Bell P-39 Airacobra
The Bell P-39 Airacobra was an American fighter built around an unusual mid-engine layout, with its Allison V-1710 mounted behind the pilot and a 37 mm cannon firing through the propeller hub. Denied its turbosupercharger, it disappointed American and British pilots at altitude, but under Lend-Lease nearly 5,000 went to the Soviet Union, where low-level Eastern Front fighting suited it and leading Soviet aces scored heavily in the type. Of 9,588 built, a few survive in museums, several of them wrecks recovered from New Guinea.
Why It Mattered
The P-39 Airacobra matters because its reputation split in two: American and British pilots who flew it at altitude found it disappointing, yet in Soviet hands it became one of the most effective fighters of the Eastern Front. When America joined the war, the P-39 was already among its main front-line fighters, and nearly 5,000 of the 9,588 built reached the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. History of War records that, among the half-dozen Soviet pilots usually credited with at least fifty victories, four flew the type for most of their successes. Few aircraft so thoroughly rejected by their makers' own air forces have been so valued by an ally.
Design Notes
The Airacobra's Allison V-1710 engine sat in the center fuselage, behind the pilot, and drove the nose propeller through a long shaft. Bell's engineers placed the engine's weight near the center of gravity to improve maneuverability, and the empty nose made room for the type's heavy armament. A 37 mm cannon fired through the propeller shaft, backed on the P-39N by two 0.50-caliber machine guns in the nose and four 0.30-caliber guns in the wings. The layout also gave the P-39 a tricycle undercarriage, a first for a fighter. The design had been meant to use a turbosupercharger for high-altitude work, but the available units were diverted to P-38 production, leaving the Airacobra short of breath at altitude.
Operational History
The XP-39 prototype first flew on 6 April 1938, and by the time America joined the war the type was already among its main front-line fighters. Britain rejected it for operations over western Europe, where fighting happened above the altitudes at which the Airacobra performed well. In American hands it was used effectively in the ground-attack role in North Africa, and Airacobras also fought in the Pacific, where the Planes of Fame's own example served with a reconnaissance squadron in New Guinea. The first Airacobras reached the Soviet Union by the end of 1941, among them aircraft the RAF no longer wanted. Under Lend-Lease the flow grew until nearly 5,000 had reached the Soviet Union; Lend-Lease aircraft made up about 18 percent of all aircraft in the Soviet air forces. Eastern Front fighting was concentrated at low level in support of the armies, and Soviet P-39s rarely needed to fight above 15,000 feet, where the type's missing turbosupercharger mattered least. Soviet pilots used it as a low- and medium-altitude fighter, and Air Force Magazine notes that several who flew Airacobras became aces. History of War credits Aleksandr Pokryshkin, the second-ranking Soviet ace, with 48 of his 59 victories in the Airacobra, a claim repeated widely, though victory totals from the period remain contested. When the fighting ended, 1,178 P-39s were still in Soviet service.
Afterlife
Little of the leased wartime materiel came back to the United States after the war, and postwar scrap drives recycled thousands of Airacobras and their contemporaries. Survivors were few, but some wrecks endured where they had fallen: aircraft abandoned at Tadji Airfield in New Guinea were recovered in 1974, thirty years after they were left behind. One of them, a combat veteran of the 82d Reconnaissance Squadron, was donated to the Planes of Fame Air Museum at Chino, California, reassembled from parts of several P-39s. Surviving Airacobras were also raced after the war; a modified P-39 beat racing P-51s to win the 1946 Thompson Trophy. The Planes of Fame began a fresh, thorough restoration of its aircraft in 2019, and other Tadji recoveries survive too, including an example restored and displayed by the Yanks Air Museum.