I was told buy WW2 American pilots that Russian pilots told them they loved both the P-39, and P-63's in part because they had great cockpit heaters.

@chriscarbaugh3936

11 ай бұрын

Good at level where eastern front combat took place. RR Merlin was better at higher altitudes, needed where our air forces fought.

@warbirdnut9269

11 ай бұрын

They liked them for more than that.

@kdrapertrucker

11 ай бұрын

Considering Russians called their domestic designed planes "guaranteed, varnished coffins" it's no wonder they were happy with mediocre aircraft.

@tomoplt5437

11 ай бұрын

​@@kdrapertrucker You are great 🤡. Your statement is valid only for the one model LaGG 3. You probably never heard about Jak 1, Jak 3, Jak 9 or La 5FN or La 7 planes.

@carlsoto1747

11 ай бұрын

@@tomoplt5437silly Tankie

It saddens the discriminating air history buff when the majority of the video shows Yaks and other Soviet aircraft when the documentary is supposed to be about the P-63.

@HootOwl513

11 ай бұрын

Plus the occasional F8F.

@WALTERBROADDUS

11 ай бұрын

Good luck trying to find 10 minutes of p63 footage.

@ronaldschoolcraft8654

11 ай бұрын

This guy gets more wrong than right. He has no idea what he is talking about.

@13stalag13

11 ай бұрын

That is a constant on this channel.

@GENERAL_GREIVOUS

11 ай бұрын

@@ronaldschoolcraft8654 bro it’s hard to find that much footage of p-63

A P-63 tragically collided midair with a B-17 in Texas airshow last year, broke my heart for loss of life, experience and love dedicated to preserving our rarest of aviation history such as those warbirds

@dragonbutt

11 ай бұрын

God its already been a year? It feels like that was just yesterday

@BryanFinster

11 ай бұрын

Texas Raiders was my favorite CAF plane. Broke my heart.

@jamesmaddison4546

11 ай бұрын

yup i was there. Some dont believe this but my gf had bought me a ride in the b17 in the nose gunner position, i didnt make the flight because i got stuck in bad traffic coming from ft worth, when i got there i missed the flight check in but they told me i could go up in 2hrs time on their next flight. Of course, that next flight never happened. It still trips me out when i think about it, if that car wreck on the highway didnt happen, i would've been there on time and onboard....

@JohnChvatalGSTV

11 ай бұрын

I got to know the pilot over several days at an airshow a couple months prior. Even got the opportunity to do an air to air photo flight with the Kingcobra and Dauntless aboard a B-25. Craig was a professional pilot through and through. The loss of him was a gut punch.

@salvagedb2470

11 ай бұрын

@@jamesmaddison4546 Lots of things happen for a reason , and yes the loss of Lives and those Aircrft was a sore one.

One wild aspect about the development of the cobra fighters was how the whole mid engine layout was to allow for a turbocharged setup for the Allison engine. In the USAAF’s infinite wisdom in the 1930’s, equipping the then limited turbocharging units was relegated primarily to bombers, so the design had to be brought to production without the intended powertrain. Those mistakes were behind so many of the early design “fails” of US fighter planes, whom otherwise had contemporary or competitive aero performance. By the time politics got a clue, newer designs with more advanced aero science available got to production, and the early set of US warplanes lost the opportunity to be used to their true potential. Its frankly a wonder how any of the prolific fighter planes of the USAAF ever became operational; even the P-51 wasn’t an Army contract at first but one for the British.

