Development
In response to a specification for a new fighter promulgated by the l'Air Ministry on 15 June 1936, the design of the D.520 started in September 1936, at the private design firm led by Émile Dewoitine. The specifications called for a maximum speed of 500 km/h (310 mph) at 4,000 m (13,000 ft), the ability to climb to 8,000 m (26,000 ft) in less than fifteen minutes, with take-off and landing runs not exceeding 400 m (1,300 ft). The armament was to be two 7.5 mm (.295 in) machine guns and one 20 mm Hispano-Suiza HS.9 cannon, or two HS.9 cannon. Dewoitine had been disappointed with the performance of his last design, the Dewoitine D.513, which was rejected by the Armée de l'Air in favour of the Morane-Saulnier M.S.406, and decided to respond to the specifications with a design using the latest construction techniques and the most powerful available engine, the new 660 kW (890 hp) Hispano-Suiza 12Y-21 liquid-cooled engine. The first design was rejected by the l'Air Ministry, which, after being impressed by the British Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire, then uprated the specifications to include a maximum speed requirement of 500 km/h (310 mph). In response, Dewoitine renamed the further development, the "D.520".
Read more about this topic: Dewoitine D.520
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“On fields all drenched with blood he made his record in war, abstained from lawless violence when left on the plantation, and received his freedom in peace with moderation. But he holds in this Republic the position of an alien race among a people impatient of a rival. And in the eyes of some it seems that no valor redeems him, no social advancement nor individual development wipes off the ban which clings to him.”
—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)
“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)
“I can see ... only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen.”
—H.A.L. (Herbert Albert Laurens)