The P-39 has good performance. Now, this is going to sound strange but 80% if the time the Soviet missions were a combat sweep, not much going on. Plain old operational losses are what kills most people. That's a ground loop or a mechanical issue. The P-39 was not a great fighter but it was a good enough fighter. Also, the IL-2 were forbidden flying about 5,000 meters. That was the perfect altitude for the P-39. The P-39Q was a fair match for the FW-190 or the BF-109G. Why? Because post Kursk the P-39 was flown by good Soviet pilots and most of the good Fascist pilots were dead. A good pilot in a fair aircraft is better than a poor pilot in a good aircraft.

I have always been fascinated with the P-39 ever since as kid I bought the old Revel and Airfix kits. The fact that under 10,000 ft and in the hands of an experienced pilot it could generally hold it's own against supposedly better aircraft and the fact that the later P-63 Kingcobra in terms of performance was rated as good as the P-51 and the P-47 suggests that the concept of the P-39 wasn't that bad.

I like your videos. They are well put together, no matter the format. These videos provide people like me with quality information and entertainment for free, so you shouldn't have to apologize. Some people simply complain too much.

My mother and one of her brothers worked at the plant during WWII. They were outside the plant at shift change when one of the aircraft, up on a test flight, crashed into the building, killing several people. It was not reported on at the time, security reasons, but the aftermath was vivid in her memory forever after that, the smell of charred flesh. All that remains of the plant now is a plaque in the parking lot at Buffalo International Airport.

This fighter had some of the best lines of all the ww2 fighters. A pleasure to look at. I read that one of the reasons Russian pilots loved this fighter was because the canon and two machine guns were centrally mounted. This made those guns much easier to aim since there was no convergence factor to consider while aiming.

i knew a australian fighter pilot who flew in battle of Britain and in the middle east,we used to talk regularly about different planes he flew i asked about the air cobra once he said"it was well armed but could be deadly trying to pull it out of a dive also would get into uncontrolled flat spin or just spin out of control some times without any reason that was uderstood at the time he said that a lot of very experienced pilots lost thier lives in it he didn't like it at all"and he flew many different fighter planes.

“The P-400 is a P-40 with a Zero on its tail 😂😂😂. Best laugh in a good while! I love the look of the P-39. I’m glad the Russians put it to good use. On Guadalcanal, the P-400 pilots complained that Wildcat pilots would use the P-400 to bait the Zeros. Wildcat pilots would comment that the P-400 could not gain altitude fast enough to meet the incoming flights of Zeros. The Zeros dove on the P-400’s, and the Wildcats then dove on the Zeros.

It is notable that airplanes like the P 39 and the Brewster Buffalo were very unpopular with the american and british pilots and at the same time so beloved by the russian and finns. I think the answer is very simple; if you fought at low altitude, both machines were rugged and agile. If you had to fight at high altitude they were a real death trap. The pacific and the western european fronts saw a lot of high altitude combats, escorting strategic bombers, intercepting and whatnot, flying low made you vulnerable to deadly flak. While on the eastern front, most missions involved ground attack, strafing and frontline interception so it was a very different story. A lot of these considerations can be found on Adolf Galland's "Die ertzen und die letzen" which I recommend anyone interested in the subject to read. Greetings!

I found this video to be both informative and entertaining. It is a good video that shows the good and difficult qualities of the Airacobra. I am an admirer of the P-39 for its good looks and heavy firepower. Thank you for producing this video. I look forward to seeing more of your videos.

When I was in 7th grade my teacher's father came in and spoke to the class. He flew P-39s and P-51s in the Pacific during WWII. He said the P-39 was his favorite plane to fly because nothing beat that 37mm cannon in the nose. I've come to realize, as long as you were at a lower altitude, it was an effective plane.

