Groundhog Thread Part Deux - P-39 Fantasy and Fetish - The Never Ending Story (Mods take no responsibility for head against wall injuries sustained)

WARSPITER · May 10, 2022

drgondog said:
In all fairness, however, it may have been the best Gunnery Target.

Sentence of the week so far.

soulezoo · May 10, 2022

If I get a chance to run into Bud Anderson again, I'll have to ask his opinion on the -39. He got his fighter pilot training in it IIRC and assigned to a -39 sq. on the West Coast briefly.

I have not seen him around town for awhile now. Used to run into him at the local airport once in a great while.

GrauGeist · May 10, 2022

I recall some time back, that I offered my Uncle's opinion of the P-39 (which he flew) and it was discounted by a certain die-hard P-39 fan, as "third person hearsay" versus cherry-picked pilot quotes from books used to prop up their defence of the Bell product.

pbehn · May 10, 2022

greybeard said:
Hello!
I was intrigued by reading of this interview with Golodnikov, especially by his mention about true performances of German fighters (color plus some correction of the text by me):

"A. S. Nikolay Gerasimovich, if you look at any reference book, the superiority in speed of German aircraft [like] the Bf-109G and FW-190 is indisputable. Minimum 20-25 kilometers at low altitudes and up to 80-100 kilometers at high altitudes. And you say ours did not lag behind?

N. G. No, some difference in speed always exists. At low altitudes we were a bit faster, at high altitudes they were. The difference was on the order of 10-20 km. But this difference was not so great that it ensured overwhelming superiority. In combat it was practically not discernible.

A. S. Nikolay Gerasimovich, sometime relatively long ago I was speaking with a pilot, a frontline veteran. Right after the war they flew in captured aircraft. And no matter how hard they tried, they were unable to attain the speeds the Germans had written in their specifications. The shortfall in speed was significant. In the end, they prevailed upon a German, a high-level specialist, and asked him, "Why this shortfall in speed? Are we using the engine's capability incorrectly?" His response was that they would never achieve the target speed, because the German specifications showed the theoretical speed, and they were attempting to attain that speed on their instruments.

Nikolay Gerasimovich, in your view, is this possible?

N. G. Of course. We had a group of specialists with us from NII VVS. They were examining specifications and were looking at speed. "What speed is indicated at 7,000 meters? 780? Take away 100. And what about 3,000 meters? 700? Reduce it 70 km." This is how they calculated the instrumented speed and, characteristically, almost always hit their target. Perhaps they knew something about our focus on speed."

I wonder what they mean for "theoretical speed": didn't Germans actually test in flight their planes? And what is this "instrument speed" they speak of?

I would be glad to know your opinion. Cheers,
GB

Calum another poster here (forum name Snowygrouch) posted a lot of info about German aircraft performance. As the war went on the build quality of airframes and engines went down so much that the actual performance was nowhere near what they should have been

MIflyer · May 10, 2022

I was surprised that one P-39 pilot said the P-39Q with the external .50 cal gun pods was a worse performer than the earlier models (see an article I posted from the USAF Museum Newsletter). The Q model shook more at higher speeds. While I have seen some evidence of Soviet pilots removing the external .50 cal, I have to wonder why that installation was allowed and we did not see more efforts to delete the guns in the field. I can only imagine that they did not need the higher speeds for the missions they were flying and valued the increased firepower more..

Also attached is an article from Aviation History Mag with some P-39 lore.

SaparotRob · May 10, 2022

I think that's the first time I ever read "P-39" and the words "…didn't need higher speed for their mission." in the same sentence.

Thumpalumpacus · May 10, 2022

SaparotRob said:
I think that's the first time I ever read "P-39" and the words "…didn't need higher speed for their mission." in the same sentence.

It wasn't a slow plane, until you hit the spin!

Snautzer01 · May 10, 2022

I have it on the grapevine mods are getting ready

WARSPITER · May 10, 2022

The sad end of another overheated P-39 which was shot by a Japanese sniper while drinking at a waterhole.

GrauGeist · May 10, 2022

Snautzer01 said:
I have it on the grapevine mods are getting ready

View attachment 667720

Says the guy who's banned

fubar57 · May 10, 2022

RAF fin flash on the right?

MIflyer · May 10, 2022

And the thing everyone agreed on was the P-39's great ground handling.

That looks like a white tailed P-40 on the other side of the ditch to the right. Here is another nice P-39 photo from that same airstrip as the skinny dipping incident.

GrauGeist · May 10, 2022

fubar57 said:
RAF fin flash on the right?

Perhaps one of the ex-RAF P-400s from Australia recently arrived?

Greg Boeser · May 10, 2022

RAAF or RNZAF Kittihawk.

MIflyer · May 11, 2022

Just like I said... I don't k now what they mean by "Alternate Indian Ocean Paint Scheme."

Peter Gunn · May 11, 2022

GrauGeist said:
Says the guy who's banned

I believe that's "Honourably banned" to be technical...

Snautzer01 · May 11, 2022

Peter Gunn said:
I believe that's "Honourably banned" to be technical...

And proud of it.

MIflyer · May 12, 2022

And, as they used to say on "Get Smart": "And Loving It."

GregP · May 14, 2022

C'mon guys, the P-39 was a pretty good airplane as long as you didn't need to fight in it. You could bolt on a beer keg, go flying and get the beer cold enough right as your fuel got to emergency state. But, if you actually had to shoot some ammunition, the beer would take you well into aft CG before you could spit, which tended to foam the beer while in the spin.

So, the real solution was to drink Saki instead of beer. Then, the Japanese pilots wouldn't dare shoot at you as you were flying about cooling it. Instead, they'd wait for you to run out of fuel and force you down on one of their airstrips., where they'd take the Saki and heat it instead before drinking it.

warbird51 · May 16, 2022

A good book about flying the P-39 in combat in the SWP is 'Cobra Combat' by Robert Case. An enjoyable read and well written.

Groundhog Thread Part Deux - P-39 Fantasy and Fetish - The Never Ending Story (Mods take no responsibility for head against wall injuries sustained)

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