Boeing XF8B

The Boeing XF8B, company Model 400, was a single-engine aircraft developed during World War II to give the United States Navy a long-range shipboard fighter able to reach the Japanese home islands from carriers beyond the range of Japanese land-based aircraft. It was designed for several roles, as interceptor, escort fighter, dive-bomber and torpedo bomber, and Boeing called the XF8B-1 its five-in-one fighter. Powered by a single 3,000 hp Pratt & Whitney XR-4360-10 radial engine driving two contra-rotating three-bladed propellers, it was then the largest and heaviest single-seat, single-engine fighter developed in the United States. The first prototype flew in November 1944. Postwar strategy and the arrival of jet fighters meant it never entered series production, and the prototypes were scrapped one by one.