{"id":9873438,"date":"2026-08-06T08:02:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T06:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=9873438"},"modified":"2026-08-06T08:02:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T06:02:54","slug":"vultee-xp-54-swoose-goose-pusher-fighter-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/vultee-xp-54-swoose-goose-pusher-fighter-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Swoose Goose: America&rsquo;s Backwards Fighter"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n<p>It had a propeller at the back, a nose that tilted up to lob its cannon shells, and a seat that dropped its pilot out through the belly in an emergency so he would not be chopped to pieces by his own engine. It was nearly as long as a DC-3. And it was a fighter.<\/p>\r\n<p>Meet the Vultee XP-54 &ldquo;Swoose Goose&rdquo; &mdash; the biggest, strangest single-engine fighter the United States flew in the Second World War, and one that never fired a shot in anger.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px 24px;margin:24px 0;border-radius:8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px;color:#333\">Quick Facts<\/p><table style=\"width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:15px\"><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Aircraft<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#333\">Vultee XP-54 &ldquo;Swoose Goose&rdquo;<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Type<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#333\">Single-seat twin-boom pusher fighter prototype<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>First flight<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#333\">January 15, 1943 (test pilot Frank Davis)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Engine<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#333\">Lycoming XH-2470, ~2,300 hp, driving a pusher propeller<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Armament (planned)<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#333\">Two 37 mm cannon and two .50-cal machine guns<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 12px 6px 0;color:#666;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Built<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#333\">Two prototypes; program cancelled<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Born from a call for the radical<\/h2>\r\n<p>In February 1940, the U.S. Army issued &ldquo;Request for Data R-40C,&rdquo; inviting manufacturers to throw out the rulebook and propose genuinely radical fighters. Three of the strangest designs in American history came out of it: the Curtiss XP-55 Ascender, the Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet, and the winner of the competition &mdash; Vultee&rsquo;s XP-54.<\/p>\r\n<p>Vultee&rsquo;s answer was enormous. The XP-54 had a wingspan of nearly 54 feet and a length of 54 feet 9 inches &mdash; only ten feet shorter than a DC-3 airliner &mdash; and at maximum weight it tipped the scales at more than 19,000 pounds, over half again the weight of a fully loaded P-51 Mustang. It was, and remains, the largest and heaviest single-engine American warplane to fly during the war.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J56edaEVdY8\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p>The layout borrowed from the best. Twin tail booms like the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/p-51-mustang\/\">P-51 Mustang<\/a>&rsquo;s bigger cousin the P-38 Lightning, an inverted gull wing like the Corsair, and a pusher engine mounted behind the cockpit spinning a propeller between the booms. On paper, with its intended 1,850-horsepower Pratt &amp; Whitney engine and contra-rotating propellers, it was supposed to hit 446 mph.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=405197791  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:oZr2.cae2\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/vultee-xp-54-pusher-prototype.jpg\" alt=\"The Vultee XP-54 prototype\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The XP-54 was the largest single-engine American fighter flown in WWII, nearly as long as a DC-3. Photo: U.S. Air Force \/ Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A cockpit full of clever ideas<\/h2>\r\n<p>The XP-54 bristled with firsts. Because the propeller spun directly behind the pilot, climbing out over the side in an emergency would have been suicidal &mdash; so the seat doubled as an elevator. The pilot lowered it electrically to board from the ground, rode it up into the pressurized cockpit, and, if he had to bail out, the seat fired him downward, clear of the whirling blades. It was among the first American fighters designed with a downward ejection system.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;Engineers really didn&rsquo;t know how to do [pressurized cockpits] in fighters at the time.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Dustin W. Carter<\/strong> &mdash; Vultee engineer, quoted in Defense Media Network<\/div><\/div>\r\n<p>Then there was the nose. The two 37 mm cannon fired slow, arcing shells, so Vultee designed the entire nose section to pivot upward a few degrees to &ldquo;lob&rdquo; rounds at a target while the machine guns stayed level. It was ingenious &mdash; and wildly complicated.