For those of us that love the old warbirds......

Will wrote: In reply to keethrax: I believe they also had pretty awful spin characteristics thanks to the engine placement. Pilots didn't like the car door, and the 37mm was pretty useless for A2A.

Actually covered that. The engine placement was the cause, but the tail reduction magnified the issue dramatically.Keeping it low in nice thick air helped, which with the original supercharger removed was pretty much required anyhow.

The 37 mm was useful against ground targets, and probably would have been useful against bombers had intercepting bombers really been something the allies had to face. But the latter was never going to happen with the revised design even if there were bombers to shoot down.

I can't imagine a 37mm being terribly useful against another fighter. OR at least not against a relatively current single engine fighter of the day. Against the bigger twins Me-110s and such, maybe it would have been of some use, but even that is probably iffy at best.

Note that variants with 20mm cannons existed as well, no idea the breakdown between the quantities.

The "car door" was just a bad idea plain and simple, but many of the rest of the faults were introduced (neutering the engine) or worsened (reducing the tail in part to help compensate for the reduced power) late in the design process.

In reply to keethrax:

At least those problems were easier to figure out than the compressibility issue

But not even the P-63 did anything other designs didn't do better.

But ya gotta admit it sure looks cool.

Will wrote:

jimbbski wrote:

Will wrote: In reply to keethrax: I believe they also had pretty awful spin characteristics thanks to the engine placement. Pilots didn't like the car door, and the 37mm was pretty useless for A2A.

Most "fighters" designed in the late 30's as the P-39 was, were intended as "interceptors" and not expected to have to fight other fighters. The big gun the P-39 had was intended to shoot down bombers from a distance that the bombers guns could not reach it at.

Yup. Of course, the Japanese got around that problem by flying their bombers at altitudes the P-39 couldn't reach. Of course, my favorite useless Bell fighter was the YFM-1 Airacuda, which looks as if it was designed by the same guy that designed GI Joe vehicles. "Hey Frank, don't you think that thing needs some more gunners in big plexi bubbles in questionable locations?

Could you imagine bailing out of that thing?

It was faster than all get out in race trim though!

http://ipmsvagabonds.com/page3/page23/page23.html

Heard Tex tell this story in person a long time ago...