Consolidated P-30

The Consolidated P-30, also designated PB-2, was a 1930s United States two-seat fighter, with an attack version called the A-11 and several prototypes and proposals. It was the first fighter in Army Air Corps service with retractable landing gear, an enclosed and heated cockpit for the pilot and an exhaust-driven turbo-supercharger for altitude operation. Consolidated hired the chief designer of the Lockheed YP-24 after the Detroit Aircraft Corporation failed, and he developed the design into the Consolidated Model 25 with all-metal wings. The Y1P-25 prototype was destroyed in a crash in January 1933 that killed Captain Hugh M. Elmendorf. Three of four P-30s went to the 94th Pursuit Squadron in 1934, but the two-seat fighter concept was obsolete and by 1939 the Seversky P-35 and Curtiss P-36 Hawk had replaced them, the last being withdrawn from use on 2 June 1942.