In the hierarchy of American fighter planes during World War II, the top will be forever populated by the P-51 Mustang and not much of anything else. The Mustang may get all the glory, but if you were lucky enough to talk to an American Second World War pilot, they'd likely tell you they preferred the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.
But even the P-47, fast, durable, and deadly as it was, routinely overshadows the airplane that, in many ways, gave it life. This is the Republic P-43 Lancer, and we're sure it's very happy to be given some recognition after all these years. The Lancer was to the Thunderbolt what the F-111B was to the F-14 Tomcat. So to say, a technological step in the right direction, but not all that special compared to what came afterward.
But it turns out the P-43 was a pretty pivotal airplane for Republic Aviation of Farmingdale, New York. It proved to be a serviceable, relatively fast, and surprisingly maneuverable single-single engine, a land-based fighter plane that helped to bridge the gap while the P-47 struggled through development. First flown at Republic Airport in Farmingdale in March 1940, the P-43 took to the skies at a time of profound change for its manufacturer.
Republic's previous mono-wing fighter, the P-35, often nicknamed the "Babybolt" in modern aviation geek circles, was manufactured under the Seversky name derived from the company's founder, Alexander de Seversky. The Georgian native (Tbilisi, not Atlanta) contributed to the sturdy and safety-oriented design philosiphy that'd go on to define Republic until its dying days.
The P-35 would only see limited combat in its operational life but served an entirely different simultaneous role as an experimental test aircraft platform. Between 1940 and 1941, Republic produced prototypes AP-2, AP-7, AP-4 (which flew after the AP-7), AP-9, and XP-41, all took the basic airframe of the P-35 and added upgrades and design cues that'd one day find their way onto the P-43, and by extension, the P-47 too.
Photo: Republic Aviation
Powering the P-43 in its early configurations was a single Pratt & Whitney R-1830-49 14-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engine. The same unit that powered the iconic C-47 Skytrain/DC-3, the Grumman F4F Wildcat, and the Consolidated B-24 Liberator.
With 1,200 horsepower and a power-boosting turbo-supercharger to play with, it was no Thunderbolt in terms of raw speed. Still, it was at least enough to reach speeds of 350 miles per hour (564 km/h) and climb to heights that Japanese reconnaissance planes like the Nakajima Ki-46 Dina often flew at.
Meanwhile, delays in the progress of the P-47 led to the upgraded P-43J, of which 80 were produced with a Pratt & Whitney R-2180-1 Twin Hornet engine rated at 1,400 hp on tap. While U.S. Army generally found the Lancer's performance to me more or less acceptable, there's little to no evidence of it ever seeing combat with American forces.
The same isn't true of the Republic of China Air Force, which through the Lend-Lease act, acquired squadrons of P-43s to contend with the threat of the Imperial Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero, the most deadly single-engine fighter of the East Asian theater of World War II for much of its early stages.
Photo: Reddot
With early examples having their .30 caliber machine gun armament with a full array of M2 Browning .50 caliber machine guns, the Lancer was nothing to sneeze at, even for a Zero pilot. By 1942, as many as 272 P-43s were produced in all of their variants.
But by that point in the war, it was clear the 2800 Double Wasp-powered P-47 was ready to bring the fight to the Axis. At that point, the type was silently withdrawn from service, while the Thunderbolt became an immortal icon.
Google News