Best U.S night fighter

• Oct 3, 2005

• #41

wmaxt

Staff Sergeant

1,200

11

Dec 5, 2004

Boise, Idaho

Belive it or not Kelly Johnson rode their many times, in pictures he looks to be around 6ft and 200lbs in his P-38 years.

Does anybody have figures on the F6F and F4Us They flew fairly extensively in the theaters against Japan.

wmaxt

 

• Oct 6, 2005

• #42

Marshall_Stack

Senior Airman

382

9

Sep 29, 2005

Missouri

Did they give any reasons why they wanted the P61?

It sounded like the mousie was better than the P61.

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I have a book on the P-61 and it stated that a U.S. nightfighter squadron was going to receive the Mosquito because of negative reports on the P-61. A contest was held between the two aircraft and it was shown that the P-61 was more maneuverable.

I also believe that they would prefer U.S. aircraft. With a British aircraft, you would be flying on the wrong side of the sky!

P.S. sorry for the lame joke..

 

• Oct 17, 2005

• #43

mosquitoman

Master Sergeant

2,979

16

Jan 20, 2005

Saffron Walden/Sheffield

www.myspace.com

The only 2 purpose-built nightfighters were the Beau and the Black Widow, of these the Beau was better.

For night ground attack the P-61 was better but IMO the Mossie was better

 

• Dec 5, 2008

• #44

B

Burmese Bandit

Senior Airman

474

0

Dec 5, 2008

The US did very little night fighting in WW II...

For the design strengths alone, the P-61 wins hands down.

mosquitoman said:

The only 2 purpose-built nightfighters were the Beau and the Black Widow, of these the Beau was better.

For night ground attack the P-61 was better but IMO the Mossie was better

Click to expand...

The Beau was better? How can U say that? Look at the vision fields of the crew members in the P-61 versus the Beau! The Radar systems! And the Beau did not the the option of a belly attack...wheras the top turret of the P-51 gave that option, though it wasn't AFAIK actually used in War Two.

 

• Dec 5, 2008

• #45

G

Glider

Captain

8,937

5,137

Apr 23, 2005

Lincolnshire

The top turret was often removed which wouldn't have helped.

 

• Dec 5, 2008

• #46

B

Burmese Bandit

Senior Airman

474

0

Dec 5, 2008

Not in the later versions! They had the buffeting problem solved by then....