When Lockheed’s holding company, the Detroit Aircraft Corporation, went into receivership in 1931, they were unable to fulfill their contract to manufacture YP-24 fighters for the USAAC. In addition, Detroit Aircraft’s chief engineer Robert J. Woods was now out of a job. However, Woods was soon recruited by the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation of Buffalo, New York.
Robert Woods continued to work on his YP-24 design when he went over to Consolidated. Despite the failure of the Detroit company, the USAAC was still interested in the YP-24 design. The Army ordered a single prototype of Wood’s basic design from Consolidated under the designation Y1P-25. The serial number was 32-321. At first glance, Consolidated’s Y1P-25 looked much the same as did the Detroit YP-24. It was a two-seat, low wing monoplane with fully-retractable main landing gear. However, there were significant differences. The Y1P-25 had an all-metal wing in place of the wood-frame, plywood-covered wing of the YP-24. In addition, the tail of the Y1P-25 was larger, and metal was substituted for the fabric covering on the tail control surfaces. The engine was a 600 hp Curtiss V-1570-27 Conqueror, 12-cylinder liquid-cooled engine with turbosupercharger mounted on the port side (the YP-24 had no supercharger). The armament was two fixed, forward-firing machine guns mounted in the upper fuselage, plus one flexible machine gun operated by the gunner in the rear cockpit.
A second prototype of the basic Consolidated design was built as a ground attack aircraft. Designated Y1A-11, the aircraft differed from the Y1P-25 primarily in having a Conqueror engine without a supercharger. In addition, the Y1A-11 had two more guns in the nose and racks for up to 400 pounds of bombs. The serial number of the Y1A-11 was 32-322.
The Y1P-25 was delivered to the Army on December 9, 1932. First tests were very encouraging. Thanks to the turbosupercharger, the Y1P-25 could achieve 247 mph at 15,000 feet in spite of 700 lbs more weight as compared to the YP-24. The maximum speed was 205 mph at sea level. The Y1P-25 could climb to 10,000 feet in 6.7 minutes. Weights were 3887 lbs empty, 5110 lbs gross.
The flight tests with the Y1P-25 and its Y1A-11 attack counterpart went quite well. However, the Y1P-25 crashed on January 13, 1933, and was so badly damaged that it was a writeoff. The Y1A-11 crashed a week later.
In spite of the two crashes, the USAAC did not feel that there was any intrinsic flaw in the basic design, and later that month a contract for four production examples was issued under the designation P-30 (Ser Nos 33-204/207). The P-30 differed from the Y1P-25 by having a 675 hp Curtiss V-1570-57 with twin-blade constant-speed prop, simplified undercarriage, and revised cockpit canopy. Four similar A-11s (33-308/311) were also ordered with unsupercharged V-1570-59 engines.
Plans for the construction of two Y1P-25s with Pratt and Whitney radial engines which were allocated the designations YP-27 and YP-28 did not materialize.
Sources:
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United States Military Aircraft Since 1909, Gordon Swanborough and
Peter Bowers, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.
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The American Fighter, Enzo Angellucci and Peter Bowers, Orion Books,
1987.
- General Dynamics Aircraft and Their Predecessors, John Wegg, Naval Institute Press, 1990.
