pinehilljoe
Senior Airman
- 670
- May 1, 2016
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Hind sight, but Mosquito's might have been a better choice than developing and producing the P-61. Wings/Airpower did a multi issue article on the P-61. The pilots they interviewed loved it. Any thoughts?
Problem is timing By the time the first Mosquitoes were flying in a night fighter squadron about 150 P-61s were on order and the order was increase to 410 the next month. Well before the Mosquito had proved itself. In fact 50 of the 410 P-61s were supposed to be supplied to the British under lend lease. Work on the P-61 had started back in the fall of 1940 and the British sat in or contributed to some of the initial design requirement discussions (perhaps were the turret came from
By the end of May 1942 the US was ordering another 1200 P-61s to be built in a new factory but this was cut to 207 aircraft to be built in the existing factory by the end of July.
Night fighters were being designed without really knowing what kind of radar (how big or how heavy) they would be equipped with so the size if the fuselage/cockpits tended to be on the generous side. Turned out the radar was developed as fast or faster than the airframes.
Do we know the details of the cutback? Why?
No - the AAF design spec that led to the F-89 was released in Mid 1945.was the F-89 on the drawing board when the cuts were made?
The USAAF ordered 120 Mosquitos for pru, but only 40 were delivered and given the U.S. designation F-8 (six Canadian-built B Mk VII and 34 B Mk XX). Only 16 reached Europe, where 11 were turned over to the RAF and five were sent to Italy. The RAF also provided (directly) 145 PRMk XVI aircraft to the 8AF between February 1944 and the end of the war. These were used for a variety of photographic and night reconnaissance missions.US reports on the Mosquito are less than glowing, though nowhere near as bad as those on some British types. I suspect that the P-61 or something similar was always going to be developed, not least in the US national interest.
Cheers
Steve
US reports on the Mosquito are less than glowing, though nowhere near as bad as those on some British types. I suspect that the P-61 or something similar was always going to be developed, not least in the US national interest.
Cheers
Steve
Is there some kind of link for these reports? It'd be interesting to see what they were less than happy with considering the excellent reputation it has.
How comes someone nearly always wants to blame the UK for every daft idea the USA came up with!!!the British sat in or contributed to some of the initial design requirement discussions (perhaps were the turret came from
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Hmmmmm, who else was trying to stick turrets on night fighters?How comes someone nearly always wants to blame the UK for every daft idea the USA came up with!!!
I'm trying to recall who it was that had an obsession with putting turrets on fighters...How comes someone nearly always wants to blame the UK for every daft idea the USA came up with!!!
The learning curve for turret fighters was being learned while the P-61 was already in development - the solution for the turret on the P-61 was to be remote and more aerodynamic, still was found to be troublesome when it was put into service, so in some cases it was removed and the well was used for additional fuel storage.And with all this evidence that it didn't work, the USA still went ahead and followed blindly.
.The learning curve for turret fighters was being learned while the P-61 was already in development - the solution for the turret on the P-61 was to be remote and more aerodynamic, still was found to be troublesome when it was put into service, so in some cases it was removed and the well was used for additional fuel storage.
Even though the U.S. didn't make any turret fighters, they still came up with fighter ideas that were not all that great.
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