Inside The Cockpit - P-63 Kingcobra 

Awesome work, they look so good !

The "Idaho potato launcher"

Wow this is awesome I remember when this p63 was still at yanks I got to show my uncle from Texas who was a b52 navigator and he loved this thing back when it sat next to the P39. Glad to see it’s still doing well though and the work you did looks amazing!

Fantastic my machinist / fabrication brother...I've met Frank Borman...he was very friendly and down to earth....Mr. aviation HIMSELF....

Mmmm... spicy anger potatoes... *drools*

I used to live in Idaho, it's a beautiful state.

Great contribution...could they be harmonized ...but I guess even that would have it's limits...thanks for the insight.

No intercooling, no flame traps. A 2nd rate engine, it ruined the P/F-82 twin.

Me as well, always a graceful looking plane and grabbed my imagination as a small child, actually I feel the same about it now and I'm pushing 70.

At least that B-17 landed 😢

So Kurt Tank may not have been the first to design an all electric fighter.

Just yesterday I watched gregsaircraft&automobiles channel analysis of the B26 Marauder, an early WW2 US medium bomber design with a mixed reputation (much like the Cobra). It was an attempt by Martin Aircraft Co. to design a next gen tech 400mph bomber- (twice the speed of the in service B10) with a 2 ton+ bomb load and heavy .50cal defensive armament, conceptually an Aluminum Mosquito (American, so moar Dakka!) Sadly, the available engines were not powerful enough to quite get there, and low speed handling was challenging. It also was innovative in use of electric controls, with an onboard APU engine and a ground cart connector. Apparently the crews transitioning from B10 era planes tended to run down the batteries in ground checks, (not useing the new equipment options) resulting in a high loss rate during training when the electric props wouldnt change pitch due to low amps on the bus (low batteries soaking up all the output of the engine gennys!) Primary training was in Tampa Florida, resulting in the saying - "One a day in Tampa Bay!"😢

What makes you say that? Because it was armed with a 37mm cannon? 🤔

@@MrLBPug I guess.

AH! A connoisseur.

Not just you. I love the P-39 and the P-63. The stories of how the Russians came over to the Bell factory to get them to fix the flat spin issue by actually showing them how it happened. Oh and the shear amount of 37mm shells we sent over to them. They got a lot of use overseas. Of course over here the P-63 got used as a flying target when they fired frangible rounds at it with the orange painted pinball aircraft.

Зато Р-39 был популярен в СССР. После И-16, который Поликарпов намеренно сделал неустойчивым, с пилотированием Р-39 у советских пилотов не было больших проблем. Хотя Р-39 специфичен в пилотировании, нужно учитывать, что после израсходования боеприпасов его центр масс смещался назад.

The song is called “Give Me Operations” iirc. I think Dick Jonas has a rendition of it somewhere

1. The doors were troublesome when bailing out. Ask a soviet ace Iskrin (from 16th GIAP) who became a cripple after being struck with the stabilizer while bailing, as well as many other less known people like him. 2. The 37mm was much less useful against ground targets due to low rate of fire, terrible ballistics and (in the 5% chance you hit anything with the cannon) low shell penetration. Against soft targets machine guns and 20mm cannons were much more effective. But 37mm proved more than effective against bombers, and the frontal armour also proved itself effective when attacking the German bombers usually armed with 7,92mm turrets. Against fighters the ballistics were "demanding", but it was mostly negated by the doctrine of coming in closer before opening fire, up to 100-50m. Even at 150m it was still alright.

Or you could spend a few minutes looking up charge cooling and detonation reduction.

@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 wothout knowing that , i would not know what to look for . Simple as that. Got it ?funny, that you cant think outside your box.

The shaft runs just below the cockpit floor, and there's a tunnel in the floor (Like on a front-engine / rear wheel drive car) that leads below the gun mount to a Reduction Gearbox in the nose, that not only reduces the engine RPM (About 3000 at Max Power) to propeller RPM (About 1500). This gearbox also raises the thrust line tp [retty much the fuselage centerline. Both the reduction gear and the propeller hub are basically metal doughnuts, and the barrel of the cannon pokes through. A lot of pilots were concerned about having the fast rotating shaft running below / between their legs, but I've never seen, or heard of an accident report that includes a shaft failure.

