This airplane was developed near the end of WW2 to take advantage of the huge 28 cylinder P&W R-4360 engine. This same engine was fitted to a modified P-47 which I believe was called the XP-72 and a modified Corsair. One look at all those engine cylinders and it is easy to see why they were called the "corn cob" fighters. The Boeing was the only original design of these and, interestingly, was the first Boeing fighter design since the P-26 Peashooter. It was a large and heavy plane, it grossed just over 10 tons fully loaded. Three prototypes will built and the flight test program went well even with the untried contra-rotating propeller assembly. It certainly would have given a good account of itself being armed with 6- 20mm. cannon. However, the Navy decided to proceed with those new-fangled jets and there was no production order.
I am indepted to Felix Rodriguez ( he of FFDS, Pegasus and Inspector Poly fame) for providing me with 3 views for this project. I designed this project with FSDSv2 and produced it into CFS2. I then copied it back into FS2002. This process keeps the .mdl file straight for use in both sims. There are flashing nav lights which are turned on and off with the "L" key in FS2002 (they don't work in CFS2). The tailhook and folding wings are actuated with the default commands in CFS2. These actions must be assigned in FS2002 in the settings-control assignments dialog. I used Shift+O for the wings and Shift+A for the tail hook just because they were the first unassigned keystrokes that came up. The sliding canopy uses the default action in each sim. I have included a simple .dp file that puts the 6 cannon in the right place.
INSTALLATION: Unzip XF8B1.zip into a temporary folder. Copy the folder Boeing XF8B-1 into the aircraft folder of the simulator you choose. It shows under Boeing as the XF8B-1 in FS2002 and as the XF8B-1 in CFS2
PANEL and SOUND: I aliased the Corsair sound and panel mainly because it is available in both sims. You may add any panel and sound you desire.
LEGAL: This project is released as freeware. You may modify it, repaint it, etc., upload to another website as long as it is not for profit. You need my written permission to use any of these files for commercial purposes; otherwise just give me credit for the original design. This airplane should not hurt your computer but I am not responsible if it causes problems.
