World War 2 In Review No. 53: Air Power

By Merriam Press

Merriam Press World War 2 In Review Review Series. The following articles om air power in World War II are in this issue: (1) America Enters the Jet Age (2) American Bell P-59 Airacomet Jet Fighter (3) American Kellett XO-60 Autogyro (4) American Vultee O-49/L-1 Vigilant Liaison Aircraft (5) French Bloch MB.170 Reconnaissance Bomber (6) French Aircraft in Regia Aeronautica Service, 1943 (7) German Light Transport/Trainer Siebel Si 204 (8) Soviet Polikarpov I-5 Fighter (9) Soviet Lavochkin La-5 Fighter (10) Soviet Antonov A-7 Glider (11) Dutch Fokker C.X Reconnaissance Bomber (12) Japanese Kokusai Ku-7 Manazuru “Buzzard” Glider (13) Japanese Kokusai Ku-8 Glider (14) Japanese Nihon Kogata Ku-11 Glider (15) Japanese Military Aircraft Designation Systems (16) Czech Aero A.101 Light Bomber and Reconnaissance Aircraft. 557 B&W/color photos/illustrations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9780359138104

Book preview

World War 2 In Review No. 53: Air Power

World War 2 In Review No. 53: Air Power

F:\Working Data\Merriam Press Logo CS.jpg

Hoosick Falls, New York

2018

First eBook Edition

Copyright © 2018 by Merriam Press

Additional material copyright of named contributors.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

The views expressed are solely those of the author.

ISBN 978-0-359-13810-4

This work was designed, produced, and published in the United States of America by the Merriam Press, 489 South Street, Hoosick Falls NY 12090.

Notice

The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Mission Statement

This series presents articles and pictorials on topics covering many aspects of World War 2. In addition to new articles and pictorials on topics not previously covered, future volumes may include additional material on the subjects covered in this volume. The volumes in this series will comprise a single source for innumerable articles and tens of thousands of images of interest to anyone interested in the history and study of World War 2. While no doubt some of these images and other materials could be found online, countless hours could be spent searching thousands of web sites to find at least some of this material.

The Images

These photos are seventy-plus years old, were taken under less than ideal conditions, and some were taken by individuals who were neither professional photographers nor using professional equipment. Thus, the quality of the original image may be less than perfect. While Merriam Press tries to obtain the best quality images possible, the quality of the images in this publication will no doubt vary greatly.

This series of publications utilizes the editor’s collection of tens of thousands of photographs and other illustrative material acquired since 1968. Hundreds of sources over the years have been searched for material on every subject.

Photographs Needed

Merriam Press welcomes any contributions of photographs

of this or any subject for future volumes in this series.

How to Use This Publication

To get the best viewing experience, the use of the Adobe Digital program is highly recommended. This free program is available from Adobe.

This publication was designed to allow for larger images than most eReaders will accommodate. When the publication was created, the images were inserted in a fixed size (6.2 inches wide and up to 8 inches high) and cannot be resized in the program. The text, of course, can be enlarged and reduced as desired.

Viewing on a computer or other device with a large enough screen will allow viewing of the photos and other illustrations in their entirety. Viewing this publication on most eReaders will result in the images not being shown in their entirety.

To view the images properly, adjust the program’s viewing window’s right side edge accordingly. If the viewing window is too wide, images may overlap, and moving the right side edge will fix this.

•

Welcome to No. 53 of the World War 2 In Review Series

The following articles are in this issue of World War 2 In Review:

(1) America Enters the Jet Age

(2) American Bell P-59 Airacomet Jet Fighter

(3) American Kellett XO-60 Autogyro

(4) American Vultee O-49/L-1 Vigilant Liaison Aircraft

(5) French Bloch MB.170 Reconnaissance Bomber

(6) French Aircraft in Regia Aeronautica Service, 1943

(7) German Light Transport/Trainer Siebel Si 204

(8) Soviet Polikarpov I-5 Fighter

(9) Soviet Lavochkin La-5 Fighter

(10) Soviet Antonov A-7 Glider

(11) Dutch Fokker C.X Reconnaissance Bomber

(12) Japanese Kokusai Ku-7 Manazuru Buzzard Glider

(13) Japanese Kokusai Ku-8 Glider

(14) Japanese Nihon Kogata Ku-11 Glider

(15) Japanese Military Aircraft Designation Systems

(16) Czech Aero A.101 Light Bomber and Reconnaissance Aircraft

with 557 B&W and color photographs, maps and illustrations.

Watch for future issues of this series with more articles on the history of Fighting Aircraft.

