Manufacturer

Vultee Aircraft

Year

1943

About

The Vultee XP-54 was one of the more distinct aircraft creations designed during World War 2. The XP-54 was unique in numerous ways. The design featured a twin-boom arrangement with a centralized fuselage nacelle containing the pilot, cockpit, fuel, engine and armament. The central nacelle was sleek and slim with the cockpit situated amidships. The engine was mounted to the rear of the nacelle and was of a "pusher" type contra-rotating arrangement while the armament would have been fitted into the nose. The twin booms emanated from the wing trailing edges and were connected aft by a large horizontal plane. Each boom was capped with a short vertical tail surface. Wings themselves were set as inverted "gull" wings. Wings would contain the needed intercoolers and radiators for the engine. The undercarriage was of a tricycle arrangement made up of two single-wheeled main landing gears retracting into the forward portions of the booms and a long-stemmed single-wheeled nose landing gear recessing under the forward fuselage. The pressurized cockpit required a complex entry system: the pilot’s seat acted as an elevator for cockpit access from the ground. The pilot lowered the seat electrically, sat in it, and raised it into the cockpit. Bail-out procedure was complicated by the pressurization system and necessitated a downward ejection of the pilot and seat in order to clear the propeller arc. Also, the nose section could pivot through the vertical, three degrees up and six degrees down. In the nose, two 37 mm T-9 cannon were in rigid mounts while two .50 cal machine guns were in movable mounts. Movement of the nose and machine guns was controlled by a special compensating gun sight. Thus, the cannon trajectory could be elevated without altering the flight attitude of the airplane. The large nose section gave rise to its whimsical nickname, the Swoose Goose, inspired by a song about Alexander who was half swan and half goose: "Alexander was a swoose.

Controls

Throttle – Normal
Rudder – Normal and Steering
Pitch – Normal
Roll – Normal
Trim – Normal
VTOL – Down for Flap, Up/Down for Nose
AG1 – Flap
AG2 – Nose
AG3 – 37 mm guns
AG4 – .50 cal guns
AG5 – Speed Brakes
AG6 – Not Used
AG7 – Not Used
AG8 – Normal/Off to lower Pilot’s seat for entry

Notes

Takeoff can be a bit squirrelly, wants to go right or left be ready with rudder
Landing – HARD but possible
I tried to put a lot of the details in it. Everything is custom made by me. This is not an exact replica, but it is fairly close. The length, width, height and empty weight are close as well as the power of the engine. I included control tabs on the horizontal, but didn’t on the ailerons or rudder. Some markings were left off because I didn’t want to try to make them curved for the tail booms. I couldn’t find any info on the color so I went with basic green with blank and white markings. The cockpit is not an exact match could only find some basic pictures of it. Tried to make the yoke and rudder pedals work correctly from what I could gather in the pictures. Let me know what you all think of it. I hope you all enjoy flying this plane.