@dukecraig2402

9 ай бұрын

No it wasn't regulated to just bombers hence the P38, the fact is NACA did a study on supercharger types in the mid 30's that determined that a single stage centrifugal supercharger with a turbo to start feeding it at medium altitudes where a single stage supercharger can no longer provide maximum boost was the best way to make power at all altitudes, so the Army selected that supercharger configuration to be in all Army aircraft, the 2nd best way was a multiple stage centrifugal supercharger which the US Navy for their own reasons selected to be on their aircraft. The reason that the P39 and P40 didn't have turbos on them was because in 1939 every military in the free world, and the Soviet Union, were all screaming for aircraft including the USAAC so the turbos were dropped from them to speed up their development time so they could get production lines set up for them. The story of the P39 has gotten quite distorted over the years with many sources claiming that the turbo was dropped at the behest of NACA after doing wind tunnel tests, the truth behind that is just to speed things up and give a Congressional oversight committee a quick answer about what it's lower altitude performance would look like NACA was task with doing those wind tunnel tests because it was much faster than building one, or modifying the existing prototype that had the turbo and the big scoop for it's inlet that stuck out the left side of the fuselage, to show what kind of performance it'd have without the turbo scoop hanging out of the side of it, some people have misinterpreted it as them doing the tests and recommending the turbo be dropped, as explained that's not how that happened, they simply needed to get it into production as fast as possible and those wind tunnel tests gave them some quick answers to what it's performance would be like without that scoop which was being eliminated anyways because the turbo was being dropped for the sake of rushing it into production. The P40 has a very similar although before it's turbo was dropped it had a different nomenclature, it was something like XP38 or something like that, it also was being developed with a turbo but like the P39 had it dropped to shorten up it's development time so they could get them into production and start supplying them to different air forces that needed them, they were both fairly successful fighter's they just couldn't perform high altitude escort missions, but at low and medium altitudes they both did well, the P39 didn't come out of the Army with the best reputation but that really didn't have anything much to do with the aircraft itself, it's biggest handicap was that it only really saw service with US forces in the Pacific at the outbreak of the war where they were short on spare parts, the necessary grade of aviation gas to tune the engine's with and because of a shortage of malaria medications the pilots were flying them sick as dogs along with starting out inexperienced, but in Russia where all the aerial combat was at low altitude and they didn't have those same problems like sick pilots trying to fly them they did well, I believe they actually had a better record than any of the domestic Russian built fighter's for reasons like having proper radios so pilots could communicate with each other and coordinate attacks, something they couldn't do with their own fighter's that either lacked radios or had one's of such poor quality that they were broken shortly after being put into service, another very big problem their own fighter's had was the build quality was so low that fumes from the engine's leaked past the firewalls forcing the pilots to fly in freezing conditions with their canopies open all the time half frozen to death to keep from passing out from carbon monoxide poisoning, in contrast the heaters worked well in the P39's giving them another reason to prefer them to their own fighter's. As far as the P40 at medium and low altitudes it had an excellent record with the US pilots in all theaters where it could operate at those altitudes, in Africa it did very well and in the Pacific like in the hands of the Flying Tigers it had a 15 to 1 kill ratio against the Japanese. The Army wanted all of it's aircraft built with turbos but the P39 and P40 had them dropped during development because of timeline issues, years after the war in the 70's when Benjamin Kelsey who was in charge of overseeing all aircraft development and procurement for the Army was being interviewed by an aviation historian and was ask what the biggest regret of his career was he said it was not being able to see the P39 through it's full development with it's intended turbo, he believed that fully developed it would have made an excellent all around fighter, and who knows with the turbo giving it high altitude performance maybe the P51 never would have been designed in the first place.

@dannynye1731

7 ай бұрын

The real Achilles heel was range but the AirCobra, like the P38 and P43-47 were designed for an antibomber mission.

@zh84

21 күн бұрын

The official history of the Dambusters (617 squadron RAF) mentions their leader being issued with a P-51 for "pathfinder" duties (marking targets for the bombers.) He was amazed that the Americans had managed to build an aircraft which was as fast and nimble as a Spitfire and yet had the same endurance as a four-engined bomber. It was a bit of bad luck for Bell that the P-63 went up against the P-51, because the Mustang was so bloody brilliant ;-)

Good to see these planes get some love. P39, p40, and p63 were great low and mid altitude fighters.

@insideoutsideupsidedown2218

11 ай бұрын

When a decent engine is put in those airframes, they become beasts. That is what happened to the P51

@morrielarsen

11 ай бұрын

P-400?

@markmulder9845

11 ай бұрын

@@morrielarsen p-400 is an export version of the p-39, so in my book, same thing

@patrickgriffitt6551

5 ай бұрын

The A-36 did well also. (P-51A modified into a dive bomber).

@jamesharrison6201

2 ай бұрын

And were more maneuverable than the 47 & 51

The British Typhoon was similar. It was considered lacking as a high altitude fighter but proved to be an outstanding low level ground attack fighter.

I really love your videos! Thank you for putting in the hard work to pump out these videos!

Gotta love these dark series channels.. they're all great content..👍

Chuck Yeager flew P-39s as his first fighter assignment in Panama. He stated that he loved the plane and it had a bad reputation that it didn't deserve. I believe that he could have done what Billy Mitchell had done time and time again with several bombers, was to show pilots how to fly it correctly to make it work for them.

Please consider doing a video on the Hurricane. The Spitfire always steals the glory, but (1) the performance of the two was very similar and (2) there were more Hurricanes. Thank you.

@Theorex

11 ай бұрын

I believe they already have one from ab a year ago

@Joop.23-2-63

11 ай бұрын

The Hurricane. Like many ww2 planes, very underestimated.

