AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 165 / 338

Plate 165 of 338 · Second World War · Twin-jet fighter and jet trainer

Bell P-59B Airacomet

P-59B 44-22650, painted as Bell P-59B-1-BE Airacomet 44-22650, as displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio: America’s first jet aeroplane, a single-seat fighter with two General Electric J31 turbojets (developed from Frank Whittle’s W.1) in nacelles tucked under the wing roots either side of the fuselage, a blunt nose, a framed canopy set well forward, a mid-set straight tapered wing spanning 13.87 m, tricycle undercarriage and a tall rounded fin and rudder, shown resting nose-up on its wheels: bare natural aluminium overall, a black anti-glare panel ahead of the windscreen, the star-and-bar insignia without the red bar on each side of the rear fuselage, a black buzz number ‘PJ-650’ aft of it and under the port wing, the serial ‘422650’ in black across the fin, and a small data stencil below the windscreen, as photographed on display (no P-59 is in a UK museum; shape from a P-59A three-view scaled to the published dimensions and checked against photographs of this aircraft; the main-wheel track is estimated from photographs, and the buzz number on the starboard side is assumed to match the port side).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Bell P-59B-1-BE Airacomet 44-22650, as displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio: America’s first jet aeroplane, a single-seat fighter with two General Electric J31 turbojets (developed from Frank Whittle’s W.1) in nacelles tucked under the wing roots either side of the fuselage, a blunt nose, a framed canopy set well forward, a mid-set straight tapered wing spanning 13.87 m, tricycle undercarriage and a tall rounded fin and rudder, shown resting nose-up on its wheels: bare natural aluminium overall, a black anti-glare panel ahead of the windscreen, the star-and-bar insignia without the red bar on each side of the rear fuselage, a black buzz number ‘PJ-650’ aft of it and under the port wing, the serial ‘422650’ in black across the fin, and a small data stencil below the windscreen, as photographed on display (no P-59 is in a UK museum; shape from a P-59A three-view scaled to the published dimensions and checked against photographs of this aircraft; the main-wheel track is estimated from photographs, and the buzz number on the starboard side is assumed to match the port side). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.0 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (P-59A & B); engine, crew and dimensions are for the P-59B 44-22650 modelled here.

History

The Airacomet

In April 1941 General Henry ‘Hap’ Arnold, chief of the US Army Air Forces, watched Gloster’s E.28/39 fly in England and arranged for Frank Whittle’s jet engine to be built in America. That October a Whittle W.1X engine and its drawings crossed the Atlantic in the bomb bay of a B-24, and General Electric, experienced in turbo-superchargers, began building copies at Lynn, Massachusetts. Bell Aircraft of Buffalo, New York, was asked to design an airframe to take two of them. To hide the project it was given the designation XP-59A, borrowed from an unrelated propeller-driven Bell design that had been cancelled.

Bell’s answer was cautious: a conventional mid-wing monoplane with a long straight wing, a tricycle undercarriage and the two engines tucked under the wing roots against the fuselage. The first XP-59A was taken by rail to Muroc Dry Lake in California, and on 1 October 1942 Bell’s chief test pilot Robert Stanley lifted it off the lakebed during taxi runs; the next day Colonel Laurence Craigie became the first American military pilot to fly a jet. On the ground the aircraft wore a dummy propeller on its nose to fool onlookers. Test flying showed that the Airacomet was no faster than the best piston-engined fighters of the day, and less stable as a gun platform, while its early engines were short-lived and slow to respond.

Bell built three XP-59As, 13 service-test YP-59As, 20 P-59As and 30 P-59Bs, the last with more internal fuel and J31-GE-5 engines. None went into combat. The P-59s went to the 412th Fighter Group, which used them to train the first American jet pilots and ground crews, and to test establishments; one YP-59A went to Britain in exchange for a Gloster Meteor and was found to be inferior to it. The P-80 Shooting Star replaced the Airacomet within a few years, but the 66 Airacomets gave the United States its first experience of jet flying. Survivors are in the United States; none is in a UK museum.

This airframe

P-59B 44-22650

44-22650The airframe modelled

44-22650 is a P-59B-1-BE, the first serial of the last production batch of Airacomets. It came to what is now the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio, from Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, in February 1956, and is displayed indoors there; some museum captions give a different serial for the airframe beneath the paint. No P-59 is in a UK museum, so the model shows the production example that photographs record best, from both sides, head-on and from below, between 2009 and 2025. It shows it as they do: bare natural aluminium overall, a black anti-glare panel ahead of the windscreen, the star-and-bar without the red bar on each side of the rear fuselage with the buzz number ‘PJ-650’ aft of it and under the port wing, ‘422650’ in black across the fin, and a small data stencil below the windscreen. Its shape comes from a P-59A three-view, which shares the B’s outline, scaled to the published dimensions and checked against the photographs. The main-wheel track is estimated from photographs, as no figure was found; the buzz number on the starboard side, which the wing hides in photographs, is assumed to match the port side.

Where to see one

Not on charge

Survivors are in the United States, including the first XP-59A at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. None is in a UK museum.

All 338 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.