Bell

Bell may not have had the most lucrative contract business during the war but it made its statements. In 1935 Larry Bell (the founder) parted ways with Consolidated Aircraft as that company was moving its production to San Diego allowing Bell to start his own company and move into the old factory. His first product was the ill formed though quite innovative (for its time anyway) YFM-1 Airacuda (more on that later). Whilst a decent first attempt it was just far too clunky to be adopted by the USAAC in large numbers and so the project was later abandoned. The following year the USAAC issued design specification "Circular Proposal X-609" it detailed: 1000 pounds of heavy armament, an Allison engine with a GE electric turbo-supercharger, tractor landing gear, a level airspeed of at least 360 miles per hour at altitude and a climb of at least 20,000 feet in 6 minutes. A tall ask for any company and quite unusual, Bell Aircraft with its limited expertise pressed on with the XP-39 "Airacobra."

Other aircraft entered into this design competition were the P-38- Lightning, and that would go on to win its own design spec. The P-43 Lancer; while it did not win, this aircraft and its design laid the groundwork for the P-47. Several variants of the P-36 Hawk were submitted by Curtiss, none of them netted anything, however Curtiss did lay the groundwork for its P-40.

You don't need me to spell it out for you, this plane is quite unconventional in every aspect. The engine in the middle opens the nose up for the T9 37mm autocannon, the largest yet fielded by an American aircraft. A benefit of mounting the engine in the middle of the airframe was a smooth nose and fuselage; many pilots remarked on how easy it was to fly the Airacobra. Furthermore, being placed above the central prop shaft meant that pilots also had a superb unobstructed field of vision. There was a version of the P-39 that replaced its tractor style gear for a traditional tail dragger, it was called the "Airabonita" and was Bells' attempt at "navalizing" the aircraft. This of course never went anywhere as dedicated navy aircraft manufacturers swept away any rumor of an Airabonita coming to service.

There were several versions of the P-39. Even though the design spec requested use of a turbro-supercharger it was discovered that the system and its implementation was causing a significant amount of parasitic drag and after a handful of tests, and Bell's begging, the turbo-supercharger system was dropped from the spec. Production versions would instead have a single-speed supercharger which drastically limited the airframes high flying potential. After all that history and testing the first production versions of the P-39 were the P-39C. The P-400 was designed as an export option to other nations in need, but its 37mm was stripped out and a 20mm put in its place. The P-400 is the closest War Thunder has to an early P-39. The P-39D is a C but with armor, a different gun arrangement, and self sealing fuel tanks. The XP-39E is where things start to diverge. In testing the XP-39E was tested with different wing and tail configurations and these different configurations would influence the creation of the P-63 and P-76. P-39's F, G, J, K, L, M, and N all have minor differences between them. Things like different constant speed props, different engine specs, or ground attack/reconnaissance equipment. P-39Q was the last production variant and the one furthest from all the others. It removed its .30 caliber wing mounted machine guns in favor of gun podded .50's and later versions of the Q were further modified to have significantly more armor.

Born out of the XP-39E flight testing program the P-63 "Kingcobra" first took to the skies in late 1942. It's physically larger than the P-39 in nearly every way; its wings longer and thicker, its tail stretched out and taller. It maintains the same V-1710 as its predecessors but now with an extra supercharger mounted separately to supply the single-stage supercharger already on the engine. Lastly, the Kingcobra used a 4 blade prop instead of the Airacobras 3 blade.

There weren't many variants of the P-63, mostly because of its late entry into the war. Unfortunately I can't find any information regarding the differences between the A models, they must be fairly minor. The P-63B was supposed to be a Merlin powered P-63 however no Merlin engines were available at the time for testing. The second production run was entirely meant for the P-63C, the C featuring the new V-1710-117. This engine was the most powerful so far for the family and it had water injection further boosting performance under max throttle. The P-63D was cancelled, the E was similar to the D but had an extended ventral fin; the F had a yet larger horizontal stabilizer and only 2 were built. The G was expressly used for gunnery training as a manned target. The last P-63 variant is the strangest of the bunch; the L-39 was a surplus P-63C that was extensively modified to have swept wings. This variant was a study into the stall and low speed handling characteristics of a high speed aircraft design.

Prospective Racing:

I mentioned earlier that Bell's first attempt at a real production aircraft was the bizarre YFM-1 Airacuda. I can not provide enough information alone to satisfy the information hungry reader, in your own time read up on the Airacuda its such a weird yet fascinating thing. For the purpose of this website i'll only comment on how I would assume it would perform in my air racing study: piss poor. At the time of writing ive already tested the PV-2D harpoon and that's likely the only aircraft closest to the Airacuda in terms of layout, weight, and firepower. Its large size and awkward weight distribution would make for an awful racing experience.

The P-76 was poised to be Bell's contribution to superprops but it never materialized. It was meant to carry the Continental I-1430 12 cylinder liquid cooled "Hyper engine" but the engine was never finished and therefore never mounted inside any plane. Had it been though it would have pushed 2100 horsepower. The P-76 airframe was a further enhancement on the P-39 series however its spot in the Bell production timeline sits before the P-63. So while this aircraft was never produced it likely would have been just as fast as the P-63A-10 (in my study) or even faster. It may have even been a top ten contender, but alas it was never built.

The last Bell prop was the experimental XP-77, a diminutive lightweight fighter designed to use non-strategic war materials. The XP-77 is funky to say the least, its massive chunky nose and tractor style gear combined with its bulbous canopy and cartoonishly disproportionate tail section makes this plane one ugly step child. I'm unfamiliar with all aspects of this plane but according to its specs from Janes Fighting Aircraft of World War II it was supposed to have a 520hp inverted V engine from a manufacturer I'm unfamiliar with. Its projected performance figures say 330 mph and from other sources pilots complained about its rocky flight performance. I however don't think it would have ever reached its proposed flight performance and would instead perform a lot closer to something like the P-36 Hawk, which would put this plane down near last place in study.