Republic EP-1-106 P-35A

01/31/2010. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "Late in 1938, the Seversky Aircraft Corporation completed a company demonstrator single-seat fighter, the EP-1-68 (EP = Export Pursuit). Powered by a 1,050 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1830-S1C1-G Twin Wasp fourteen-cylinder radial engine, the EP-1-68 was similar in most other respects to the Seversky P-35 for the US Army Air Corps, but used the lengthened rear fuselage introduced with the Seversky AP-4.

The EP-1-68 was demonstrated in Sweden in April 1939, and, on June 29, the Swedish government signed a contract for fifteen EP-1-106s with the S3C1-G engine. A follow-up contract for a further 45 was signed on October 11, by which time the Seversky company had changed its name to Republic Aviation Corporation, Alexander Kartveli remaining chief engineer. The EP-1-68 demonstrator was later sold, in what was to be described as a "highly irregular transaction", to the Ecuador AF, together with the Seversky AP-7A and AP-9.

The initial batch of eighteen EP-1-106s was completed on January 18, 1940: two weeks earlier, on January 5, Sweden had placed yet another contract, for an additional sixty fighters of this type. The sixty EP-1-106s ordered under the first and second contracts had all reached Sweden by the end of July 1940, and, with an armament of two 0.311 in (7.9 mm) KSP M/22 cowl guns and two 0.52 in (13.2 mm) AKAN M/39 wing guns, these entered Swedish service as the J 9.

The aircraft on the third contract, the last of which was completed on February 7, 1941, were requisitioned by the US government on October 24, 1940. The EP-1-106s thus acquired by the USAAC received the designation P-35A, 48 being shipped to the Philippines, where they flew operationally (December 8, 1941 to January 3, 1942) but were outclassed by opposing fighters. Those P-35As retained in the USA served as instructional aircraft and the EP-1s remained in Swedish service throughout WW II."