Awesome WW2 experimental Aircraft

Vought XF5U
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Glyndwr01

Banned
https://imgur.com/gallery/cr7uu

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Martin Baker 'Tankbuster' Hard to source, it featured twin booms, a single rear-mounted Griffon II and one six pounder (2.7kg) anti-tank gun in the nose which was set on the horizontal axis of the CofG to ensure that the aircraft would not pitch when firing. Both radiator and oil tank, installed in the fuselage in front of the engine, were protected by offset armour-plated ducts to prevent bullets from being deflected inside the duct. The entire all-metal fuselage, and the engine cowling, was covered in ~in (12.7mm) thick armour which weighed approximately 4,9001b (2,223kg). The wings and tail were all-metal and a fixed tricycle undercarriage was used; maximum rate of climb would be 2,250ft/min (686m1min). Martin-Baker's project was not attractive to the Air Staff because it carried only one big gun out of several weapons needed for low attack work, which meant it was only usable against one out of five or six types of target. It followed that to design a low attack aircraft around just this one weapon would be very uneconomical. It would probably be able to take other guns, bombs or rockets on the wings but they would make it very overloaded because it would be impossible to remove the big gun from the nose. The Air Staff considered it to be too specialised and lost out to the Hawker Typhoon. British Secret Projects: Fighters & Bombers 1935 - 1950
 
https://imgur.com/gallery/cr7uu

UXfuHtq.jpg

Martin Baker 'Tankbuster' Hard to source, it featured twin booms, a single rear-mounted Griffon II and one six pounder (2.7kg) anti-tank gun in the nose which was set on the horizontal axis of the CofG to ensure that the aircraft would not pitch when firing. Both radiator and oil tank, installed in the fuselage in front of the engine, were protected by offset armour-plated ducts to prevent bullets from being deflected inside the duct. The entire all-metal fuselage, and the engine cowling, was covered in ~in (12.7mm) thick armour which weighed approximately 4,9001b (2,223kg).

Beechcraft XA-38 Grizzly

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75mm with twin .50s forward, and twin remote turrets each with twin .50s
It was set that the nose could be removed easily for other armament options
committed the fatal sin of using R-3350s that were set aside for B-29 production
 
Marathag,

First time I've seen any representation of the Vought XF5U airplane with the articulated propellers. Didn't realize that each four bladed prop was made of a pair of out-of-plane two bladers. The write-up states that the props rotate inboard at the top. This is incorrect and would defeat Zimmerman's basic concept of wing-tip vortex cancellation. The propellers in the illustrations show proper outboard rotation.

I believe that Vought proposed a later version with turboprop engines installed at the tips of a more rectangular wing with a simple cross shaft between them. This might have been offered to BuAir for their shipboard VTOL project.

Dynasoar
 

Driftless

Donor
The He.100/113.... It existed in the netherworld between experimental and production. More ado over the possibility than the reality. It was a cool looking plane, all the same.

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Just Leo has done a few of his famous doodles that show off variants of this nifty looking aircraft.
 

Driftless

Donor
1940 British experimental aircraft - Napier-Heston Racer. Never intended as a warplane, but it did fly during the war....

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There were a couple of cool speedburner counterparts that didn't quite make the OP's time frame: Bugatti Model 100 Racer and Hughes H-1 Racer (Hughes hoped to sell the USAAC on the concept)
 
Blohm & Voss 141 observation airplane. It's assymetrical layout provided tremendous visibility to all 3 crew members in the offset gondola. 40ish were built and saw limited service. British test-pilot Eric "Winkle" Brown enjoyed his only flight in a BV141, reporting that it handled conventionally.
Unfortunately, it's BMW radial engine was urgently needed for FW-190 fighters.

BV 141 was replaced by a FW with the same gondola but a pair of lower-priority Argus engines.
 
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