The Bell P-400 “Caribou”; Britain’s Airacobra 

"Performance fell off above 13,000 feet..." In fairness to the Airacobra, the Curtiss P-40/Tomahawk/Kittyhawk fighters had exactly the same issue because they were powered by exactly the same engine. In fact, according to the performance figures, the P-39 actually had superior performance to the P-40. That was one of the reasons why the Soviets preferred the Airacobra. However, some other features that British pilots did not like about the Airacobra were its' mixed armament with different ballistic characteristics (20-mm cannon, .50 caliber MGs and .30 caliber MGs), the car-type cockpit access doors and the stalky tricycle landing gear. The British regarded that last feature as a major issue because most British airfields were unpaved grass, dirt or sand airstrips, frequently pock-marked with bomb craters. In addition, even the Soviets admitted that the P-40 could out-maneuver the Airacobra and that a pilot could put an Airacobra into a dangerous flat spin if he mishandled it. Incidentally, it was not Bell that insisted upon dispensing with the turbo-supercharger used in the P-39 prototype, it was the U.S. Army Air Corps. In their wisdom, the Air Corps brass decided that air combat would probably not be carried on at higher altitudes than that, so that the supercharger would be an unnecessary additional complication and expense.

Excellent mini-documentary. The P-39 was a visually stunning looking aircraft. With lot's of promise but introduced to early. Thank you Ed, this is the way mini+documentaries should be. Fast moving, with out fillers. If you can't tell I really enjoyed it :-)

The Airacobra’s redemption continues. The film of RAF planes is especially appreciated!

I used to have a copy of the WW2-produced book "Britain's Wonderful Airforce" from around 1941 and it rated the P-400 highly. And the Manchester.

A Russian P39 Ace said quite succinctly (to an American interviewer apparently) "We knew how to fly it. You didn't".

Beautiful aircraft at 1:42. Smooth curvy lines and it's roundness and all that

Part of why the turbo got nixxed was the obsession aeronautical engineers had with streamlining at the time. The original P-39 prototype was a hot rod that was set to dominate the sky, but then it got "streamlined." Making Bell one of the few aircraft companies to take a silk purse and turn it into a pigs ear.

Thank you for this video. This is one of my favorite aircraft of the war and your video finally does it justice. It points out both the good and bad of the design. Well done

The iron dog was in fairness a good low altitude fighter that found itself in a mid-high altitude airforce. When placed in the right conditions would often compared favorably with bf-109f and fw-109a.

I am glad that in recent years the P-39/P-400 finally getting some credit for the good aircraft that it was when properly employed.

Man I wish I knew how great it felt to fly a plane like that

Excellent work on this mini-doc. Very well discussed from the angles and situation of it's time. Thank you.

Nice one, another well researched and presented documentary about a lesser known subject, didn't know the Brits had them at all!

If anyone would like more information on this aircraft, they should check out the videos covering it on the channel "Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles''. A crucial factor in its performance issues was that it was designed to include a turbocharger that turned out to be unavailable to them.

I'm getting to the end of your video library now. I pulled this one up, only to realize once I'd started that I'd already seen it. But the video is so good I watched it again. All of these videos avoid the common mistakes I run into in RU-vid Aviation content, they're not snarky and conceited, they're not running with the hype meter pegged into doomsday overdrive, they're highly accurate, and they don't have that grandiose 'I love to hear myself talk' quality that I find so off-putting on other channels. Also, generally, what we see is what you're talking about, and if it isn't, you're careful to note that. I have to conclude that you've had formal training in history, or writing, or both. Well done.

Another really informative video, the way you drew out the reasons why different air forces had differing views/experiences of the type was particularly insightful. As always, thank you for all the work you put into your channel. Exceptional.

The decisions regarding turbo super charger being removed was driven NACA wind tunnel test. The intakes cause significant parasitic drag. The Army Air Corps officer in charge of the program made the decision based on the NACA report. The officers name was Ben Kelsey. The Kingcobra was what Bell wanted to build, essentially. On the deck the the Aircobra was marginally faster than the Zero.

Soviet designers and pilots worked with Bell engineers to improve the planes. They were able to improve the performance and serviceability, along with potency. The post war head of IBM was in Moscow working on this, continuously.

Thank you for covering this aircraft. Great presentation appreciate the insights.

