I like her. All they needed was to shift the cannon forward to improve the center of gravity and use zoom 'n boom tactics.
>>65609693Its problem was no turbosupercharger. The original XP-39 had one installed on the left side of fuselage, but a 1939 USAAC contract specification (that altered the expected altitude and performance of the new fighter) change had it removed.
>>65610243Didn't the P-63 fix everything that was wrong with the P-39?
>>65609693Good enough for the Eastern Front
>>65610718P51 was simply better and the allied had no real use for canon armed planes
>>65610823>allied had no real use for canon armed planesNonsense. Spitfirr cannon preformance was always better, and a post war study by the US came to the same result. What a retarded thing to say
>>65609693>improve the center of gravityThe CG wasn't really too much of an issue for the P-39
>>65609693>If it looks good, it flys goodYeah, for the time, this was a pretty good design. I think it needed more power, mostly, but some better weight distribution would probably help. IDK anything about the wing design, but there is no reason it couldn't have benefited from similar developments of the time. It's a shame it didn't get more development.Cool plane.Good taste. Great post.
>>65610828To be a devil's advocate, the .50 cal was easier to build, maintain and provide ammunition for at the time, so on a big picture scale, it's pretty good.Personally, I'd rather have a 20mm MG-151 with AP/HE, but whatever. The Saber was definitely the last fighter plane the .50 cal was remotely viable in.Also and barely related, but F2-H Banshee is totally bad ass. I think I'll make a thread.
>>65610823>>65610718>P-63Yes it was a refinement of the original design with a laminar flow wing, but powerplant installation just had a two-stage supercharger. It gave comparable performance to the Merlin 61-engined two-stage two speed supercharger P-51B/C/D Mustang though, with better climb rate, and slightly lower performance at altitude.Both these aircraft (new Merlin P-51B, and P-63A) were in development and initiating production during the mid-late 1943 timeframe. (N.B. the P-51 was mostly rejected-ignored by the USAAC—as it was a North American Aviation foreign contract plane for RAF—1940-42, only reluctantly inducted as the modified A-36 dive bomber and a small number of P-51As during that time; the project to build a Merlin 61-powered Mustang was only the result of committed English and American engineers plus a few advocates in USAAF that pushed it along as a high altitude northern Europe single engine bomber escort fighter. That the P-51B even came to exist is a result of wartime expedience and determination)Although jet aircraft—including the P-59 project from Bell itself—were on the horizon by this time, it would have been interesting to see an actual turbosupercharged Allison P-63 and how that would have compared to, for example, the final gen P-38L and P-47M/N turbosupercharged piston-engined USAAF fighters.
>>65610841>>65610862>center of gravityIn late war flight testing the successor P-63 was found to have a superior roll rate to the P-47, P-51 and IJN's N1K2-J(the Soviet Union—recipient of most of the manufactured P-63s—did their own testing and field recommendations back to Bell Aircraft in the U.S. which included moving the cannon forward in fuselage; the A-9 variant had an improved M10 37 mm gun with higher ROF, disintegrating link belt and increased ammunition capacity)
>>65609693>be Sovanon>trained up on I-5 and I-15 before moving on to I-16>now mid-'41, get LaGG-3>water-cooled engine, overweight, numerous defects, questionable flight characteristics>sometime in late '42 get this "Airacobra" from decadent capitalist Amerikanski negro-lynchers>giant fucking cannon with fighter built around it>faster than LaGG>excellent handling compared to previous fighters>crisp, clear radio>relief funnel for pissing on Fascist invaders during combat>heated seats so glorious Bolshevik scrotum no longer freezes during winter missions>this is the fighter that the Amerikanskis DIDN'T want to use>wonder just what they aren't giving us
Though the RAF rejected their contract Airacobra Is (called by one British pilot 'a useless lump of wank') , they found it was able to out-turn the Bf 109E. At lower altitudes in the southwest Pacific islands—and as long as they maintained speed and avoided turning engagements—USAAF pilots were confident in the P-39's superior speed, armament and armor protection; but by later 1942 and Guadalcanal much of the aerial combat was taking place at 15,000 ft or greater altitude. Some USAAF pilots remarked on the P-39's relatively cramped cockpit (that may ? have been a reason the Soviets were relatively more enamored with it).
>>65609693I like her too, it looks more modern than its contemporaries, a bit like an early jet.
>>65613238Tricycle gear and the sleek pointed nose (having engine mid-mounted) are what does it. In that sense, was a futuristic design
>>65610718Still ugly, so no.
>>65611691Kek.
Did the cannon and MGs have seperate triggers? I imagine sending a 37mm everything you want to fire would be annoying as fuck with the relatively small amount of ammo and different bullet trajectories.
>>65615893>cannon and MGsyes and separate charging handles (2 for the .50s and 1 for the 37 mm), the cannon had a separate shell loading handle as wellP-39C—only 20 manufactured—firing its nose cannon, 2 .30 cal and .50 cal guns :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1av0Wg2kXo
>>65611611How is the fore-aft CG location relevant to roll rate?
