P39 air cobra

For anyone interested in the Australian P39's, here's a couple of extracts from "RAAF Camoflage and Markings Vol 1".
1. An almost forgotten type is the P39 Aircobra, some 21 of which were delivered to the RAAF in the early days of the Pacific war when fighters of any kind were desperately needed. A small number carried full 3 letter codes. Finish was rather patchy earth brown, foliage green and sky blue. Earth brown varied greatly in hue due to the nature of pigments available for manufacture.
2. The few photos available of aircraft in RAAF markings show light coloured undersurfaces, probably US "sky blue", and what were probably earth brown and foliage green upper surfaces. When the paintwork required reconditioning the undersurfaces appear to have been repainted RAAF sky blue. The size of markings varied considerably.
The nearest FS 595 a equivalents for these are as follows:
Foliage Green 34092
Earth Brown 30099
Sky Blue 35550

For anyone interested in the Australian P39's, here's a couple of extracts from "RAAF Camoflage and Markings Vol 1".
1. An almost forgotten type is the P39 Aircobra, some 21 of which were delivered to the RAAF in the early days of the Pacific war when fighters of any kind were desperately needed. A small number carried full 3 letter codes. Finish was rather patchy earth brown, foliage green and sky blue. Earth brown varied greatly in hue due to the nature of pigments available for manufacture.
2. The few photos available of aircraft in RAAF markings show light coloured undersurfaces, probably US "sky blue", and what were probably earth brown and foliage green upper surfaces. When the paintwork required reconditioning the undersurfaces appear to have been repainted RAAF sky blue. The size of markings varied considerably.
The nearest FS 595 a equivalents for these are as follows:
Foliage Green

aleksander-bell's (hey! get it? aleksander bell...yeah, thats the ticket!) first design, the fm-1 "airacuda" was built around a 37 mm cannon. the name was obviously a play on "baracuda". so bell's second design, going for the snake thing, hung onto the first two syllables maybe because it sounded good or kept the flow going or was the logical thing to do. sure on the first part, guessing on the second.

Hey Davebin va;
also did you know that the P-63 was just as good as the P-51?, in all aspects it may have been a better fighter too, but the USAAF didn't want 2 great fighters, and talking about them the P-38 had more range then the P-51's but no one in Europe wanted to listen to Chuck Lindburg on leaning out the mixtures on the engines but in the Pacific they where flying 6 to 10 hours just as many as the P-51's, but the USAAF wanted to P-51 over a old design, as for the scheme there are a few, the P-39's where O.D. over Neutral Grey and some where painted Dk Earth & Dk Green over Neutral Grey, the P-400's ( or British ) had Dk Earth & Dk Green over Sky, the Russian 39's where Med Green over Grey, the P-63's where Natural Metal except Operation Pinball's they where Yellow Orange

BTW - why the name is "Air-a-cobra", not simply "Air-cobra" ? Does anyone know? Aleksander

QUOTE: Originally posted by nsclcctl belly of a south pacific P39?

Medium gray. Typical US camo for both europe and the Pacific was OD Green over Neutral gray. The gray was fairly dark:
http://www.inpayne.com/models/p35.html
Model Master sells the right colors.

I did the Eduard P-39 kit in the rare "Coral Pink" scheme just to be different:
http://www.inpayne.com/models/p39qpink.html
Though I like the plane in the British brown/green/sky scheme too.

QUOTE: Originally posted by wildwilliam Eduard makes 1/48 P-39, P-400 and P-39Q. make sure you are not somewhere where you might fall and hit your head when you read the price. :-) it's a bit higher than the Monogram. ed.

Anyone build the either of the P-39's?

garydmason- i think the reason the engine ended up amidships was to accomodate the 37mm cannon originally envisioned as the primary weapon for this aircraft. --nsclcctl- it's probably too late but go ahead and treat yourseft to vol. 63 of the excellent (in my opinion) series "in detail & scale" by bert kinzey. #63 is the "P-39 AIRACOBRA. it will set you back only about 16 bucks american. EXCELLENT single volume reference. can't have too much reference material. all of your questions on colors and where the p-39 operated should be answered.