@jamesmaddison4546

11 ай бұрын

More hurricanes doesn't mean anything dude... there was more because it had been around longer. Similar maneuverability is a stretch, yes it was similar, but not THAT similar. People say the hurricanes downed more aircraft than the spitfire, true, but when you compare the ratios, of how many kills the spit got per loss of a spit, with how many missions flown, and how many of the aircraft there were, the numbers scream out that wherever the spit went, it dominated and had huge impacts in the fight everywhere it went. Dont take this as me hating on the hurricane, im not at all, i love both of them, but the facts are facts, without the spitfires there wouldve been a very different outcome. Remember, it was made for a reason, the hurricanes couldnt keep up with the newer fighters germany was putting into the skies, and alot of hurricanes were being lost to them, the spit put a stop to this

@chriscarbaugh3936

11 ай бұрын

Hardly similar performance! The Spitfire survived until 1945 w upgrades. It was a better plane, pure and simple.

Lots of wrong-plane footage filling up space on this one.

Few people mention that the P-39 and P-63 were ahead of their time in many ways. By 1945 many were thinking of putting the engine behind the pilot (and moving the pilot up near the nose), and using tricycle gear. There was the Messerschmitt 509, the Rolls Royce concept fighter that was to use the Crecy engine and P-51 wings, and the XP-75 - all of these moved the pilot closer to the nose and put the engine behind the pilot. Note also that pretty much all immediate post-war singe engine jets used this arrangement, and had tricycle gear. The main advantage was improved visibility, especially when it came to landing.

One of the problems with the P-39 was egress from the cockpit in an emergency in the air. Access was via a door, similar to a car door, which was hinged on the leading edge. That meant that in flight, the airflow made it extremely difficult to open the door to bail out.

I was at the WW2 Weekend at the Reading , Pa regional airport. Home to the Mid Atlantic Air Museum. A P63 went up and the owner/pilot put it thru its paces which was quite impressive.

@VanHeezey

11 ай бұрын

I was there too, very cool to see an aircraft like that. Probably a once in a lifetime thing until I see it at another air show haha

@johnfairchild3421

11 ай бұрын

I would have lived to be there and seen the. Aerial. Test’s. I bet it surprised a lot of people. Some planes should have bee put into production but the. War was. Raging and they made a few mistakes

@johnfairchild3421

11 ай бұрын

I was kinda overlooking the. Y22 and y23. Both. Great. Planes. The y22 got chosen and the y23 Lost. Myself preferred the y23 the reason the y23 didn’t get chosen was because the company had in the past had cost. Overruns. Now. Japan and. S. Korea are building the y23. And the fact. The y23 hydraulic mechanic screwed up the right landing gear hydraulic cylinder. Which he should have fixed. Later it was found out it was the. Manufacturers. Fault not his but at the time he should have. Told us period. He said he had fixed it. But he drank whisky by the barrel so we All blamed him. But. It was not his. Fault. He should have had. Good. Help. Which he did not have. We had a mock up which he should have caught. The. Defect. But it was. Really. A. Big Rush. Because our. Enemy was ahead of us at the. Time. That’s why we need to spend big money on. Security. Our. Technology gets. Sold to our. Enemy

The P39 was not a failed fighter. There were many Soviet aces in P39's. The 2nd highest Soviet Ace had most of his kills in a P39.

@garrettmiller1355

11 ай бұрын

US: It kinda sucks with it short range USSR taking them all: I miss the part where that my problem.

@SoloRenegade

11 ай бұрын

and the P-39 achieved favorable kill ratio against Japanese fighters in the South Pacific in the early years.

@stevenstoll2016

11 ай бұрын

@@Arthion um, wrong. The Allison was not mediocre. In fact, it's performance in the P51 & P40, both of which used the Allison and Merlin, was better with the Allison, at altitudes below 20k ft. The Allison suffered from a lack of a 2-stage supercharger, which the Merlin had. Allison was smaller, lighter, more powerful, and had numerous innovations that the British designed Merlin didn't. The Allison engine wasn't the problem, the boost system was. Why Allison didn't develop either/or a 2-stage supercharger or turbocharger system for the 1710 needs explanation.

@Arthion

11 ай бұрын

@@stevenstoll2016 I mean the end result is the same if you're forced to use the Allison engine at an altitude it doesn't like.. which seemed quite often in the Pacific. It worked wonders for the Soviets since for whatever reasons the Germans decided to throw away the giant advantage they had in altitude performance in comparison to most fighters in the Soviet arsenal. Although to be fair you are right, it would be more fair to say the Allison was a good engine, but unfortunately hampered by now getting a proper 2-stage supercharger that well as far as I see it bring it down unless you get handed an optimal engagement on a platter.

@phlodel

11 ай бұрын

@@stevenstoll2016 When the Allison was being developed, the USAAC was enamored with turbosupercharging. The Allison was designed with a single stage supercharger, the turbosupercharger was to give it high altitude capability. This worked in the P-38 but there were problems with the turbo installation in the P-39.

Nice archive films, thanks. Where is the canard aircraft that's featured on your tile thumb nail?

