Comments by "Solo Renegade" (@SoloRenegade) on "The Vultee P-66 – More of a Rearguard than a Vanguard" video.

the description of the P-66, to me, reminds me of the Japanese Zero in many ways (which I have been researching a lot lately). Comparable speed, described as maneuverable (likely still less so than the Zero though). The word fragile was used, which to me implies it is of lighter construction than typical US fighters. And the tail..... look at that tail. Looks part Zero, part Corsair. Unlike the Zero, who's armament was factored into the design from day one, the later addition of armament was clearly detrimental to the P-66.
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@clintfalk That's a lie. The Japanese did evaluate every foreign plane they got their hands on in the years prior to designing the Zero. But I see no evidence the Japanese ever got to see one of these P-66 airplanes. The Zero started full development in 1937. The P-66 didn't start development until 1938. The A6M's first flight was in April of 1939 and the P-66 didn't fly until later in September of 1939. Literally impossible for Japan to have seen the aircraft prior to designing the Zero, as the Zero existed first. I'm literally studying the Zero's history in minute detail right now, even have books with copies of some of the original blueprints for the A6M. I am an engineer, which is driving my interest in the A6M right now from a structural and aerodynamics engineering perspective. I'm studying the Zero from a structural engineering standpoint. But I have also read Jiro's book on the Zero, as well as reading another book on the Zero from the Japanese perspective. And I've read about it for the US and allied perspective. When you read into the actual historical references after WW2, and Jiro's explanation of why he designed it the way he did, and the changes they had to make and why, it's clear the Japanese designed this organically. Some external influence was surely there, even if Jiro didn't acknowledge it, but most of the designs people compare the Zero to most either never existed when Jiro designed the Zero, or Jiro never saw personally except maybe a picture of at some point. The design of the Zero in many ways is unique to anything the Western nations designed.
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@fazole Yes, the armaments of the Zero was in the requirements. So the weights and structural elements accounted for that. To pull off the combination of range, speed, agility, and firepower, it was necessary to factor it in from day one. The Raiden cowling looks nothing like the P-66 cowling. Rained has a fat sloping long nosed look to it. Both the P-66 and Raiden cowlings were designed to fit their airframes and engines. Most radial engine cowlings have the same basic form factor, there is no reason to copy another rather than fit your cowling to your specific airplane unless your goal is to sabotage your own design.
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@Aqua Fyre Convergent Evolution is the term we use in engineering. Multiple engineers designing for the same set of goals, given a certain state of technologies, materials, understanding of aerodynamics, etc available at the time, tend to result in similar solutions to the same problem. Hundreds, even thousands, of airplanes were designed around the world in the 1930s and 1940s. It is inevitable that some would share similar solutions. But the Zero was revolutionary when it was designed and first made operational, and no one can prove, with actual evidence, that the design was in any way copied from any other specific aircraft other than superficially.
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