If THE WAR HAD CONTINUED.

If THE WAR HAD CONTINUED, WOULD THE A-26F HAVE BECOME A PRODUCTION STANDARD?

To aviation historians, the close of the Second World War in Europe was loaded with what-ifs? The majority of these speculations resided with the Luftwaffe and Nazi Germany's attempt to realize various advanced aerial weapons into production and, more importantly, into combat. However, the Allies had smashed the Nazis and their same limited production capability so these "what-ifs" are mainly idle speculation - especially in the light that the Luftwaffe's just discovered state-of-the-art warplanes such as the Me 262 were negated on poor production quality, lack of adequate combustible matter and supplies, and misguided higher command decisions in succession how they should be produc and expanded Also, Allied air superiority just about negated any use of advanced warplanes for, one time airborne, they would be swarmed by dint of hundreds of fighters.

The newly-emerging jet engine technology was not squandered upon Douglas who was busy developing the extremely advanced XB-42 (piston) and XB-43 (jet) series of bombers. However, they also knew that the A-26 Invader had real high performance and speculated to what degree that performance could be enhanced if jet power was in some way incorporated into the airframe. At the same time, screw technology was advancing so Douglas approached the USAAF with a proposal for a mixed power Invader and a contract was issued to create anew A-26B-61-DL s/n 44-34586 to an experimental mixed-power platform.

Given the designation XA-26F, the modifications were fairly straightforward. The extra powerplant was a General Electric original 7E-116-4 gas turbine and to install the unit in the rear fuselage, the gunner's sighting station and all related equipment was remov The upper and lower minarets were also removed along with the Station 0 armor plate. The electrical equipment in the former gunner's compartment was relocated along with the radio compass. The SCR-695 (IFF) radio and radio compass link antenna were also relocated while the aft portion of the flight govern cables had to be rerout

A large air hollow out for the jet was added atop the fuselage while the tail cone was refashioned into a tail pipe. A in extent exhaust pipe and shroud assembly ran from the engine to the tail cone below where the top turret would have been, a 125-gallon combustible matter cell was installed to grasp the jet's Spec. AN-F-32 Grade K JP-1 (kerosene) firing along with an eight-quart tank for the AAF Spec 3580D medium grade oil. The firing material system was controlled by the operation of a master switch and the choke Fuel pressure ranged from 20 psi at engine idling spe to 380 psi maximum engine operating spe The turbine would act as an assist to improve combat performance and make takeoffs possible from short runways or with extra heavy loads.

All flight curbs their maintenance and operation, remained unchanged take exception for cable routing in the vicinity of the aft engine installation. The windpipe for the aft engine was isodraulically operated. This unit was self-contained and was in no way associateed to the airplane hydraulic regularity

The XA-26F was not to be a stripped-out proof vehicle for it carried an eight-gun nose and a six-gun wing. Also, large four-blade paddle-style screws had been added along with a put of spinners that had been made for the prototypes and early production aircraft. The engines were P&W R-2800-83 capable of 2100-hp each.

Before serious testing could really prepare underway, the war was athwart However, the Air Force considered the XA-26F an important experiment vehicle and continued flying the aircraft in different configurations. upon June 1946, the XA-26F defended a 621-mile (1000 kilometer) course with a 1000 kilogram load at an average air spe of 413 mph The aircraft was being flown by way of Lt. Col. T.P. Gerrity and Capt. WK Rickert. With all three engines operating, the XA-26F reached a top spe of 435 mph at 15000 feet

With a whole of recent origin generation of jet warplanes forward the horizon, it was obvious that it would not make practical reason to convert operational Invaders to the A-26F configuration. However, this did not mean the prototype's career was through the whole extent of

Fitted with standard screws and minus the spinners, the XA-26F was assigned to the Shell Oil Company in late 1949 for flight proof work. Two oil company engineers were positioned in the cockpit while another sum of two units were crammed into the rear fuselage along with the jet subordinate to the direction of D.N. Harris, Shell's concoct Engineer of Flight Research, the XA-26F was operated onward numerous flights between Los Angeles and Oakland, California, to obtain experimental data forward aviation fuels.

As undivided flight test engineer stated in a period publication, when as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but P&Ws were running at replete power and the jet chisel in it was like, "a kick in the butt"

When this valuable research was conclud in the 1950 the XA-26F was stored for a period and then transferred to a technical instruct in Florida where it survived until the early 1970 when it was scrapped.

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