The Curtiss-Wright XP-55 Ascender (company designation CW-24) is a 1940s

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prototype

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...

built by

Curtiss-Wright The Curtiss-Wright Corporation is a manufacturer and services provider headquartered in Davidson, North Carolina, with factories and operations in and outside the United States. Created in 1929 from the consolidation of Curtiss, Wright, and v ...

. Along with the

Vultee XP-54 The Vultee XP-54 ''Swoose Goose'' was a prototype fighter built by the Vultee Aircraft Company for the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). Design and development Vultee submitted a proposal in response to a U.S. Army Air Corps request fo ...

and Northrop XP-56, it resulted from

United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...

proposal R-40C issued on 27 November 1939 for aircraft with improved performance, armament, and pilot visibility over existing fighters; it specifically allowed for unconventional aircraft designs. An unusual design for its time, it had a canard configuration, a rear-mounted engine, swept wings, and two vertical tails. Because of its pusher design, it was sarcastically referred to as the "Ass-ender". Like the XP-54, the Ascender was designed for the

Pratt & Whitney X-1800 The Pratt & Whitney X-1800 (later enlarged as the XH-2600) was an H-block aircraft engine project developed between 1938 and 1940, which was cancelled with only one example being built. Design and development The X-1800 was a watercooled 24-cy ...

engine, but was re-designed after that engine project was canceled. It was also the first Curtiss fighter aircraft to use

tricycle landing gear Tricycle gear is a type of aircraft undercarriage, or ''landing gear'', arranged in a tricycle fashion. The tricycle arrangement has a single nose wheel in the front, and two or more main wheels slightly aft of the center of gravity. Tricycle g ...

Design and development

June 1940, the Curtiss-Wright company received an Army contract for preliminary engineering data and a powered

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model. The designation P-55 was reserved for the project. The USAAC was dissatisfied with the results of these tests. Accordingly, Curtiss-Wright built a flying full-scale model they designated CW-24B. The flying testbed was powered by a Menasco C68-5 inline engine. It had a fabric-covered, welded steel tube

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

with a wooden wing. The undercarriage was non-retractable. July 1942, the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

issued a contract for three prototypes under the designation XP-55. Serial numbers were 42-78845 through 42-78847. During this time, the

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engine was delayed, and was eventually canceled. Curtiss decided to switch to the Allison V-1710 (F16) liquid-cooled inline engine because of its proven reliability. Armament was to be two cannon and two machine guns. During the

mock-up In manufacturing and design, a mockup, or mock-up, is a scale or full-size model of a design or device, used for teaching, demonstration, design evaluation, promotion, and other purposes. A mockup may be a ''prototype'' if it provides at lea ...

phase, engineers switched to the V-1710-95. The 20 mm cannons were also replaced by 0.50 in machine guns. One feature of the XP-55 was a propeller jettison lever inside the cockpit to prevent the pilot from hitting the propeller during bailout. The jettison device was invented by W. Jerome Peterson while working as a design engineer for Curtiss-Wright.

Operational history

The first XP-55 (42-78845) was completed on 13 July 1943 with the same configuration as the final prototype CW-24B. The aircraft made its first flight on 19 July 1943 from the Army's Scott Field near the Curtiss-Wright plant in

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. The pilot was J. Harvey Gray, Curtiss' test pilot. Testing revealed the takeoff run was excessively long. To solve this problem, the nose

elevator An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...

size was increased and the

aileron An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around ...

up-trim was interconnected with the

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s so it operated after the flaps were lowered. November 1943, test pilot Harvey Gray, flying the first XP-55 (S/N 42-78845), was testing the aircraft's stall performance at altitude. Suddenly, the XP-55 inverted into an uncontrolled descent. The pilot was unable to right the airplane, and it fell out of control for before Gray was able to parachute to safety. The aircraft was destroyed. The second XP-55 (S/N 42-78846) was similar to the first, but with a slightly larger nose-elevator, modified elevator-tab systems, and a change from balance tabs to spring tabs on the ailerons. It flew for the first time on 9 January 1944. All flight tests were restricted so the stall-zone was avoided. The third XP-55 (S/N 42-78847) flew for the first time on 25 April 1944. It was fitted with four machine guns, and incorporated some of the lessons from the loss of the first XP-55. Engineers discovered the aircraft's stall characteristics could be improved by the addition of four-foot wingtip extensions, and by increasing the limits of the nose elevator travel. Between 16 September and 2 October 1944, the second XP-55 (42-78846), modified to the standards as the third aircraft, underwent official USAAF flight trials. The performance of the XP-55 was inferior to conventional fighter aircraft. Sealing its fate, by 1944, jet-powered fighters were in development; that terminated development of the XP-55. The third prototype XP-55 (s/n 42-78847) was lost on 27 May 1945 during the closing day of the Seventh War Bond Air Show at the Army Air Forces Fair at

Wright Field Wilbur Wright Field was a military installation and an airfield used as a World War I pilot, mechanic, and armorer training facility and, under different designations, conducted United States Army Air Corps and Air Forces flight testing. Lo ...

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. After a low pass in formation with a

Lockheed P-38 Lightning The Lockheed P-38 Lightning is an American single-seat, twin piston-engined fighter aircraft that was used during World War II. Developed for the United States Army Air Corps by the Lockheed Corporation, the P-38 incorporated a distinctive twi ...

and a

North American P-51 Mustang The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter aircraft, fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team ...

on each wing, its pilot, William C. Glasgow, attempted a slow roll, but lost altitude and crashed, sending flaming debris into occupied civilian ground vehicles on a highway near the airfield. The crash killed Glasgow and four civilians on the ground.

Aircraft disposition

Air Zoo December 2019 016 (Curtiss XP-55 Ascender)

* 42-78845: crashed during vertical dive on Nov 15, 1943. Pilot bailed out. * 42-78846: on display at the Air Zoo in

Kalamazoo, Michigan Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in the southwest region of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County. At the 2010 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 74,262. Kalamazoo is the major city of the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropolit ...

. It is on long-term loan from the Smithsonian's

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Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

* 42-78847: crashed during air show at Wright Field,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

on May 27, 1945. Pilot killed."XP-55 Ascender/42-78847"
''Joe Baugher's Serial Numbers''. Retrieved: 10 May 2013.