designated them J 9.
Two-seat versions
Seversky also built a two-seater, the 2PA. Evolved
in parallel with the P-35, the 2PA was a two-seat fighter and fighter-bomber
with a fundamentally similar airframe and offered with either a similar
undercarriage to that of the single-seater as the 2PA-L (Land) or with an
amphibious float undercarriage as the 2PA-A (Amphibian). Dubbed "Convoy
Fighter" by the manufacturer, the 2PA was powered by a Wright R-1820-G2 or
G3 Cyclone nine-cylinder radial engine, the former rated at 1,000 hp for
take-off and the latter at 875 hp. Armament comprised two wing-mounted 7.62 mm
or 12.7 mm Browning guns, one 7.62 mm Browning on a flexible mount in the rear
cockpit, plus two forward-firing fuselage-mounted 7.62 mm or 12.7 mm Browning
guns. Provision was made for a bomb load of up to 227 kg (500 lb) on internal
wing racks. One 2PA-A and one 2PA-L were procured by the Soviet Union in March
1938, one with conventional landing gear and one with floats, along with the
manufacturing license, but it appears that the Soviets never put it into
production. In what proved to be an unpopular move for Seversky, 20 2PA-B3s
were sold to the Japanese Navy, which briefly employed them in the Second
Sino-Japanese War as Navy Type S Two-Seat Fighter or A8V-1 (Allied codename
"Dick"). The Japanese were unimpressed with the aircraft and
eventually relegated two of them to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper as "hacks."
Sweden ordered 52 2PAs (Swedish designation B 6), able to carry 1,350 lb (612
kg) of bombs, but received only two prior to the U.S. embargo directed to
combatants. The remaining 50 were appropriated by the USAAC, re-armed with 0.30
in and 0.50 in machine guns, and used as advanced trainers named AT-12
Guardsman.
Operational history
USAAC
The first P-35s were delivered to the 1st Pursuit
Group (27th, 71st and 94th PS) stationed at Selfridge Field in Michigan. The
aircraft used a wet wing to save weight and ground personnel quickly learned
about the persistent fuel leaks. The P-35's performance was poor even by
contemporary standards and, although USAAC aviators appreciated the aircraft's
ruggedness, it was already obsolete by the time deliveries were finished in
1938.
On 18 June 1940, United States declared an embargo
against exporting weapons to any nation other than the United Kingdom.
Optimistically, Republic continued to manufacture EP-106s which, by the 24
October 1940 order, 60 were taken over by the USAAC as the P-35A. The aircraft
were re-armed to American standards with a pair of 0.50 in machine guns that
fired through the propeller, but retained the Swedish specification of a 0.30
in machine gun mounted in each wing. Flight instruments were metric, and both
their labeling and flight manuals written in Swedish. Of these, three aircraft
were kept in United States as instructional airframes for mechanics. Six P-35As
were delivered to Ecuador to form the first combat unit, the Escuadrilla de
Caza.
Philippine Army Air Corps
The remainder were sent to the Far East Air Force
in the Philippines beginning in February 1941. Eventually all pilots of the
three pursuit squadrons on Luzon transitioned to the P-35A from the P-26. About
10 of these were lost in accidents. The P-35s were used primarily as gunnery
trainers by all three squadrons because of a critical shortage of .50-caliber
ammunition in the Far East Air Force, placing a strain on the engines of all
the aircraft since no replacement engines were available. In October 1941, the
P-35s were earmarked for transfer to the Philippine Army Air Corps after
sufficient Curtiss P-40 Warhawks were received by the FEAF.
In November 1941, after the 3rd and 17th PS
received new P-40E aircraft, most of their P-35As were passed to two newly
arrived squadrons attached to the group, the 21st and 34th PS, with the latter
receiving most. The 21st PS received its P-40Es on the eve of war and
transferred its few P-35s to the 34th Pursuit Squadron, which then had nearly a
full squadron.[26] It then fought with them in the futile defense of the
islands in December 1941, initially at Del Carmen Airfield. They were
hopelessly outclassed by the Japanese fighters. Lack of armor and self-sealing
fuel tanks made the aircraft extremely vulnerable (12 P-35As were destroyed and
six damaged by a Japanese strafing attack on Del Carmen Airfield on 10 December)
and by 12 December 1941, only eight P-35As were still in flying condition.
However, also on 10 December 1941, a P-35A of the 34th Pursuit Squadron piloted
by 1st Lt. Samuel H. Marrett is credited with the sinking of Japanese
minesweeper W-10 during the Japanese invasion of Vigan in northern Luzon.
Marrett made multiple strafing runs against W-10, until the ship blew up. The
explosion was so powerful it tore a wing off of Marrett's P-35, causing him to
crash into the sea.
In late December 1941, most of the remaining
strength of the Army Ait Force in the Philippines was evacuated to airfields on
the Bataan Peninsula.[29] On 2 January 1942, five surviving P-35As attempted to
fly from Pilar Field to Bataan Airfield, but two hit by anti-aircraft fire,
with one crashing and the second returning to Pilar where it was wrecked on
landing.[30] On 11 January, the two remaining P-35s evacuated to Del Monte Airfield
on Mindanao, carrying several unit personnel in their baggage compartments.[31]
On 4 April, they returned briefly to Bataan to evacuate other personnel, and
one was lost crash-landing on Cebu on 10 April. The sole surviving P-35 was
turned over to Capt. Ramon Zosa of the PAAC on 30 April, and flew its last
sortie out of Del Monte Airfield, accompanying a P-40 on a strafing attack of
Japanese landings at Macajalar Bay on 3 May 1942.
Sweden
The Swedish Air Force received 60 J 9s in the
spring-summer 1940. The aircraft were operated alongside other units assigned
to the Svea Air Force Wing (F 8) protecting Stockholm, replacing the obsolete
Gloster Gladiators. Swedish J 9s served with Flygvapnet as a fighter until
1946. Later, 10 aircraft were equipped with cameras but retained their J 9
fighter designation and, in addition, a number of others were used for liaison
and general flight training. The last seven J 9 aircraft remained in service
until September 1952.