Bell P-39/P-63 Airacobra & Kingcobra - Warbird Tech Volume 17

Bell P-39/P-63 Airacobra & Kingcobra
Warbird Tech Volume 17
© 1998 Specialty Press
By Frederick A. Johnsen
Reviewed by Ned Barnett
(review copy provided by review author)


Hasegawa just came out with a 1/48th scale P-400 – the export version of the P-39D Airacobra – that is by all accounts (including my own) the best-of-breed. There are other good-to-great kits of the P-39 series by Eduard, Accurate Miniatures (re-released as a post-war air racer) and even the venerable Revell/Monogram kit, which isn’t too bad. And that’s just in 1/48th scale.

That is reason enough to revisit the 1998-issued Warbird Tech book on the P-39 and P-63. This series of 100-page photo-and-text books are of uniformly high quality – interesting to historians and aircraft buffs and extremely welcome for modelers who appreciate seeing the details, as well as the overview. This one is a classic example of the breed.

This book begins with the development of the P-39, a radical and revolutionary aircraft that was largely robbed of its place in American military history by an “official” decision to build the plane without a turbo-supercharger. This lack of supercharging hamstrung the aircraft at any altitude above 15,000 feet – making it useful for ground attack and for aerial combat on the Eastern Front, where high-altitude combat was few and far between. However, for North African and Western European combat – and in air-to-air fighting against the Japanese – the plane was a pale shadow of what it could have been. American combat pilots – except for a relatively few ground-attack fighter units in the Southwest Pacific – were eager to transition out of the ‘Cobras and into something a bit more suited to all-altitude combat.

Fortunately, many P-39s and almost all P-63s – the upgraded redesign of the Airacobra – were Lend-Leased to the Soviets, who knew how to use it in both ground-attack and air-to-air combat. They appreciated the hard-hitting 37mm Oldsmobile-built aircraft cannon and the two .50 caliber Browning heavy machine guns – to enhance performance, the Soviets often stripped off the wing guns as unnecessary. Although this fact was almost a state secret until the fall of the Soviet Union, a significant number of the Soviet’s most successful aces ran up their scores in Bell-built aircraft.

An interesting side-issue covered by this book is the US Navy’s Airabonita – a tail-dragging fighter very similar to (but hardly identical to) the early-model P-39s. The book includes three rare photos and several pages of insightful narrative about the XFL-1 Airabonita, a fascinating “might have been” that never got beyond the prototype stage.

Except for the butt-ugly TP-39Q two-seat trainer, and a single one-off XP-39E (which was really a prototype for the later P-63) the P-39 seemed to stay the same from P-39D to P-39Q. However, the P-63 became the basis of a variety of interesting conversions. One P-63 was used by the Navy – post-war – to test both tricycle landing gear and swept wings on carriers. This paved the way for the FJ-2 Fury and other swept-wing carrier combat aircraft. Another was used to test a “butterfly” tail, such as later appeared on the Beechcraft Bonanza, and discovered that it offered no meaningful performance increase. I’ve built the Navy version – it was an interesting kit-bashed conversion – and have thought about the Butterfly Kingcobra as well.

However, for my money, perhaps the most fascinating conversion – and the only one that saw active service in the USAAF – was the “Pinball.” This was a heavily-armored, sensor-laden but unarmed aircraft that was used to train bomber gunners. These gunner-trainees would use a light .30-caliber machine gun firing frangible bullets – and shoot at the brightly-painted (high-visibility) Pinballs, which flew pursuit-curve attacks for the gunners’ benefit. Every time the target plane was hit, a light bulb in the nose flashed – hence the name. These aircraft saw extensive service in the Southwest US during 1944 and 1945 – and this book not only traces their operational career, but provides detailed drawings highlighting the areas of the Pinballs that were up-armored. If you want to build a Pinball, this book will be extremely helpful. It’s not the only source on the Pinball, but it’s got a lot of useful information – text, photos and line drawings.

Bottom line – you can’t go wrong with Warbird Tech titles. If you’ve got an interest in the P-39 Airacobra or the P-63 Kingcobra – or the prototype US Navy Airabonita – this book is for you. The last time I was at my local Hobbytown USA, I saw one on the shelf, so I presume this book is still in print.