In December 1949 the Douglas company's El Segundo Division envisaged a design for a derivative of the company's F3D Skynight night fighter designed to use backswept wings. Designated D-601 by the company, it was similar to the initial F3D-2 design in being intended to use two Westinghouse J46 turbojets in enlarged nacelles below the wing roots, and it also had the horizontal and vertical stabilizers backswept. The D-601 was 50 feet (15.2 meters) long with a wingspan of 51 feet (15.5 meters) (32 feet 9 inches [9.98 meters] when folded) and a height of 15 feet 2 in (4.62 meters), and it had a gross weight of 25,550 lb (11,589 kg) with normal internal fuel or 26,735 lb (12,127 kg) with full internal fuel (increased to 28,885 lb (13,102 kg) when fitted with external fuel tanks). Four 20 mm cannons were housed in a recess below the nose, and 4,000 lb (1,814 kg) of bombs and unguided 5 inch rockets were carried below two underwing pylons. With normal internal fuel, the D-601 would have a climb rate of 4,670 ft/min (1,423 m/s) and a service ceiling of 43,300 feet (13,198 meters), reaching 30,000 feet (9.144 meters) in 9.6 minutes; with full internal fuel, the D-601's climb rate and service ceiling became 4,430 ft/min (1,350 m/s) and 42,400 feet (12,924 meters) respectively. When the J46 turbojet ran into developmental problems, Douglas substituted the Westinghouse J34 for the J46 as the D-601's chief powerplant.
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| A desktop model of the D-601/F3D-3. |
In 1951 the US Navy seemed interested enough in the D-601 design to place production orders for a total of 287 D-601s (BuNos 125883/125892 and 130463/130739), and the designation F3D-3 was allocated to the D-601. However, calculated performance of the F3D-3 with the J34 turbojet yielded only marginal improvement over the F3D-2, and in February 1952 the F3D-3 production contract was canceled and all work on D-601/F3D-3 shelved. In sum, what seemed like a bold move by Douglas to emulate Grumman in terms of fitting backswept wings to an existing straight-wing carrier-based aircraft design was denied a chance to materialize.
References:
Buttler, T., 2007. American Secret Projects: Fighters and Interceptors 1945 to 1978. Hinckley, UK: Midland Publishing.
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