America Enters the Jet Age

F:\Working Data\WW2 In Review\WR Published\WR - 053 - Air Power - WORKING\WR053_LE1_files\image004.jpg

The first Bell XP-59A Airacomet over Muroc.

The jackrabbits and coyotes paused in their early morning food foraging at the strange high-pitched whine that spread out across the desert at 6:00 a.m. on 2 October 1942. The sound was totally unfamiliar, even unearthly. Such was the stage on which America entered the jet age.

The source of this demonical wail was the Bell XP-59A, ready to take off on its first flight at Muroc Army Air Base in the Mojave Desert.

Bell’s propellerless airplane was not an American conception but came into being to take advantage of the technology developed in England in the early phases of World War II in the field of jet propulsion. England flew her first jet-powered airplane in May 1941, powered by the turbojet engine developed by Sir Frank Whittle.

General Henry H. Arnold, Army Air Corps Chief of Staff, while on an inspection tour of the British aircraft industry and investigation of their jet development progress, arranged to have a Whittle jet engine sent to the General Electric Company in the United States. Under the strictest of security measures, it was loaded aboard a B-17 and flown across the Atlantic directly to the GE plant.

Concurrently, Bell Aircraft Corporation was asked to design and build an airframe to be powered by two General Electric turbojets based on the Whittle design. A fighter configuration was chosen, according to General B. W. Chidlaw, to …expedite the translation from the experimental test plane into a usable superior performance fighter, capable of being produced in quantity for our Army Air Force fighter units.

An order was placed in September 1941, and work began on 3 October on the Bell Model 27 in the old Consolidated Aircraft Company factory. The project was rushed to completion and taken to the highly secret Muroc Dry Lake test site, now known as Edwards Air Force Base.

The original XP-59 was to be a twin-boom pusher fighter powered by a 2,000-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engine, but the program was cancelled, and the number re-assigned to the jet, the first of the new designs being the XP-59A.

From Muroc’s assembly shop, the XP-59A, its wings spanning 49 feet 0 inches and 38 feet 2 inches in length, was towed the five miles to the flying area, sporting a dummy propeller affixed to the nose. It was painted in the then fashionable olive drab and carried no armament. The fuel was a special paraffin-base concoction, and the strange craft weighed in at a little more than 10,000 pounds.

Starting up with a faint whine, then a mounting hum, and then a strong, pulsating purring, the XP-59A responded to the throttles advanced by Bell test pilot Robert M. Stanley and made history for America’s aviation industry. The previous day, actual lift-offs were made during high-speed taxi runs, but actual flights were postponed until the next day because of fading daylight.

The two General Electric I-A jets which powered the first airplane produced 1,300 pounds of thrust each and sped the XP-59A along at 409 miles per hour. This wasn’t fast for a jet, and it could be beaten on the straight course by some propeller-driven fighter types, but it was more than acceptable as a first effort and was kept a closely-guarded military secret. Stanley made the first two flights, one to 6,000 feet and the next to 10,000 feet. The third flight in the program that first day was made by Army Air Corps Colonel Laurence C. Craigie. The airplane was so smooth and free of vibration that a vibrating mechanism had to be installed to keep the instruments from sticking. Observers were present from General Electric, Bell, the NACA, the British Air Commission, and from the American military services.

Three XP-59As were ordered and tested, followed by the usual service-test order for thirteen YP-59As. These subsequent airplanes were powered with General Electric I-16, or military J-31, jet engines producing about 2,000 pounds of thrust each. The YP-59As differed from the earlier three in having armament—four .50-caliber machine guns and a single 20-mm cannon. The XP-59A was designed in the first place to carry two M4 37-mm cannon each with forty-four rounds of ammunition. These thirteen aircraft were in the AAC serial number block 42-108770 through 42-108782. Oddly, the preceding XP-59As carried succeeding serial numbers 42-108784 through 42-108786. Following Bell’s tradition in naming their aircraft, the airplane was named Airacomet. Two YP-59As went to the Navy as the XF2L-1, carrying Navy Bureau of Aeronautics serial numbers 63960 and 63961, one of them having been AAC 42-108778.

Meanwhile, at a nearby bomber training base, pilots were returning with wild reports about a mid-wing airplane passing them in flight; the plane had no propeller and the pilot was wearing a bowler hat! This naturally created quite a stir and some of the boys were ordered to take a rest.

In December of 1943, Bell test pilot Jack Woolams set an unofficial United States altitude record of 47,600 feet, a fact which was not released for over a year for security reasons.

A contract for twenty airplanes put the P-59A into production in 1944, these to be used only as a trainer for the new and secret Lockheed P-80, a vast technological improvement over the P-59. As opposed to the rounded wing tips of the XP-59A and YP-59A, the P-59A