NSCLCCTL,
I have a painting and decal guide for the P-39Q/P-39N...that's the good news.



The bad news... I'll be darned if I can figure out how to post a picture of it for you.

If you are intersted in seeing it let me know and I will try to E-mail it, or I'll mail a copy if you would prefer...it's up to you. The P-39Q is a U.S. version that I've heard mentioned above..."Snooks 2nd" flown by Lt. Col. William Shomo, and the P-39N is a Soviet version flown by Maj. V.F. Sirotin.

The Airacobra I was the British equivilant of the P-39C, with a slightly more powerfull engine, a 20 mm in place of the origional 37 mm and 6 .303 mgs (2 in nose and 2 in ea wing) - The British flew on op with 4 of them and then decided there was no place for the Airacobra in the RAF. Of the balance of the contract, 212 were diverted to the Russians, with the USAAF taking 179. 100+ were shipped to Australia, the majority ending up in New Guinea and Guadacanal. Apparently most, if not all were painted in RAF camoflage (Dark Green and Dark Brown uppers and Sky lower surfaces) and serials when they got to Australia, with USAAF corcardes replacing the RAF roundels and U.S. ARMY under the wings (and 30 cal Brownings replacing the .303).
Apparently, the aircraft were slowly repainted in OD and Neutral Gray. However in any pictures of P-400s on Guadacanal I have seen, they were definatly in a complete RAF scheme. In the pictures of P-400s operating in New Guinea I have seen, they've been pretty evenly split between the RAF and USAAF schemes.
I've seen a couple of after market (and one old P-39 kit instructions) that state that the aircraft undersides were neutral gray. Everything I've seen so far would indicate that if the aircraft had RAF camo on its uppers, its lowers were Sky and if the uppers were OD, then its lowers were Neutral Gray. Apparently, when the aircraft were painted, it was at a Depot level facility and both colors were painted in the same session. (Now watch someone come up with a picture of a P-400 with RAF uppers and Neutral Gray lowers)
On the P-63, my research indicates upwards of 2400 were constructed from early 1944 to the end of the war. The vast majority going to the Soviets (up to 85 per cent by some reports) with the remaining going to the US and French Air Forces. Someplace around here I have a picture of the Anchorage, Alaska Air Force Base taken during the winter of 1944-45 and you can count 200 + P-63s awaiting delivery. I've also, over the years seen photographs of Soviet Aces operating P-63s at the end of the European war.

NSCLCCTL the colors are Olive Drab over Neutral Gray with white tail and
trim. Are you doing Snooks 2nd ?
The Army Air Corps had Bell remove the turbo superchargers from the P-39 before WW2.No one knows why but it never achieved it's early promise.The Russians investgated the spin problem thoroughly without reaching any definite conclusions.
The US also used them in North Africa . They were used by the Austrail-
ains ,Italian Co belligerent AF and French. Eduard makes three p-39 kits in
1/48 with and without resin parts. Academy has a 1/72 kit. The Monogram kit
is an excellent kit even though it's an older kit. Eagle Strike and Aeromaster
have issued decal sheets in 1/48th.
Some of the US aircraft operated in British camouflage, Dark Earth
and Dark Green over SKY BLUE . Also US Med. Green and Sand over RAF Sky.
Fuzzy
fuzzy

The reason the engine was amidships was, supposedly, for better maneuverability (most of the aircraft's weight being along all of the axis' centers, instead of in the front of the plane), but a lot of pilots found that this made the plane have a tendency to swap ends in high performance maneuvering. Quite a few pilots were killed because of this aspect.

Yep, I stand corrected. It was also one of the first fighter's to use a nosewheel.

QUOTE: Originally posted by AJACKETSFAN nsclcctl, There is something special about the cannon in the nose... It is said that the Bell was built around the 20mm canon in its nose as opposed to most other planes of that era being built around the engine. The result was a plane that didn't have stellar performance. This may explain why the USAAF didn't use very many and most were exported. A later model was built, but it was too little too late.