The most underrated plane is the P=40, despite being underpowered it was incredibly fast in a dive and proved quite effective with the right tactics from North Africa to China’s Flying Tigers the P-40 changed the battlefield for the Allies on nearly early every front.

@chriscarbaugh3936

11 ай бұрын

Not really underpowered. Even made Merlin powered units. Look it up. Damn fine plane actually

@insideoutsideupsidedown2218

11 ай бұрын

​@Chris Carbaugh the P40 was good at taking down Japanese bombers. The only effective way to take on the ZERO was to dive through their formation and zoom back up to higher altitude.

@Idahoguy10157

11 ай бұрын

The P-40 was available in quantity. For allied nations to purchase before the US entered the war. Plus the US Army used it. It was a workhorse especially 1939-43

@anthonybanchero3072

11 ай бұрын

@@chriscarbaugh3936 Flying Tigers did well with them.

@kmoecub

11 ай бұрын

@@anthonybanchero3072 That they did, for a time. One of the most important lessons to learn form any war is that the nation that improves capability the fastest wins.

The P 51 mustang originally had an Allison aircraft engine in it and they would’ve been death traps had the British not installed the Merlin engine in their P 51 which made them the most formidable fighter in the war. Thank you, Britain.

@chriscarbaugh3936

11 ай бұрын

Hardly a death trap, just not the best for medium to high altitudes.

@chriscarbaugh3936

11 ай бұрын

Think, better P-40, which still would have been good.

@Arthion

11 ай бұрын

@@chriscarbaugh3936 I think it would have been stuck in mediocrity like most other fighters like the Cobras forced to rely on the Allison engines where high-altitude performance was needed.. imagine if a P-63 or P-40 prototype ever got its hands on a Packard Merlin just for comparison..

@blackroberts6290

11 ай бұрын

Putting Merlins on Mustangs and 17-pounders on Shermans, the lads are based.

@SoloRenegade

11 ай бұрын

Wrong. the Allison mustans were amazing. they were designed to be low altitude fighters, and did well in that role.

The P-39 wasn't a failure, it was quite successful at low altitude interceptor, the problem was a lack of a Two stage supercharger. It was great at the ground attack role.

@SoloRenegade

11 ай бұрын

and achieved a favorable kill ratio over Japanese fighters

@kirkmorrison6131

11 ай бұрын

@@SoloRenegade very true if enemy aircraft were at or came down to their level they were deadly. We needed another Merlin manufacturer or two. That would have allowed more fighters to fight at much higher levels.

@adamweaver1594

11 ай бұрын

It was a failed project because it didn't live up to expectations.

@SoloRenegade

11 ай бұрын

@@kirkmorrison6131 When did the P-39 face enemies that flew higher than it? japanese aircraft fought low. Eastern front was fought down low. The P-39 was actually better when it was above its prey.

@kirkmorrison6131

11 ай бұрын

@@SoloRenegade I knew a pilot and he said he was dived on a few times in his P-39 . I don't remember when but he was a Cactus Air force replacement. He died around 30 years ago, but I clearly remember his telling me he got jumped a few times during the War.

The first P-51 was powered by a 1250 H/P Allison. Woof , Woof. The 1750 H/P Merlin was the saving grace.

I read somewhere that the original design of the P 39 was an Allison engine that was turbo charged for high altitude performance but the military had them remove it. Never heard of the reason why they would do that. It seems that this would have turned the P 39 into a much different aircraft.

The P-39 was originally designed to have a turbo.

Thanks for this video. Any project about the Lavochkin La-5?

Post-war, p-39 and p-63 planes became incredible racing planes after an engine change.

The Russians did not use the P-39 in ground attack anti-tank roles. This is a widely accepted misconception due to the mistranslation of a term the Russians used, translated into "ground support" which we understand incorrectly to mean attacking ground vehicles. The term to the Russians mean "support the ground troops by destroying the German bombers in the air." Further, it is documented that we shipped no armor piercing rounds to Russia. We sent only high-explosive rounds which did a number on the German bombers, which would be ineffectual against German tanks.

@michaelatkins9780

11 ай бұрын

Altitudes.

@michaelatkins9780

11 ай бұрын

Russia had it's own world class ground attack aircraft not at the beginning but, after a year of production, yaks and stormaviks shocked the Vermackt (?) With thier effectiveness. The highest ranking aces used P-39's at 15,000 and lower altitudes.

man, the king cobra and airacobra are on my top 5 planes to enjoy in war thunder. they are just a fun plane to fly

@garrettmiller1355

11 ай бұрын

I love the survive ability on them, it like a low tier A10

@AlteredCarbons

11 ай бұрын

@@garrettmiller1355 yeah, i been playing since beta but took a few years off. i got some low tier jets nothing that can compete with anyone but i generally only prop planes now a days. i dont like the missiles in game. dog fighting is where its at

Any fighter that had a door that opened like a car to enter and is mid engined is cool af in my book.

the "Dark" channels, where the video footage is occasionally related to the narration

A vid in the King cobra but shows very little of the aircraft

Was nice to see the P-63 from the CAF at MAAM's WW2 days this weekend in Reqding, PA.