In fact the soviet Air Force said that both p-39s and p-63s are the soviet pilots most favourite lead lease aircraft ever better then the la-5s and yak-9s

One thing about the P-39 was that it's main armament was in the fuselage. If you look at Soviet Fighter Aircraft - their main armament tends to be in the fuselage. So - here - you have an aircraft that fits right in with the Soviet Way of Doing Things. Often times they would take the guns out fo the wings to increase the aircraft's roll rate. The other thing they loved about Lend Lease Aircraft - is that if they still had the radios in them - they were very good radios, which Soviet Aircraft did not have. .

Nice video. Fyi, the photo starting at 12:23 is the specially modified, high speed aircraft. You can see the bulged fairing to smooth air over the exhaust manifolds, and the shortened tail.

I’m glad that the Commemorative Air Force has both the P-39 AND P-63 in flying status. The Peachtree Air Base in Georgia has the P-63. The Central Texas Wing has the P-39. I love seeing them on display and flying. Both are very beautiful airframes

Always an amazing day when Ed post a video. Ed could you do a video on the westland wyvern

These are what we’re used on Guadalcanal by the US, but having a high pressure oxygen system we on the canal didn’t have the set up to fill it.

Why doesnt anyone ever mention that being a fighter with a mid engine the center of mass was placed in the most advantageous place for maneuverability ? This is no doubt what the Soviets liked plus the fact that the cockpit arrangement was superior to Soviet aircraft.

Thank you for sharing.🙂🙂

Hay can you do a video on the b-18 bomber that won over the first b-17 models in America's first major bomber competition. It is really forgotten even though it proved to be critical in the Caribbean campaign.

This is the best thing I ever saw.

Excellent analysis of a unique and useful low level fighter.

when i imagine war on the eastern front between german and soviet aircraft i see incredibly low altitude dogfights which makes so much sense in retrospect why the soviets loved this airframe so much

I remember the P-39, even P-63, but I don't remember this one. I know that Curtis had multiple variance of the P-40.

I anxiously await a review on the xp-67😁

One more thing: Was the engine in the P-39 series a stressed member of the airframe?

Excellent video!

Could you (please) make a video about the origins of the North American A-36 Apache , the often forgotten dive bomber variant of the P 51 Mustang

Fascinating video.

Sadly no room for a two stage supercharger. NACA not Bell, was the pusher for slick aerodynamics over bigger two stage boost. Bell agreed, while aircraft designer was in the UK on assignment.

I am suspicious of anything the Royal Air Force says. The American P-38 Lightning was designed with 2 Alison 12cylinder Supercharged engines. 1400hp 25,000 ceiling Top Speed 400+mph 4x50mm brownings + 1 20mm Cannon in the nose. The RAF ordered 3 but with no super chargers (to cut costs) and complained that the plane was a 🍋 lemon. Saying she didn’t have a 25,000 ceiling and was only getting a 350mph speed. So the RAF canceled a much larger order.

I’m shore I’ve read Chuck Yeager loved it as it was a pilots plane.

No mention by Ed of the unusual engine layout.

Chuck Yeager rated it apparently.

"Cobra" WAY ahead of it's time.

Can you imagine getting out of the cockpit if you had to.

Was Bell sued for conning them with that test aircraft?

Probably WW 2 strangest aircraft. Both obsolete and 20 years ahead of its time.

Simply a case of not playing to the strengths of the aircraft, instead expecting it to do something it simply wasn't capable of doing. (Not to be confused with some aircraft designs that were just all around terrible.) The Soviets found the strength of the P-39/-400/-63 series and played to those strengths with obvious great success.

As they say One man's Trash is another man's Treasure or RAF's Trash is the Soviets Treasure

The P400 was just a P40 with a Zero on its tail.

There's something terribly dishonorable making a weapon with the knowledge it cannot perform the way it's promised, and selling it based off of false information and rigged tests. The RAF could have done with another fighter, but instead got saddled with one that couldn't perform as promised, and were little more than wasted space until sent to the US & SU.

It's too bad the British didn't send the P-400s to North Africa, they could have been fighting well before Operation Torch. Sounds like a good plane for strafing armored units, tanks in 1942 were still vulnerable to 20mm rounds, especially from the top. Also good for shooting up coastal shipping. Having better armor than a Hurricane or P-40(?) would be a big plus. And good against Stukas, countering their low level attacks. And as noted, if intercepted by Bf-109s they could just stay low and force them to come down and get them.

I'm interested to know why soviet pilots had rows of red stars painted on their aircraft. Missions flown in the name of the motherland? Victories scored for Stalin?

Soviet pilots probably said thanks for all the great aircraft received thru lend lease even if the Kremlin forgot. Proud the Russian airman appreciated these aircraft. Well Done!

