The Carid P.22 was a monoplane fighter designed in 1929 for a cannon-armed fighter to destroy enemy bombers at altitude.

Design and development

In 1927, a request for proposal for a cannon-armed fighter of monoplane configuration was opened by the Materiel Division to alleviate problems by difficulty on shooting down enemy bombers commonly cruising at low altitude at speeds of about 180 to 220 kilometers per hour.

The Carid P.22 has mixed construction: plywood was used on the fuselage and the vertical srabilizer covered by fabric and wings made of metal sheets to allow the provision of heavy armament. A Curtiss V-1570 delivering 600 horsepower driving two- or three-bladed propellers was used to power the aircraft. Provisions for bombs and bomblets were accomodated.

Testing

The aircraft had its first flight on 1930. Flight tests revealed high turn rates but was overweight and experienced lateral instability during turning. Performing complex aerial maneuvers were hard due to caused problems and was little shy of the speed of the upcoming Boeing P-12E (~304 km/h) and the Kaedehara P.3/Carid P.17 (~335 km/h) fighters but outspeeding most bombers except for the Boeing B-9 (~290 km/h).
An order of 35 aircraft for 4 squadrons were placed and delivered late 1930 to mid-1932.
However, the appearance of the Martin B-10 and any other bombers made the role of the aircraft obsolete and was retired in 1936.

Variants

Carid P.22
— original design. Propeller count varies from 2 to 4.
Carid P.22-1
— variant of the P.22 with R-1340 engine. Rejected after having a top speed of 239 km/h TAS at 500 meters.
Carid P.22-7
— variant of the P.22 with V-1560 engine.
Carid P.22-8
— variant with streamlined landing gear and capability to mount V-770, V-1560, V-1570 engines.

Specifications

Maximum speed: 293 km/h TAS at 2,000 meters