Could somebody tell me which is the plane in the thumbnail for this video? It has a mix of staright at the root and swept outboard wings, so it is not the Airacobra. Thank you in advance for your help!

@1bert719

11 ай бұрын

It is a Bell L-39 experimental airframe used to evaluate a potential naval version of the King Cobra with swept wings.

@philalcoceli6328

11 ай бұрын

@@1bert719 Thank you, Bert!!

I’ve read the ‘Cobra’ book, and that suggested the main reason the P-39/63 wasn’t more widely used was the lack of range. The P-51 and P-47 could both be modified to pack more fuel in, increasing the range. Unfortunately fuel load needs to be arranged around the centre of gravity to maintain basic stability as fuel is consumed (remember that computer controlled relaxed static stability was decades in the future.) But in the P-39/63 configuration all this desirable space was already occupied by the engine, radiators, undercarriage. The Russians were looking at short range work, at low to medium altitudes where the P-39/63 were quite useful. Notably the Russians usually left the wing guns (.3in) and radios on the ground. The nose armament was quite adequate for fighter-fighter combat Ground attack was a secondary role, that was what the Il-2 was for.

Bell L-39 experimental swept-wing demonstrator in thumbnail photo... talked about/shown nowhere in the video. To quote everyone's favorite geriatric dementia patient: "Come on, man!"

@stuartivins7846

11 ай бұрын

Bait & switch, thumbnail (!)

@cccagley5276

11 ай бұрын

I agree. I clicked on it to see the thumbnail plane and was sadly surprised it was about a different plane.

@imkeerock

11 ай бұрын

Same here! VERY disappointed not to see anything about that plane. Bait and switch indeed...

@theytoobpromotescommies

11 ай бұрын

I knew he was a potato when after his brain surgery during the obama years they said he'd never fully recover and accelerate his cognitive decline. Oh and planes

@michaelogden5958

11 ай бұрын

I don't have a dog in this fight (whatever that means 🙂), but at least the only 2 L-39s were P-63 variants. Cheers!

The thumbnail had a photo of the Curtiss Ascender, a pusher engined, canard design

@MW-bi1pi

11 ай бұрын

Ass-Ender

nice cool plane quite advanced i love the car door did it have coffee cup holder and cigar lighter too? uber cool kingcobra... and the swept wing version... sublime plane

anyone else now wondering what the aircraft in the thumbnail was?

@buhosunicolas8334

11 ай бұрын

looks like an xp-55 but it isnt

@lancerevell5979

11 ай бұрын

Curtiss Ascender (ass-ender)?

@jesseroseberry7936

11 ай бұрын

​@@lancerevell5979 similar but I don't think so

@AMPStorm

11 ай бұрын

Yeah that looked insane.

@vascoribeiro69

11 ай бұрын

It is a special swept wing P-39 to study low speed handling. Main gear didn't retract.

I love the Airacobra and Kingcobra these aircraft gad features that were ahead of their time and good ground attack planes plus like the P38 Lightning delivered to the UK they took the damn superchargers out of them.

The Bell P39 Airacobra was the first Revell model I built, in 1955. It was a brown USAAF fighter.

The ONLY Allison engine that had 2 stage supercharging was the P-38. Every other airframe using the Allison was considered "underpowered", especially at higher altitudes. The aircraft that were used at lower altitudes were competitive.

AWESOME, THANKS, 👍!!!

The. P-39 sucked in the Pacific, but excelled in Europe. The P-40 sucked in Europe, but excelled in the Pacific. These aircraft are great examples of the importance of matching the plane with the mission.

Very interesting video

It got the nick name flying coffin.the f4 then the f6 were real combat aircraft.they made good ground attack aircraft with the slower and maneuverability of the air frame.

The P39 was NOT a failure. It served admirably in multiple theaters. The Soviets especially made effective use of it.

The Allison engine performed well in turbocharged form, such as in the P-38 Lightning. The P-39 did not have space in the airframe for the bulky turbocharger installation, so had to make do with a rather inadequate supercharger design. Allison did not really try to improve this, which Rolls Royce did using a two-stage supercharger with two speed drive. It was the lack of intake compression at high-altitude that prevented the P-39 AiraCobra and P-63 King Cobra from being useful high-altitude fighter aircraft.

