Was the P-61 Black Widow a good night fighter?

[carman1877]

Thanks Erich, Its hard to tell what information is right on the web, becuase i read that German high command wanted a new night fighter to take does Mosquitos only, but it could be wrong. Are you sure that the b-1a-u1 could not carry bombs because I thought that I saw a pictture of Red 10 carrying two bombs instead of drop tanks(they had fins unlike the drop tanks).

 

[Erich]

By the way red 10 never flew any operations and what you saw under the nose were the twin external fuel tanks. also that is not Welters mount as Kurt never flew a twin seater

 

[carman1877]

Was the radar and the homing equipment on the Me-262 good and reliable? i read that they could track RAF bombers based on the bombers radar.

 

[Butters]

It seems to me that the P-61 was basically a very good design, but one that had been unnecessarily handicapped by a severe case of 'committee-itus'...

The extra weight and drag penalty imposed by the essentially redundant quad.50 top turret and the cavernous fuselage design does not seem to be justified in regards to enhancing the a/c's operational efficiency. A two-man crew tandemly seated under a bubble canopy (ala the F-15 Reporter variant) would have made for a faster, better climbing, and OA more efficient offensive NF, IMO.

Erich's comments regarding the Me 262 NF variants are very interesting. From what I've read of WWII NF operations, it seems that while a a slow and stealthy approach to the target a/c was the preferred method of attack, it was also quite common for targets to appear quite suddenly, thus requiring that the attacking a/c reduce its speed as rapidly as possible so as to manouever into a viable firing position, or at least avoid overshooting and alerting the target a/c to its presence.

With this in mind, was the poor response to rapid throttle changes of the early jet engines, and the very clean aerodynamics (Even with the draggy 'antler horn' radar antennae, I'm presuming that the 262 was still significantly 'cleaner' than equivalently equipped prop NF's) considered to be a significant problem? And was there any effort by the designers to develop an equivalent to the 'speed brakes' of early post-war jets?

JL

 

[Erich]

the P-61 config in the ETO was different than the PTO crates in that the radar op sat right behind slightly above the pilot besides not having the upper turreted .50's thus a much cleaner affair.

yes there was as pointed out but probably overlooked the future of the 262 was to be more streamlined and having a heavier though more streamlined fuselage body the sides slightly bulged because of internal fuel loads instead of carrying external fuel tanks in any form. the Arado 234 was seriously considered having the pilot to radar op very similar to the Mossie NF's, crew sitting side by side, armored nose and the gun packages all in the lower fuselage like the tried and tru Ju 88G-6. as also a special form of telegraph read output was being issued into the B twin seater already proven in the Ju 88G-6 and non jammed though this was a definate last two months war feature

have not heard about the issuance of any type of braking instruments nor any intention of creating and applying them. Personally I feel the only real use of the jet at night was in part it's success on the Mossie

 

[Milosh]

A speed brake was tested on the Mosquito.