Curtiss XP-37
Model Airplane News Cover Art for May, 1938
by Jo Kotula
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The new Allison turbocharged engine made a great impression on aircraft designers and buyers. It is no wonder that the Army, who was quite satisfied with the Curtiss P-36 fighter, oredered an experiment. One of the P-36 fighters was to be modified to use the new Allison powerplant. In response to this, Curtiss' chief designer Donovan Berlin fitted a 1150 hp Allison turbosupercharged engine to a p-36 airframe. He positioned the three Prestone cooling radiators immediately behind the engine. In order to balance the aircraft and to make room for the radiators, the pilot's cockpit was moved quite far aft. However, except for the cockpit relocation and the V-12 liquid-cooled engine, the XP-37 was otherwise identical to the P-36.

The P-36

  

Curtiss XP-37
the way, waaa-y back cockpit
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The XP-37

in Popular Mechanics March, 1938
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Almost from the first, the XP-37 aircraft ran into trouble. The supercharger was extremely unreliable, and the performance of the aircraft fell short of expectations. In addition, the positioning of the cockpit that far aft on the fuselage resulted in extremely poor visibility, especially during takeoffs and landings. The XP-37 was retired to an Army mechanics' school in August 1941 with a total of only 152 hours of flying time. In the meantime, the USAAC had already held a competition for a new fighter in January 1939, and had chosen another Berlin design, the Model 75P which was also derived from the P-36. This was eventually to emerge as the famous P-40. All further work on the XP-37 was abandoned.

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