@ohger1

10 ай бұрын

Correct. Allison wasn't gov funded for a two stage two speed blower development since Packard was already building the Merlin in enough quantity to make a two speed/stage Allison redundant.

Chuck Yeager has good opinion about the Airacobra,and that man was not a rookie..

Also in my top ten most coveted list of single seat propeller driven Warbirds.

The USAAC halted the Turbo intended for the P39. Notice that she had most of the features of an F86 ot F16? Fwd bubble cockpit, central guns, rear engine. 10-15 years ahead of her time

The clickbait photoshop of a wings backward on the cover is a scummy way to do business and I would have believed it beneath you.

Random footage of North American A36, FW190 and Russian Polikarpov aircraft while describing the P39

Yes! My favorite family of planes! ^-^

This video along with many others carry on the myth that the P39 did not meet expectations because the designers had failed in the design for the P39. This simply is not true, there were two other aircraft that also did not meet with expectations. All three of these aircraft were designed using the Allison engine. The problem was that in 1939 there was an aircraft that was already in production the P38 Lightning, this aircraft used the Allison engine with a two stage turbo super charger and used two engines. The designers of the other 3 aircraft, the P39, P40, and yes the P51 all wanted to use the same engine that the P38 used but the problem was not with the availability of the engine but in 1939 there was a shortage of the turbo super chargers. All of the available turbo super chargers were ear marked for the B 17's that needed 4 and the P38 that needed 2 per aircraft. Also in 1939 America was not in combat anywhere and so the prevailing thought at the time was that not having a 2 stage turbo super charger would not be that much of a handicap. We did not get into the war until 1942, and at that time most of the combat in the Pacific involved the Navy, the only place that involved the AAC was in North Africa. When we landed in Africa we had just begun sending B17's to England. At the beginning of the war in Europe America did not realize that they were going to need high altitude fighters because we had not started to fly the B 17 in combat and they erroneously believed that the B 17 with all of their defensive machine guns and flying in tight formations would not need fighter escorts, it was not until they began taking unsustainable looses that we needed high altitude fighters . The early P51's sent to England with the single stage Allison engine that limited them to medium level altitudes was not acceptable as a front line fighter. The thing that saved the P51 was when someone in the RAF thought it might be a good idea to put the RR Merlin engine that was used in the Spitfires. Using this engine transformed the P51 into the best fighter in Europe. It was not until 1943 that the Merlin engines began to be made by Packard here in the US and 100% of the production was for the P51.

You should do a video on the ea-6b prowler.

Is there any way to limit reruns of images/video snippets? It messes with the flow of the presentation to see an image and think "Wait, didn't I just see that plane fly by?"

Please note that the first P51 mustangs were fitted with the Allison V-1710 . Not until after the British received their P51 s did the P51 gain the the Rolls Royce Merlin thru an experimental program by the British . The brits named the P51 , the mustang .

Could you do a video on the "ufo" plane that the Germans had plans for from ww2?

@skeletononcrystals5608

11 ай бұрын

The americans did one too. The XF5U

@davidelliott5843

11 ай бұрын

Do you mean the flying wing?

@cjwrench07

11 ай бұрын

The “Bell Shaped” ufo conspiracy is intentional misinformation for views/clicks. The heavily documented tests were literally part of the same “Bell distribution curve” tests. The same test every company interested, had been working on since the invention of the first flying Flying Wing aircraft in 1913 by J.W. Dunne. It’s the same misinterpretation/misinformation as the secret “teleportation” or “invisibility” tests on a certain WW2 warship. When in all reality, it was the classified degaussing of US & Allied cargo & warships to make them nearly undetectable to magnetic mines. Mines that wreaked absolute havoc in every single shipping lane of WW2.

@Add12pack

11 ай бұрын

@@davidelliott5843 nah

@leneanderthalien

11 ай бұрын

@@Add12pack close all "ufo like" things was only paper projects

Both of these airframes were so leading edge the military could not process the potential prefromance the airframe had . These airframes were the equivalent of putting a w16 engi e motor into a ford focus .. while at PIMAA in Tuscon Az. It was explained that the aerodynamics were superior to the p51.. yet it was the restrictions placed on the power units that actually crippled it. Specifically V1710 . The DoD mandated that all the super-combines ( turbo-charged-supercharger) were remanded to the bombers and p47 and the p38 . These super-combines added so much horsepower at altitude the pilots could throttle up and peel away or slow down and turn inside the prey.

The Russians did well with the Bearcat, which they got from the USA, two years befor the first one was ever built. It was great to see it near the start of the video...

A broken AI chat bot would mash together less random footage of aircraft than Dark Skies do.

Theater of operations combined with the engineering of each craft we're situational circumstantial those are the determinations of success or failure Etc

Having access to so much footage of the Russian Yak and Lachovin fighters, you should have done a video on them until you could come up with enough footage of the Bell aircraft to make a proper video about them.

