YESTERDAY THE BELL P-39 EXHIBITED advanced features combined with some faults. Today in Part 2 it becomes a Russian fav and has two unorthodox variants.
Lend-Lease P-39s. Even with these tradeoffs, Wikipedia describes, “A total of 4,719 P-39s were sent to the Soviet Union, accounting for more than one-third of all U.S. and UK-supplied fighter aircraft in the VVS [Военно-воздушные силы, Voenno-Vozdushnyye Sily, (Russian) Air Force] and nearly half of all P-39 production.”
A P-39 in Russian livery. Image from Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft: 1914 to Present.
Bill Gunston writes in Classic World War II Aircraft Cutaways, “One of the ironies that were sprinkled throughout World War 2 is that the Russians were generally unimpressed by aircraft they were given by the Allies, and in particular were not over the Moon about ther Hurricane (too slow) and Spitfire (which they said couldn’t stand the harsh environment). But when they got the Airacobra they said ‘At last here is a ground-attack fighter we like!’ Hundreds of Soviet aces flew this tough machine, and in 1943-44 they moved on to Kingcobra, which they thought even better.”
Classic World War II Aircraft Cutaways, by Bill Gunston, Octopus Publishing Group, 2011.
The ALSIB. Wikipedia recounts, “Air Transport Command ferry pilots, including U.S. women pilots of the WASP program, picked up the planes at the Bell factory at Niagara Falls, New York, flew them to Great Falls, Montana, and then onward via the Northwest Staging Route through Canada to Alaska, where Soviet ferry pilots, many of them also women, would take delivery of the aircraft at Nome and fly them to the Soviet Union over the Bering Strait via the Alaska-Siberia route (ALSIB).”
Bell Airacobra. Image from Classic World War II Aircraft Cutaways.
Russian Favs. Wikipedia says,”The usual nickname for the Airacobra in the VVS was Kobrushka (“little cobra”) or Kobrastochka, a blend of Kobra and Lastochka (swallow), “dear little cobra.”
It continues, “Five of the 10 highest scoring Soviet aces logged the majority of their kills in P-39s. Grigoriy Rechkalov scored 44 victories in Airacobras. Pokryshkin scored 47 of his 59 victories in P-39s, making him the highest scoring P-39 fighter pilot of any nation, and the highest scoring Allied fighter pilot using an American fighter.”
Above and below, finely detailed drawings of a Bell P-39 Q-20 from Paul Matt’s Scale Airplane Drawings.
A Swept-Wing Experiment. Two post-war Kingcobras were fitted with wings exhibiting a 35-degree sweep (the same as North American’s later F-86 Sabre, the United States’ first swept-wing fighter to combat the similarly swept Soviet MiG-15).
The Bell L-39. Two were modified from P-63 Kingcobras. Image by USN via WIkipedia.
Classic Tidbit: John William Dunne’s tailless aeroplanes had swept wings back in 1910.
“Pinball” Operations. Wikipedia recounts an unusual use of the P-63: “A manned flying target for gunnery practice. The aircraft was generally painted bright orange to increase its visibility. All armament and the regular armor was removed from these RP-63 aircraft, and over a ton of armored sheet metal was applied to the aircraft. This was fitted with sensors that would detect hits, and these hits were signaled by illuminating a light in the propeller hub where the cannon would have been. This earned the aircraft the unofficial nickname of Pinball.”
Wikipedia continues, “Special frangible rounds made of a lead/Bakelite combination were developed that would disintegrate upon impact. These were known as the ‘Cartridge, Caliber .30, Frangible, Ball, M22.’ In 1990, veteran Pinball pilot, Ivan L. Hickman, wrote Operation Pinball about the training flights.”
Operation Pinball: The USAAF’s Secret Aerial Gunnery Program of WWII, by Ivan Hickman, Motorbooks International, 1990.
Yes, ABEBooks lists it. Sounds like a “must read.” ds
© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025