The P-66 began life as the Model 48C, one of four variants of the Model 48 (sharing wings and rear fuselage) that were submitted to the U.S. Army Air Corp in 1939. The Army passed on the fighter, as did the RAF. However, Sweden ordered 144 of the planes in mid 1940. The order was ready to be delivered a year later, but by this time an American embargo prevented the planes from being sent to Sweden (fearing the planes would eventually end up in German hands).
The RAF, although they considered the planes unfit for service as fighters, did see value in them as trainers and took over part of the shipment (129 planes), but eventually released all of these planes to China. About 40-50 planes were held by the Americans through 1942, until the threat of a West Coast invasion passed, then sent along with the rest of the 129 to China. The remainder of the original Swedish order (15 planes, plus two prototypes) were kept by the Americans as trainers and were never used in combat. Many pilots liked the agility of the plane and at least one test pilot felt it was superior to the P-36 (p.W:MP104).
P-66’s in Chinese hands had a rather unremarkable war record (entering combat service in early 1943) and many were retained for use in the struggle between the Nationalists and Communists after WWII. About 10% of all P-66’s were lost in landing accidents. It is remotely possible that there are still some unused Vanguards sitting in crates in China today.
The Vanguard burns 40 gallons of fuel per hour at routine usage.
P-66 Vanguard
Subassemblies: Medium Fighter chassis +3, Light Fighter
Wings with High Agility Option +2, three retractable wheels +0.
Powertrain: 895-kW aerial HP gas engine with 895-kW prop
and 290-gallon standard tanks [Body and Wings]
Occupancy: 1 CS. Cargo: None.
Armor
All: 2/3
Weaponry
4¥Aircraft LMG/M-2 [Wing:F] (500 rounds each)*
2¥Long Aircraft HMG/M-2 [Body:F] (200 rounds each)*
* Linked to fire in pairs, plus additional links can fire all four
LMGs at once or all six MGs at once
Equipment
Body: Medium range radio transmitter and receiver, navigation
instruments, autopilot.
Statistics
| Size: 28'x36'x13' | Payload: 1.1 tons | Lwt: 3.53 tons |
| Volume: 200 vsp | Maint.: 47 hours | Price: $18,800 |
HT: 8
HP: 120 [body], 80 [each wing], 12 [each wheel]
| aSpeed: 340 | aAccel: 8 | aDecel: 21 | aMR: 5.25 | aSR: 2 | Stall: 85 |
| gSpeed: 210 | gAccel: 10 | gDecel: 10 | gMR: 0.5 | gSR: 2 | aDrag: 124 |
Design Notes
Design aSpeed is 336 mph; the historical speed, as well as actual wing
area (197 sf), has been used. Loaded weight was increased by 2% to match
historical weight.
The P-66 had a bad tendency to ground-loop on landing; a -2 to Piloting rolls for landings would be appropriate.