eBay: Bell P-39 Airacobra

[Wurger]

 

[emu27]

For the Navy Bell XFL-1.

 

[SaparotRob]

It is a nice looking airplane.

 

[Snautzer01]

WWII U.S. Air Force Military Air Craft Photo | eBay

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Nice shots!

 

[Snautzer01]

 

[Wurger]

 

[Glider]

Can anyone say what those square blocks are for on the tail?

 

[SaparotRob]

Bullet hole patches?

 

[P-39 Expert]

Some kind of test apparatus. I think the structure below and behind the tail was a spin chute for testing.

 

[buffnut453]

It looks like a test installation of some sort. The ironmongery on the tail looks like an anti-spin parachute. I'm guessing the boxes on the fin, rudder and tailplane are sensors of some kind...but not sure what.

Alas, I don't read cyrillic so I'm at a loss to provide anything more positive.

 

[Glider]

Thank you all, it certainly looks like a spin chute but the blocks I admit defeat me.

 

[MIflyer]

Could be that they were trying to develop a device that would automatically recover the airplane if it spun - or tumbled. The A-7D had something called "Post Stall Gyration" that was not a spin and you would not recover if you applied normal spin recovery techniques. It was proposed to install a sensor that would activate a flap if that condition existed so to allow recovery.

 

[GrauGeist]

Obviously Russian with some old cyrillic typewriter characters, but it appears to read:
"Photo no. 3 - view the installation of the anti-corksscrew parachute and devices"

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The device is housing a ballistic chute for spin testing. I've seen this on other aircraft

 

[Crimea_River]

Yep, but he's talking about the blocks mounted on the stabs.

 

[Wurger]

The wooden square on the rudder seems to be a kind of a protection against self opening of the round cover there. The second one of the rectangle shape on the fin seems to be either a base for attaching of a sensor or other device like the box with the actuator fixed to to the elevator. Perhaps it was an elevator angle indicator. So it could be a similar to the elevator device but for the rudder.

 

[Capt. Vick]

Perhaps the block on the vertical fin is a camera mount to record angle of elevator deflection?

 

[Wurger]

It is very likely. These seen three pieces like nozzles could be the air pressure sensors as well as blowing outlets with a kind of smoke to see the airflow around the tail.