Tricycle gear on dirt, ouch.

I was told by a WW2 RAAF pilot who flew in S E Asia that the P-39 front undercarriage could explode on landing due to some oil vapourisation problem ground-looping the aircraft. I don't know if he had flown one and I wish I had asked him more.

Using the Russian experience is hardly a paradigm . Anything with wings was an improvement over most Soviet aircraft. German fighter pilots were able to amass incredible scores against the Russian Air Force because the opposition was so poor in pilots and aircraft. In the battle of Kursk the Reds lost over 400 aircraft , whilst the Germans less then 50. The P-39 fared badly against the Japanese in the Pacific , the Lockheed P-38 however was successful in that arena because of its high altitude performance . Whereas in Europe something of a dog against German fighters .

Caribou- gorn

🙏🙏

A beautiful plane in my humble opinion. Too bad it wasn't among the best.

it at the time was all about super charger vs turbo charger export deal. bell got fucked.

11:50 - So you're saying its good by comparing it to the Me-109E? An outdated variant of the Me-109 by that time. How did it compare to the 109Fs and Gs in the purely air superiority role? Not that great I would imagine. Anything that's only good/average below 15,000ft is not a viable air superiority fighter in the WTO. Not to mention its difficulty to maintain. I am unconvinced it can possibly be considered adequate.

They ever stuff a Merlin in one of these????

List of some aircraft in WW2 who's performance fell off with altitude (aircraft very capable of fighting at high altitude effectively), A6M Zero Ki-43 Hayabusa (Oscar) F4F Wildcat F6F Hellcat F4U Corsair P-40 Warhawk P-39 Airacobra ...

First

RU-vid unsubbed me from you Ed.

There have been several sources that have stated that Japanese industrial spies changed the specifications to 'simplify' the Allison engines (removing the supercharger in the specs., rendering the Air Cobra effectively useless above 8,000 feet...

1. For war, time is the key to understanding. If a good airplane is a month late for decisive events, it is a useless airplane. Hence the non-synchronicity of historical assessments of projects in different theaters. 2. Stalin did not take the Spitfire, but ordered the Hurricane before the end because Spit were offered in small numbers at first. Stalin was a primitive fan of the theory of mass dominance. Communists are dogmatic, it's a common characteristic of them. P-39 could gift hundreds in 1942. And P-63 was being finalized in conjunction with experts from the USSR. Among the experts contest of opinions was not encouraged. Again, Communists are not normal people.

The Army generals at the time envisioned the P-39 as a ground support aircraft rather than a fighter, so out went the super charger.

Early-war USAAF pilots were not especially competent, they could not handle the SBD (A-24) either.

I think that most of us had to do it over again we would let the Soviets get the shit kicked out of them. World would have been a better off place.

My mother and one of her brothers worked in the Bell plant in the Buffalo NY area. She worked in the drafting department, I don't know what my uncle did. The only thing remaining of the plant is a plaque in the parking lot of Buffalo International Airport.

Very interesting details of the British experience with this plane. For anyone who wants to explore a thicket of technical detail, Greg's Airplanes & Automobiles did a lengthy video comparing the US and Soviet experience a few weeks ago. Lots of great photos. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-l_pziH3tI9o.html

Always liked the look of the Aircobra

Greg just did a great series of videos on this underappreciated aircraft. Personally, I think the British version with the 20mm is an even better idea than the 37. If Bell had had the time to clean up the aerodynamics of the turbocharger, this could have been as famous as the P47 or P51.

I've also read that the Soviets liked the P-39 because it had a cockpit heater (woah!). And since the over all climate in the Russias is, well, below tropical, the P-39 rarely overheated during ground taxi operations. Lastly, I have to believe that the pilots loved the P-39 and P-63 car-doors (with roll up windows) because, up to and through this era, few Soviet citizens could afford an automobile!

It's sadly refreshing to see that politicians and corporations have had their fair share of shysters throughout history - and even when the free world was at stake!

Many American pilots in New Guinea preferred the 20mm over the 37mm that they referred to as tossing a grapefruit

The best quote ever regarding the P-400 "A P-400 is just a P-40 with a Zero on their tail."

i can recall some soviet era aviator saying on their p-39s , they had removed 750lbs of armor plate and greatly over-boosted the engine when they had good fuel and the good fuel and the 39s arrived at the same time--

the P-39 achieved a 2:1 to 5:1 kill ratio against Japanese airplanes in the south pacific according to multiple mission reports. and was not as bad as believed. Later improvements leading to teh P-39Q made noticeable performance improvements. The P-39 was used as a low level striker and pilots did not get to fly it against Japanese aircraft using appropriate tactics, thus helping give it a bad reputation early on, and even some US pilots are on the record admitting they were unfairly harsh on the P-39 early in the war.

