I'm an aviation dork, and this airplane deserves so much more love than it gets. Some quick facts about this plane:

  • It had a big fucking cannon in it's nose as well as a few machine guns.
  • The engine was behind the cockpit, which scared the shit out of American pilots. They thought if the plane was to crash, the engine would plow through the cockpit.
  • First fighter with a tricycle landing gear (others were tail draggers)
  • It doesn't have a canopy, it has 'car doors' that can be jettisoned if needed. These doors also have rolls down windows.
  • Wasn't really suited for the Americans so they gave them to the USSR.
  • Soviet pilots FUCKING LOVED THEM.
  • Five of the 10 highest scoring Soviet aces logged the majority of their kills in P-39s.
  • The Soviet success makes the P-39 collect the highest number of kills attributed to any U.S. fighter type flown by any air force in any conflict. THAT'S LOTS OF DEAD NAZIS!

The P-39 Airacobra!

AMERICAN LABOR :left-unity-2: SOVIET AIR FORCES

  • Torenico [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Unfortunately the Aircobra had a terrible reputation in the US as it was used against pretty well trained pilots flying Zeros in places like Guadalcanal and New Guinea. It's one of these planes that was pretty good but had a "bad run" and got it's bad reputation from it, kinda like the Devastator... it wasn't a terrible torpedo bomber (it performed well about two times before Midway) but during that battle the Devastators were almost all annihilated by the IJN and that is where their reputation comes from.

    I flew the Aircobra a lot in IL-2 1946, super easy to use and the nose cannon was excellent. Visibility from the cockpit was bad however.