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=1247808666  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:oZr2.cae2\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/xp-54-xp-55-xp-56-xp-62-experimental-fighters.jpg\" alt=\"The R-40C contenders\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The radical R-40C designs: the XP-54, alongside the XP-55 Ascender, XP-56 Black Bullet and XP-62. Photo: U.S. Air Force \/ Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Betrayed by its engine<\/h2>\r\n<p>The trouble, as so often, was power. The Pratt &amp; Whitney engine it was designed around was cancelled, forcing Vultee to fit a heavier Lycoming XH-2470 driving a single four-bladed propeller. Frank Davis made the 31-minute maiden flight on January 15, 1943, at Muroc Dry Lake in California. But with its substitute engine the big fighter managed only about 403 mph, climbed slowly, and had a range of just 500 miles.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EhKenDU-dyY\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p>Two aircraft were built. The first flew 86 times before being ferried to Ohio for limited testing; the second, left in bare metal, reportedly flew only once. The guns were never fired in the air. By then, jet engines were arriving, and the case for a slow, heavy, fantastically complex piston fighter had evaporated.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;[The XP-54 was] burdened by unconventional engine, airframe, armament, pilot accommodation and ejection systems, [and it was] unrealistic to expect it to become a successful operational airplane.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Jonathan Thompson<\/strong> &mdash; aviation historian, author of &ldquo;Vultee Aircraft&rdquo;<\/div><\/div>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A magnificent dead end<\/h2>\r\n<p>The Swoose Goose &mdash; named after a wartime song about a creature that was half swan, half goose &mdash; is a monument to a moment when American industry could afford to chase almost any idea, however outlandish. It solved problems no one quite had yet, and by the time it flew, the world had moved on. Ugly, oversized and unlucky, it remains one of the most fascinating what-ifs in fighter history.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SMb-VYS642Q\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n<p style=\"font-style:italic;color:#777;font-size:14px\">Sources: Defense Media Network (Robert F. Dorr), U.S. Air Force Test Center, military factory records, Wikipedia.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/curtiss-xp-55-ascender-pusher-canard-fighter\/\">Curtiss Built a Fighter That Flew Tail-First<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/bell-yfm-1-airacuda-bomber-destroyer\/\">The Flying Cruiser That Made No Sense<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It had a propeller at the back, a nose that tilted up to lob its cannon shells, and a seat that dropped its pilot out through the belly in an emergency so he would not be chopped to pieces by his own engine. It was nearly as long as a DC-3. And it was a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":9873241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9873438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Vultee XP-54: The Swoose Goose Pusher Fighter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Vultee XP-54 Swoose Goose was the biggest, strangest single-engine US fighter of WWII, and never fired a shot in anger.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/vultee-xp-54-swoose-goose-pusher-fighter-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vultee XP-54: The Swoose Goose Pusher Fighter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Vultee XP-54 Swoose Goose was the biggest, strangest single-engine US fighter of WWII, and never fired a shot in anger.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/vultee-xp-54-swoose-goose-pusher-fighter-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Afterburner - MiGFlug&#039;s Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MiGFlug\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-06T06:02:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-06T06:02:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:oZr2.cae2\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/vultee-xp-54-swoose-goose.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"202\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Connor Kerr\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@migflug\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@migflug\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Connor Kerr\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/vultee-xp-54-swoose-goose-pusher-fighter-2\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/vultee-xp-54-swoose-goose-pusher-fighter-2\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Connor Kerr\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/bc7f2d09b1d7111c45fdb1335b8f2cf9\"},\"headline\":\"The Swoose Goose: America&rsquo;s Backwards Fighter\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-06T06:02:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-08-06T06:02:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/vultee-xp-54-swoose-goose-pusher-fighter-2\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":816,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/vultee-xp-54-swoose-goose-pusher-fighter-2\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\/\\/migflug.com\\/jetflights\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/sites\\/4\\/2026\\/08\\/vultee-xp-54-swoose-goose.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"History &amp; 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