The fuselage was well-contoured with a sleek appearance as it tapered from nose to tail. The canopy was of a low-profile design to decrease drag at the frontal area and its position was to give the pilot a good view during attack runs, particularly when diving in on a target / target area. Unlike more modern jet-powered fighters types of the period (and today for that matter), the AP-47 was to feature an old-school "tail-dragger" undercarriage for ground-running.
The powerplants of choice became the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 "Double Wasp" installed in the nose and the Westinghouse 24C turbojet installed in the fuselage aft. The prop engine could output up to 2,500 horsepower and the jet was rated up to 3,000lbs of thrust. The aircraft should have been able to fly with one powerplant off but the combined power promised exceptional performance - limited primarily by technology, fuel and the airframe.
The aircraft was to hold a wingspan of 41 feet, 6 inches but few other numbers were known such as range - which was to rely on three large internal fuel tanks taking up space within the fuselage to feed both the prop engine and the jet, the latter being the thirstier of the two.
In the end, USAF authorities were not convinced of the merits of this mixed-powerplant attacker and held little interest in pursuing the design, leaving it to the pages of military aviation history instead. The United States Navy (USN) found slightly more success with a mixed-powerplant design in the Ryan FR "Fireball" detailed elsewhere on this site. Some seventy-one of this aircraft were completed. The follow-up XF2R "Dark Shark" did worse with only a single prototype built but by this time pure jet-powered thoroughbreds had become the way of the future.
There were certainly other mixed-powerplant designs entertained during this period but advancements to jet technology soon made the prospects for such aircraft poor.
Performance specs on this page are estimated on the part of the author.
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