@@peterstickney7608 I believe Chris forgot to add these details in the video or I wasn't paying close enough attention.

From Engine Under Pilot To Gear Box At About 4 To 5 Clock Crown Gear Position (Leverage ) See Ya T38 Bill

Flat spin recovery was not easy in mid engine planes.

@@terrysmith4831 Other problems?

​@@michalandrejmolnar3715the center of gravity was pretty rearward-based, which made the plane more maneuverable, and the lack of a big block in the front led to a much more aerodynamic shape of the nose. But, as mentioned above, the CoG also led to some problems with spinning, sometimes making it impossible to get out of

The biggest problem was that you had your largest fixed weight (Engine, and all the associated stuff) right on the center of gravity. That's fine in theory, but it's a lot better idea to have weights that are going to change in flight - fuel, ammunition, weapons, etc. in that part of the airplane so that as those weights change, it doesn't shift the center of gravity. Consider the trim shift when you fire the ammunition from those .50 cals and the 37mm way out in the nose. You get s significant shift of teh CG aft, which reduced the stability of the airplane.

@@MDzmitry The NACA data on spin recovery of fighters during WW2 (Spin tunnel tests, backed up with fight test) show that the P-39 and P-63 weren't significantly worse than other fighters.

Lol

To Bail Out, Just Pull The Pin. The Door Sail Away. Left Side Right Side Your Choice . Now You Have A Big Opening Got It, Out An Away See Ya T38 Bill

@@williamfelker6963 The more typical, inverted flight, and drop out of the seat method, was also highly favoured where possible.

They sorta did. Just look at the P-59.

It would have had very limited flying time as those early jet engines were very thirsty.

@@edwardpate6128 So were the large V-12s and Radials

@@edwardpate6128 The P-63 had a range of 450 mi. The P-80 was the very first USAAF operational jet fighter, and with its very early jet engine it had a range of 825 mi. Jets have vastly different characteristics and are inefficient when flown at low altitudes and airspeeds. You don't buy a jet if that's your planned operating envelope.

And the bell x1

And the p 39

And built the first supersonic airplanes, and the first airplane to exceed Mach 3, and the first flyable variable-swept wing jet, the first guided Air Launched Cruise Missile, and, oh, yeah - the first rocket motor that could be restarted in space. Nothing of any significance.

@@peterstickney7608 None of which made Bell real any money or long term jobs.

@@mrcat5508 none of the experimental planes made them a profit or sustainable company.

The War Assets Administration. You could pick up a brand new fighter, and make a profit by selling the AVGAS in the tanks. Of course, you're about 75 years too late.

Until the 2-stage Merlins (Merlin 61 and up), there wasn't much to choose from between the Merlin and the Allison. The problem with the P-39 was that it was too small for what it needed to carry. The prototypes had a turbosupercharger, giving full engine performance up past 20,000', in 1938, but it couldn't meet its performance guaranteed. the N.A.C.A. stuck it in the Full Scale Wind Tunnel, and discovered that the turbosupercharger installation, and the intercooler that it required, (And some other issues, like not fully retracting the nosewheel) just added too much drag - they didn't fit in the airplane. So - the Turbo and its ancillaries were dropped, and an Allison configured for medium altitude was fitted. This met the performance requirements. Note that that Allison had basically the same output and Critical Altitude as the Merlin XII on the contemporary Spitfire. The 2-stage Merlin wasn't going to be in production until mid 1942, and it wouldn't fit in the P-39 in any case. Thus the P-63, a bit bigger, with a laminar flow wing, and a 2-stage high altitude Allison. (The Auxiliary stage was driven by a variable speed hydraulic coupling, like the supercharger of an Me 109 - so it delivered high power at altitude, but didn't pull excess power from the engine at lower altitudes.