XR-11...close enuf
Can anyone locate a pic of the Hughes XP-73 that this is derived from????
A little info from the site
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p73.htmlMany authors who write about American fighter aircraft of the World War 2 era state categorically that there never was a fighter project with the designation "P-73". For some obscure reason, this particular number seems to have been skipped. The aviation historian James Fahey claims that the P-73 designation was deliberately omitted as a result of political pressure applied to the Army by the Fisher Body Division of the General Motors Corporation. In 1942, Fisher was hoping to interest the Army in its new escort fighter design. At that time, the next available Army pursuit designation was P-73, but Fisher wanted the Army to assign to its new escort fighter a "nice symbolic number", something that would sound nice in advertising copy and would make for memorable slogans--something like "The French 75 in World War 1, the Fisher P-75 in World War 2" was envisaged. Fisher got its way and the Army agreed to assign the designation P-75 to its escort fighter project, the designations P-73 and P-74 being deliberately skipped.
However, a few other sources maintain that there really WAS a fighter aircraft designated P-73 and that it actually made some test flights. However, it was so secret that even today there are few details available about it. The P-73 was almost as mysterious in its time as the shadowy *Aurora* is today. However, the reason for all this secrecy was not any outstanding capabilities that the P-73 might have had, but was a result of the neurotic personality of the owner of the company which produced the aircraft. This was none other than the brilliant but eccentric movie tycoon, inventor, and industrialist Howard Hughes.
During the Second World War, many of the projects of the Hughes Aircraft Company were shrouded in secrecy and were the subject of mysterious and convoluted political maneuverings, due in no small part to the bizarre personality of its owner. Even though Howard Hughes and his company had been involved in several innovative aviation projects, the War Department found that dealing with Howard Hughes was a real nightmare. He could not be relied upon to meet schedules and his claims about the capabilities of his aircraft were often not credible. He would alternatively pressure the War Department into buying his aircraft right away without delay, then would withhold them from the government at the last minute. He had paranoid fears about others stealing his ideas, at one time claiming that Lockheed had stolen the idea for the P-38 Lightning from him.
