[Milsurplus] Your Tax Dollars At Work: P-39 Airacobra

[David Edsall]

Hi all,

The P-39 was also sent to the Soviet Union and saw combat there.

One of their top aces, Pokryshkin, and his outfit flew it for some time.  
His memoirs describe the introduction of the plane and its use.
I’ll dig out his books and look it up, if anyone is interested.

73, David W1TDD
Woodstock, VT


From: Kenneth G. Gordon 
Sent: Sunday, March 12, 2017 8:56 PM
To: Todd, KA1KAQ 
Cc: Milsurplus at mailman.qth.net 
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] Your Tax Dollars At Work, part nnnnnn

> More recently I was chatting with a fellow in NC who has a car stored for me.
> He came here from Oz and was into warbirds before the move (had to sell his
> Spitfire project due to the move). He mentioned an island where apparently,
> to this day, there are (I think) P-39 Airacobras sitting in crates where they
> were unloaded. He said the island hopping campaign was moving so fast in that
> area that they just left them behind. I'd never heard of them being used in
> the Pacific, so I'll recheck his email. 


Yes. P-39s were used in the Pacific. I have read several stories of them being used there in the magazine Flight Journal.


One very interesting story printed there illustrated how strong the cockpit of a P-39 actually was. A pilot took off on a mission at a forward airstrip, had a massive engine failure before he got off the ground, rode the airplane through a small forest, which took off all the appendages, opened the "car door", got out walked to another P-39 and took off on his mission.


I've always considered the P-39 (and the P-63) to be particularly beautiful airplanes. I guess they weren't much good as dog-fighters though. I also read that they got really "weird" at speeds approaching 400 MPH.


I also read where recently Spitifires still in crates, but buried, were found somewhere like in India.


Ken W7EKB


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