Nice

I love the JUG

The narrative us fine but the choice of film included would leave someone totally confused as to what a P-63 was throughout the presentation. There are fascinating and rare clips of Soviet Laggs and even a Yakovlev Design Department model possibly being shown by Yakovlev himself (?) at the point the narrator introduces talk of the P-63! This jumble of clips is not atall complimentary and with a little more research could have featured excellent clips -in colour of postwar examples which would have given the viewer a far better idea of the excellent machine the Kingcobra was.

Dark Skies definitely brighten my day, generally, but I wonder why they stick non sequitur aircraft during the narrative? To wit, around 5:05, a Grumman Bearcat appears. Why? And the narration makes it sound like it is the aircraft at hand. I can imagine peeps not familiar with WWII aviation thinking "Gee Whiz, that doesn't look like anything being talked about..."

what was the plane in the teaser image for this video.

The major mistake by Alison was waiting far too long before sorting out a two stage blower system for their V1710.

@andrewcockburn7484

11 ай бұрын

My understanding is that the USAAF wanted GE turbos and the USN wanted air-cooled radials. Allison didn't have a customer for a two stage supercharged 1710.

@SoloRenegade

11 ай бұрын

it wasn't Allisons mistake, it was the US gov's mistake.

P39 is awesome

And as with the P40 the P39 was hindered by the very same govt that said it was not a worthy design. They were the ones who refused the two stage supercharger that would have changed the high altitude performance.

The King Cobra should have been used by the U.S. military. It was a sleek design, good looking and tricycle landing gear which yielded better ease of landing and visibility. I didn't see anything wrong with it. The original P39 was sent to Russia where it was put to good use though I don't think a single aircraft was paid by them. It was a victim of probably not enough testing, engine problems and military changing requirements.

An interesting video, as usual, but why does the thumbnail have no bearing at all on the subject?

LOL the mounted the engine behind the piilot upside down to fit the 30mm to align out the nose... I thk the me109 was upside down too since it hd a nose cannon

I wonder what the rate of crashes of P-39s and P-63s was in relation to Single engine taildragger fighters flown by the same militaries that flew P-39s and P-63s. One would think it would be much lower for the P-39s and P-63s.

Had the XP63H with the 3,000+ HP Allison V-1710 Turbo-compound engine made it into production, the P-51 may well have been relegated to a secondary role...

@philipoakley2360

6 ай бұрын

Nope - range made the P-51 superior. Still, the 39/63 is a an awesome aircraft.

@dyer2cycle

6 ай бұрын

Range?..the P-51 may have still been superior in that aspect, I don't know for sure...but in pure performance? No freaking way...a 3,000 HP turbo-compound P-63 would have killed the P-51 in that regard...@@philipoakley2360

Referring to the P-39 as a failure is a misnomer that historians should alter. The Soviets proved that it's use as a ground forces support aircraft was far from a failure.

@recoilrob324

11 ай бұрын

I've read that the Soviet pilots LOVED them not just for their performance. Soviet leadership didn't think much about pilot comfort and having climate control unneeded in their eyes. The Bell aircraft was like comparing a Lada to a Cadillac.

Heard of the P-39 Airacobra, but I don't think I ever noticed the unusual spelling. Why not just "Aircobra" or "Air Cobra" ? Not sure I ever heard of the Kingcobra, but I'm not sure of what I am seeing in the video. Checking online, I think my confusion is understandable because it looks very similar to the P-39.

It was under rated since America had this thing for not putting super chargers onto their engines. The air war in Europe happened mainly over 10,000 feet while in the East in was lower so the P-39 succeeded. Was also good in tbe Pacific with the P-40.

2:11 What is that plane?

Hardly a mention about one of it’s main attributes, the 37mm

@MrLM002

11 ай бұрын

Arguably the worse part of the P-39 and P-63. Sure it was better than American/British 20MMs but you get a ton of weight, a ton of recoil, hardly any ammunition, and iffy reliability, plus if you shot all your rounds it would move the CG far enough aft that they would enter a flat spin that was extremely hard to recover from. A bunch of M2s in the nose would have been a better way to go, no worries about convergence, better reliability, higher hit probability, less wear and tear for the airframe, etc. Keeping the weight in the fuselage instead of the wings helps increase the roll rate. I'd just fill the wings with as much fuel as one can put in there getting rid of the range concerns, you burn the wing tanks while climbing up to altitude and cruising, then when you encounter the enemy the wings tanks are empty and you have a great roll rate.

@tucopacifico

11 ай бұрын

@@MrLM002 Despite the drawbacks of the 37mm, you didn’t usually need many hits to destroy a fighter or even a bomber. The Soviet pilots flying the P39 managed to do quite well against Me 109s and FW190s, with at least 16 aces with between 20 and 50 kills each. So the 37mm doesn’t seem to have been a huge disadvantage.