If Bell had managed to get a V-1710 engine with *PROPER* turbocharging, both the P-39 and P-63 would have been great fighters that would have lasted in service throughout World War II.

I've no idea if this is true of just a historical urban legend, but I've heard that the decision to eliminate the turbo-supercharger's scoop was made by the US Army Air Corps who, at the time, had a bee in their bonnet about "negative" (i.e. unnecessary) drag on airframes, and ordered Bell to lose the scoop, crippling the Airacobra. It might be that this was just an exculpatory myth put out by Bell themselves to divert blame for sharp practices, but on the other hand there is no deadlier opponent of military aircraft than bureaucrats.

One of the issues that you didn't mention was the decision to not have external radiators and coolers, but to bury them all in the wing centre section. Along with the wheel wells, this used much of the space that could have held fuel tanks, so the P-39 was of limited mission range.

Germany’s Erich Hartmann once shot down 10 Russian P39 Airacobras in one day! To be fair, he was the world’s highest scoring fighter Ace with 352 kills.

Excellent....a video on the P 63 would be appreciated...even if it was a short one.

The Alison V-1710 had a single stage blower because they were told General Electric would make the turbo chargers. GE struggled but the turbos did eventually arrive for the twin engine P-38. The installation took up huge space so was never suitable for P-39.

Yeah couple of things in the Soviets favour, they generally preferred cannons which mitigated the requirement for pilot accuracy, and almost all the combat on the Eastern Front was at low level partly as combat was less structured but also as the Soviets needed to fly low to navigate, finally most of the combat was tactical strikes and counter tactical air cover, very little in the way of high altitude strategic bombing and interception/escort (the largest strategic bombing mission on the Eastern Front during the war occurred in 1943 and had about 50 aircraft on both sides).

And if you painted the nose of the Caribou red it would be called Reindeer

I am surprised the RAF did not use the Airacobra I in the Western Desert as a ground attack fighter. In this role it performed well on the Russian Front. Below 10,000 feet the Airacobra was a pretty capable fighter. In many ways it enjoyed a superior performance to the Curtiss P 40E Kittyhawk.

A modernize P-39 with turbo prop engine would be a good counter insurgent aircraft like the A-29 Super Tucano.

USA not obligated to partially defend the greatest Empire in history . We had our own gross inadequacies in national defense to address. Thank You!

P40 was far more tractable than the P39 because it carried about 35 gallon more fuel. Once the P40 reduced it fuel it climbed almost as well and was more agile. P39 was only about 5mph faster. Both early planes we excellent below 15k. The Brits and Russian ignored the Boost limits. Brits used the 130 octane allowed the newer Allison Engines to run at 1800hp on WEP.. Both P51A annd P40 were quite different animals. Not sure 130 octane was used inthe P39. But would have given it quite a boost in speed. Which they discovered with the air races after WW2.

Had allways heard the p400 was equipped with a 20mm due to British request Also the allison manifold pressure was able to be turned up in the cold north for russia and had issues in the heat of china and was forced to run lower boost

Such a clean and slippery design, love it!

P-39 - my favorite one of WWII vintage. And the 400 model is not left out-those are cool. It would be a fantasy come true to fly one.

This is parallel in certain ways to the Buffalo's story. Most air forces considered it a dog, but the Finns loved the tubby little bastiche. Apparently it had terrific cold weather performance.

Interestingly Chuck Yeager wrote in his biography that he liked the P-39. But it must be kept in mind that he said this early in his flying career before he was able to compare it against other fighters.

way too many people are swooning over the P-39 because their fav youtubers are talking about it....really it wasn't as good as the planes that replaced it...no really it just wasn't and dont let some graphs and raw numbers influence you too much. It's time we started listening to the pilots who had reasons to feel inferior in it PS I'm not talking about Ed but several other YTers

Its such pretty plane that it's good to hear it wasn't a failure. Comparing it to the stubby cigar Karpov, plowing along pushing their frontal area through the sky, the mid engine lsyout makes so much more sense in aerodynamics, weight distrihution, pilot's vision and the coaxial canon.

"What is a P400? It's a P39 with a zero on it's tail." Other air forces under different conditions made it work well. Same with the Brewster Buffalo. Old myths disproven.