When it comes to Bell, military fans often think of the UH-1 Huey Cobra*** and the famous AH-1 Cobra Attack*** in the Vietnam War
The U.S. Marine Corps is armed with the Cobra to this day***
In fact, Bell has a long history, dating back to 1935, before World War II.
As a veteran aviation company, Bell was in a very awkward situation during World War II. Because of the relatively small number of production tasks, the U.S. Army Air Corps (the predecessor of the U.S. Air Force) once gave Bell the task of pre-developing the next generation of jet fighters.
XP59 The first American jet fighter.
Compared with the P51 Mustang fighter of the North American company and the P47 Lightning fighter-bomber of the Republic company, Bell's flagship product P39 Flying Snake fighter is very unpopular with the United States, so much so that it is handed over to the British Royal Air Force.
However, the Flying Snake that arrived in the British Isles continued its encounter in the United States, and the John Bulls preferred to use the weak P40 (Curtiss Company's product, the American military code name Kitty Hawk, the British military code name Tomahawk, and the main fighter of the Chennault Flying Tigers), and also disdained the powerful Flying Snake.
*Livery P40, the Flying Tigers' car.
In June 1941, with the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, the Flying Snake fighter was quickly packaged by the British and given to the next Soviet Air Force. Unexpectedly, the flying snake, which was left out in the cold in Britain and the United States, was favored by Soviet pilots and was used in various battlefields, becoming a sharp weapon for Soviet pilots to hunt Hans. The father of the Soviet art of air warfare, Pokryshkin (also the second ace of the Soviet Air Force during the war), the third ace Retchkalov, and the fourth ace Gulaev, all flew flying snakes across the battlefield, which terrified the Luftwaffe
How can there be such a big difference in treatment between the same aircraft on different battlefields? This needs to start with the performance of the flying snake.
Generally speaking, the fighters of the propeller era used the front-mounted engine, while the Flying Snake adopted a rear-mounted engine, which was rare at the time, and drove the nose propeller through the propeller shaft.
This structure brings a series of problems, the brunt of which is the complex structure of the body and the difficulty of operation. At the same time, it also led to a large weight in the rear of the fuselage, and the aircraft could only use the more alternative rear three-point landing gear at that time, which seriously affected the take-off and landing performance of the aircraft. However, the advantage is that there is enough space in the nose to cram a 37mm cannon, but it brings a huge recoil problem, which further aggravates the problem of difficult operation.
Because the engine is rear-mounted and the P39 center of gravity is rear, the use of the rare front three-point landing gear at that time is not known to control the cost, or for some other reason, the flying snake does not use the turbocharger commonly used in other American fighters, resulting in extremely poor high-altitude performance of the aircraft, and this performance is very important in the air combat system of Britain and the United States. The reason is that Britain and the United States are equipped with a large number of strategic bombers, such as the British Lancaster bomber, the Halifax bomber, and the Boeing Fortresses (B17 Flying Fortress, B29 Super Fortress).
Due to the extremely poor maneuverability of the bombers, it was very dangerous when intercepted by fighters. Therefore, the United States and Britain have put great emphasis on high-altitude performance, and turbocharging is crucial. The Flying Snake, which already has a bad reputation, is even more unpopular because of this.
B-29 Superfortress.
And what dealt the flying snake a fatal blow was the strange cockpit design. The Flying Snake uses a side-opening cockpit door similar to the front door of a family car, which opens directly on the fuselage. Once the aircraft breaks down or is damaged, the high-speed moving hatch is very difficult to open, and the pilot's escape becomes almost impossible.
As a result, the P39 Flying Snake was disliked by British and American pilots on the Western Front, marginalized, and equipped with a rather limited number of equipment.
None of these problems were a problem for Soviet pilots. Flying snakes were often equipped with elite units of the Soviet Air Force, such as Pokryshkin's 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment (where he started as a group commander and eventually became a regimental commander).
This group of old birds who survived the early days of the war can even play the Yi 16 with hellish operation difficulty, and even gave birth to several Yi 16 trump cards, and the operation darkness of P39 is not enough. And the 40mm cannon in the nose is very much in line with the violent aesthetics of the hairy bear's caliber is justice
Due to the short rear fuselage, the operation difficulty of the Yi-16 can be called hell, but a large number of aces were still born, including Liu Zhexian from China, and the poor high-altitude performance is not a problem. On the Eastern Front, neither the Soviet Union nor Germany was equipped with multi-engine strategic bombers similar to those of the United States and Britain, and the fights between the fighters of the two sides were more concentrated in the airspace of medium and low altitudes, and there were few opportunities for high-altitude combat. The Soviet Air Force still has the kind of high-altitude performance of the MiG-3, which is almost the most alternative, and even the Soviet Union's own development and production of the Yak series and La series fighters does not emphasize high altitude, but focuses on medium and low altitudes. An imported fighter will not be too demanding.
As for escape, Soviet Army, Navy and Air Force fighters, who considered ramming as a routine operation, often unconsciously skipped this option. In particular, the Soviet Air Force, from the first day of the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, had operations to ram enemy aircraft
Similar behavior was not uncommon throughout the Soviet Air Force throughout the Great Patriotic War. Not only male pilots, but even female pilots have carried out similar combat operations. And this tradition has been preserved by the Soviet Air Force, and in 1982, the famous Barents Sea scalpel left Western pilots with lingering fears to this day.
The famous Barents Sea scalpel, the American-made P3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft was disemboweled by the tail of the Su-27 and the all-metal fuselage, compared with the wooden pull series, the anti-strike ability has been significantly improved. The radio on board the Flying Snake was very common on American and British fighters at that time, but it was very rare on Soviet fighters, especially in the early days of the Great Patriotic War. The role of radio in the coordination and command of fighters is obvious, so the flying snake was quite popular with pilots when it first entered the Soviet Union.
What really made the Soviets fall in love with the Flying Snake was the huge losses in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War. After the war, it was calculated that the Soviet Union lost 1,500 aircraft within 18 days of the outbreak of the war, and by November 1942, the Soviet army had lost nearly 23,000 aircraft. Even more terrible was the fall of the traditional industrial zone, the unprecedented relocation of Soviet industry to the distant Urals and Siberia, and even Central Asia.
P-39 fighter.
Until the new plant is settled down and production resumes, all branches of the Soviet Union will face an extreme shortage of ammunition and logistical materials. The Soviet Union's own production capacity certainly could not replenish the losses at that time, and various warplanes from the Western allies began to replenish the units of the Soviet Air Force. Got the Soviet Air Force through the most difficult times. With the resumption of production in the factories moving eastward, the equipment system of the Soviet Air Force gradually changed to mainly domestic fighters.
It should be said that the Flying Snake came to the USSR at the right time, achieved a number of trump cards, and also achieved itself. However, it and other fighters from Britain and the United States became the last batch of main combat equipment equipped by the Soviet Air Force. Later, in the Soviet Union, only the trainer aircraft came from abroad, and all other equipment was domestic.