@MrLM002

11 ай бұрын

@@tucopacifico That's provided your 37mm didn't jam, and you actually hit your target with it, and hit somewhere vital. Rudel got hit by 37mms out of P-39s several times and none of them downed his Stuka. with a Hail of .50 cal fire you're damn near guaranteed to hit something vital. The P-39 turned very well for a European theater fighter plane and the roll rate was very good as well.

I made p-39 when I was kid, then I thought best looking 2nd WW Russian aircraft. Till i that found out when I got older . That it's a USA design. With English engine. . Still a good looking aircraft. 👍👾

An almost: Hungary almost got P-39s and P-63s from the USSR (aka CCCP) after the Communist Regime took over the power after WWII. The manuals were translated, but the delivery never materialised. Instead of US built fighters we go Yakovlev Yak-9P fighters, with very troublesome engines (oil system and coolant system problems). They were called "Vércse" - Kestrel - in Hungarian Service. We also got Ilyushin IL-10 ground attack aircrafts (successor to the IL-2 Sturmovik) and it was called "Párduc" - Panther. These were basically the first combat aircraft of Hungarian Air Force after the WWII. Unfortunatelly I cannot name the source of the P-39/P-63 planned use in Hungary, as I read about it more than 20 years ago, and it was very possibly a printed article in the local aviation magazine called Top Gun, not on the internet. I would love to put my hands on the copy of the translated manuals myself, surely, but finding these documents would be a miracle by now.

Bell were unlucky with the P-40 and P-63. At the crucial moments for selecting them, the need was for high altitude performance because that was the stage of the American air war in Europe. When ground attack became more important as the Luftwaffe capabilities were reduced, the P47, Tornado / Tempest and Mustang were already available, so the great capability as ground attack aircraft for the P40 / P63 were already addressed by planes already in service.

@ohger1

10 ай бұрын

The P-40 was a Curtis. I think you mean P-39 and P-63?

The USAA was the whole reason the P39 had its high altitude shortcomings. They insisted that Bell use a turbocharger that had just been designed but not tested by another company. Long story short, Bell had already designed the airframe with the assigned turbo in mind but when the turbo turned out to be a failure, Bell couldn't fit the proven turbo I to the airframe without major redesign work done, which of course, the USAA wouldn't allow. Had it been designed from the outset with the proven turbo, the P63 wouldn't have been needed and the P39 would have gone down as the plane that won the war.

Any American pilots who flew the P-39 largely hated it. Not simply for it’s lack of power and high altitude ability. It was a dangerous beast on the ground or to land. It was an early implementation of tricycle landing gear that did something stupid. The front wheel was not steerable the way it was on the P-38 or on most modern jets. It simply swiveled freely. This made the plane notorious for dangerous ground spins on landing.

why are showing Yaks and La fighters and to many 39s also I agree with everybody here about that. I still watch your videos

Ah, yes the plane I use in War Thunder

The Soviets used these planes to fly cover for their IL 2s . A far more heavily armed and armored plane used in ground support

Not the Bristol Beaufighter?

USA : Don't use King Cobras against Nazis. Stalin : Ok, we will use them to fight Germans.

Are these actual film of the king cobra?

What is in the thumbnail?

They can't be all "the most underrated" Dark Skies.

How come you show no footage of the aircraft mentioned?

wasn't that one of Chucks favorite planes? (Yeager)

Some reason seem to remember mid engine. Pilot sitting on a drive shaft.

"laminar flow air foils" *Destin has entered the chat*

i wonder if the airacobra had it supercharger if it would have been better.

I said it's that time again.

The p51 didn't have a Merlin engine when it was revealed

Your wrong about the P-51 or what to become of the A-36 . The American call name for the A-36 was Apache not Mustang . The US government did not ordered the A-36 . The Brits wanted North American to build the P-40 for them . North American showed their new plane the A-36 to the Brits and the Brits wanted it . Sense the Brits having the A-36 they tested the aircraft and it was not fast and failed in high ALT performance . So the Brits asked North American to install the Rolls Royce engine in the plane and they did . This had took care of it . The Brits also later added the Malcum Canopy . This was to improve the visual sight . The North American shaved the turttle deck and added our new canopy . The A-36 was droped or at least the A was droped for the P . The A stood for Army Air Corp or AAC . The 36 was droped also because all the changes to the airframe . The 51 was carried from the Brits numbers 51 . So the A-36 became the P-51 and the Apache was also droped by name only to the public to the Mustang . It just sounded better . But on paper it was still called the Apache here in the USA . So this fact the Mustang was really called Apache A-36 - P-51 .