The P-39 had a 37mm cannon in the nose while a P-400 had a 20mm cannon. The aircraft didnt really have great performance because it lacked a turbocharger. This limited its performance at high altitudes. The Army Air Force was looking for a high altitude interceptor and escort fighter and the P-39 simply couldnt operate there. They excelled though as ground attack aircraft!
The later model was the P-63 Kingcobra. It basically was a lot like the P-39 but had a laminar flow wing plus a turbocharger. I believe it only got one kill in before the war ended when a Russian pilot shot down a Japanese plane.
There was an interesting P-63 called the Pinball that was armored, painted orange and covered in sensors. In place of the 37mm cannon was a light. This was used in gunnery practice and whenever the plane was hit the light would light up. These were used in training B-29 crews in using the General Electric remote gunnery system. The bullets were frangible .50 calibers and made from a mixture of clay. The GE gunnery system was also grafted into modified B-24s. These B-24s had all four B-29 turrets plus the tail turret installed.

nsclcctl hi,
for a general reference try this link:

http://users.belgacom.net/aircraft1/avion1/41.html#1269

it's a great site for most aircraft of WWII, giving snapshots of most marks, their ditinguishing features and performance etc etc...(they also do one for tread heads if you're interested)

when doing a little search for colour profiles, all i could come up with was this from eagle strike decals:

http://www.eaglestrikeproductions.com/cgi-bin/espdecals.pl?scale=48&setid=01&dbs=eaglestrike&pgs=3&currpg=1&dclimg=ip4801

and this list from aeromaster which might give you a few ideas...(first few are in black and white, but there's quite a few colour ones after that...)

http://www.eaglestrikeproductions.com/cgi-bin/amd2.pl

hope this helps.
regards,
nick

Eduard makes 1/48 P-39, P-400 and P-39Q.
make sure you are not somewhere where you might fall and hit your head when you read the price. :-)
it's a bit higher than the Monogram.

ed.

belly of a south pacific P39?

nsclcctl,

There is something special about the cannon in the nose... It is said that the Bell was built around the 20mm canon in its nose as opposed to most other planes of that era being built around the engine. The result was a plane that didn't have stellar performance. This may explain why the USAAF didn't use very many and most were exported. A later model was built, but it was too little too late.

In the Pacific scheme, flat olive and white trimmings, what would the belly be?

Were these successful aircraft? I see they were shipped all over the place. Was there any advantage to the engine being in the back? How about the gun in the nose?

Does anyone other than monogram make this model? It actually is a nice little kit.

They also flew in the Aleution campain (Alaska) for awhile, and were painted dark OD with dark grey bottom. The spinners on the ones I saw were yellow and they had a white stripe around the fuselage (some had it on the rudder).

I agree, most references will show South Pacific schemes were a dark flat olive, some may have had white spinner and noses for ID purposes, some white tail areas also for ID. Russian were similar in a dark green, also white wash for winter scheme, since used in ground attack also. If you want a more colorful scheme go with the British schemes. Initial colors were dark green/dark earth top side with sky undersides., later resprayed in dark sea gray/dark green with medium sea gray undersides. Used for a short time then abandoned by Britain for lack of performance at altitude. The rest of the shipments went to Russia with many retaining the brit camo with red stars placed over the roundel. Re: Autumn/Fall 2002 international Air Power review.

If you are planning on doing a US one (rather than more common Russian and British), they flew in the Southwest Pacific campaigns such as at Guadalcanal, from what my sources tell me. Most of the Russian ones were Olive Drab or Silver. The limited color pictures I have seen show similar colors for US (mostly post war though). I remember hearing of sandy blonde colored ones though used by the US in the Southwest Pacific.

Here's a good example of an olve drab one that flew out of New Guinea.
http://donaldgranger.home.att.net/p-39f.htm