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Seversky P-35A
| Crew | 1 |
| Dimensions | 36' by 26'10" by
9'9" 10.97m by 8.18m by 2.97m |
| Wing area | 220 square feet 20.4 square meters |
| Weight | 4575-6723 lbs 2075-3050 kg |
| Maximum speed | 290 mph at 12,000 feet 467 km/h at 3700 meters |
| Cruise speed | 220 mph 354 km/h |
| Landing speed | 81 mph 130 km/h |
| Climb rate | 32 feet per second 9.8 meters per second |
| Service ceiling | 31,400 feet 9600 meters |
| Power plant | 1 1050 hp (783 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-1830-9 Twin Wasp 14-cylinder radial engine driving a three-bladed Hamilton Standard constant-speed propeller. |
| Armament | 2 0.50 fixed
nose machine guns 2 0.30 fixed wing machine guns |
| External stores | 350 lbs (159 kg) of bombs |
| Range | 521 nautical miles (965 km) on internal fuel 826 nautical miles (1530 km) with 350 lbs (159 kg) bombs and drop tanks |
| Fuel | 130-200 gallons 490-760 gallons |
| Production | 76 P-35, 60 P-35A at Seversky Aircraft Corporation, Farmingdale, NY. |
| Variants | The
original P-35 lacked the
wing guns, and one of the cowling guns was a 0.30 machine gun. |
Another plane that had reached
obsolescence by the outbreak
of war, the P-35 was Seversky's response to a 1935 design competition. Designed at the same time that Britain was introducing the Hurricane,
the Seversky entry was originally an unimaginative conversion of the
Sev-3 two-seater commercial aircraft. However, the prototype suffered
engine failure on its delivery flight, and Seversky took the opportunity
to completely redesign the second prototype, with a sound monocoque
structure and retracting landing gear. However, the aircraft remained
inferior in performance to contemporary British designs. The Air Corps officer in charge of fighter development at the time, Ben Kelsey, later described the P-35 as a mistake (Bodie 1991).
The P-35 lacked pilot armor and self-sealing fuel tanks, and the 48 that were assigned to the Philippines were shot to ribbons within a few days. Only two were still airworthy eight days after the attack on Clark Field.
References
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