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Renard R-371940 |  |
| FIGHTER | Virtual Aircraft Museum / Belgium / Renard |
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With an airframe fundamentally similar to that of the R-36, the R-37 differed primarily in having a closecowled 1100hp Gnome-Rhone 14N-21 14-cylinder radial engine. Cooling air reached the engine via a narrow annulus, was mixed with exhaust gases and ejected through two groups of nozzles to provide some thrust augmentation. The proposed armament consisted of four 7.7mm or two 13.2mm machine guns mounted in the wings. Although the R-37 was displayed statically at the Salon de Bruxelles in July 1939, no attempt had been made to fly this prototype before the German occupation of Belgium in May 1940. The R-37 was discovered at Evere by the occupation forces and a Luftwaffe pilot - possibly unaware that the aircraft had not previously been flown - flew the aircraft to Beauvechain. There is no record of any subsequent flight testing, although it is known that the R-37 was taken to Germany. Prior to the German occupation, Alfred Renard had prepared a project for a two-seat version, the R-37B, for use as a ground attack aircraft.
rainfall, e-mail, 28.05.2025  Klaatu83Not really "closely cowled", just a very broad based / wide diameter streamlined spinner. If the R-37's original cooling system proved inadequate, replacing this unusual spinner with a more conventional streamlined unit like that used by the Bloch 151, Koolhoven FK-58, or LeO 451 etc, would likely have been a simple way to correct this. Adopting the 451's innovative cowling /spinner combo would also have worked well. France ought to have funded greatly accelerated construction & development of R-37 prototypes from early 1938 onward instead of the mediocre Koolhoven FK-38, which unlike the R-37 had no direct already test flown and already impressive predecessor at the time. Renard, if they sub-contracted Koolhoven to build the aft fuselage & tail assemblies, could likely have completed about 20 airframes per month from spring 1939 onward. More than enough engines could be supplied if France had put a stop to the horrendous Bloch 150 series from the outset. kevin, e-mail, 24.08.2025 Steven Gohmanaccident report: September 22, 1944 an R-37 with serial number AJ-331 was on the ground at Brookley Field at Mobile, Alabama had a take-off accident (pilot in command: William Jerome Bausser, 1918-1999). Report also identified the aircraft as a B-34. So that took me to the Lockheed Ventura B-34 and B-37 designations. Possibly the accident report simply had a typo error - a B-37 got mis-typed as an R-37....? k jay king, e-mail, 18.05.2026 kevinI agree. In www.aviationarchaeology.com, with an accident date of 26 NOV 43, an R-37 (s /n AJ-287) had a nose-over accident at Muroc (pilot Joel A. Leach). Whenever they manufactured aircraft for export to Canada, Britain etc, those aircraft were given alpha-numeric serial numbers. No chance they would have had a French R-37 in NOV 1943 to experiment with. 99% more likely it was a Lockheed B-37 product. Just some clerk could not decipher the hand-written report when it was typed up.
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