One thing about Soviet Fighter Design was that they didn't seem to like guns in the wings. It is my understanding that one of the common modifications to P-39s entering Soviet Service - was to have the .30 cal. guns removed from the wings, which left the most powerful part of the aircraft's armament intact - in the nose - where the Soviets liked it. One thing about that - is that guns in the wings have to be harmonized to converge at a certain distance and they are most effective at that distance. Judging that distance was difficult for newer pilots. For those pilots that could really shoot - guns clustered about the center of the aircraft could be _aimed_ where as the guns in the wings were somewhat Spray and Pray. So - better pilots could take advantage of guns that were centrally mounted. As to being a Tank Killer like many assume - Armor Piercing Ammunition for the 37mm guns - was not furnished to the Soviets (if there even was any) so that it was not as suitable for tank busting as thought. But - one thing the Soviets had to deal with - was German Bombers and a larger cannon helped in shooting down larger aircraft. You will note the Cannon Heavy armament of the Mig-15, which was also intended to shoot down bombers. The Americans - seldom had to deal with enemy bombers - so machine guns which spit out a lot more bullets - gave them a better chance of getting a hit on a maneuvering fighter plane - especially using the Spray and Pray characteristics of aircraft with wing mounted guns as most American aircraft were. Only the P-38 and P-39 retained their nose mounted weapons, where as the P-40 which initially, like the P-39, had two .50 cal weapons in the nose had all the guns moved to the wings in later models. As to the Americans - two things. The P-39 could carry a bomb and while the Soviets may not have used it so much as a ground attack aircraft - the Americans did. Here - in attacking Japanese Airfields - the A6M's higher altitude performance didn't matter. One advantage of having the engine behind the pilot - is that many attacks came from the rear - and the engine as well as the pilots armor - helped protect him. There was an American Lieutenant who was in charge of over seeing the P-39 and other aircraft's development. He was diverted to other things when the decision was made to take off the Turbo Charger and has said he regretted that. What I do not understand, given the thousands of P-39's that were built - was that it was known early on - that eliminating the Turbo Charger severely limited the aircraft's performance. Since one of the criteria was that it be a High Altitude fighter - eliminating the scoop for the Turbo Charger to decrease wind resistance trying to get it's speed above 400 mph - while satisfying one criteria - took away another - in that it was no longer a High Altitude Fighter. That is all a bit of stupidity I have trouble understanding. The P-63 King Cobra had two super chargers with the second functioning at higher altitudes. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_P-63_Kingcobra .

Used in a low altitude shorter range roll it was a deadly machine with many advantages One really wonders what it would it have been with the Turbosuper charger, big drop tanks and a cannon that was altered to have the same trajectory as the .50 caliber nose guns The cannon took a long time to get the bugs worked out of it. PT Boat Crews loved that gun in the Pacific A necked down Cannon at 30, 33, or 35 mm might have solved a lot of issues in aircraft usage Some judicious fuselage stretching and some adjustments to the Wings, Elevators, and Rudders could have felt with some CG issues I’d not heard that the Soviets did or did not like the Car Door In the Soviet Union the aircraft was not an Iron Dog Bell could have made some more significant tweaks to the Aircraft It did need more specialized conversion training as it had many quirks

Great video! I liked the pilot's opinions at the end.

I recently read that the Soviets generally ignored the “do not exceed” parameters for extended engine life. Basically they flew them like they got them for free, and as such squeezed out everything the plane could offer.

Another outstanding video. TY for all the hard work. I have the privilege of living about an hour away from a flying P 39 D. The Central Texas Wing of the Commemorative Air Force has a flying P 39. The D model had the 37mm replaced by a 20mm M1 cannon in the nose firing through the propeller hub. It was great fun to watch it being worked on and maintained during one of my visits. It was also a pleasure to see the P 39 and a P 63 based at CAF Fort Worth together a show this year. Keep up the great work and TY again.

Excellent! The format of this video was just fine.

Bell was always designing planes outside the envelope however most of them didn't make the cut. The Russians loved the P-39 because of the cannon, the Americans hated it because it flew poorly and the Germans liked it cause if you hit it anywhere it fell to pieces.

I like your regular format, but I like this format as well. I like the regular format for its detail, head to head comparisons, and it’s uniqueness. The “holiday” format maintains the style and feel for the most part (ie, narration, use of paintings, ace profiles, ect). In some ways it kinda of flows better, giving a more holistic impression of the aircraft. I especially liked the part with the quotes from the aces, shown alongside their pictures. I’m looking forward to your next video, whatever the format.

Excellent video, thank You!

Thank you for covering this aircraft ,looking forward to the next.

I found this incredibly interesting and well researched. A big thumbs up.

Your work is awesome! I always learn something that I didn’t know watching your videos!! The P-39 was a badass when used to its best abilities!

Thank you so much , you did a fantastic job on your synopsis of one of my favorites , you have a great channel , MARK Battista

Another excellent video. Thanks for making them!

Very informative video on an airplane I've liked ever since building a model of it as a kid about 40 years ago.

Regardless of the format, your videos are well made and informative. I enjoy them; please keep going in whatever format you choose.

An old friend of mine, and also member of the aeroclub in my youth days, was fighterpilot (scored with the Knight Cross) on the eastern front on 109s. He shot down nearly 40 of them, the most going down flat spinning. The cannon was shoting slow and with bad ballistic, so you do not had to be afraid of it. They choked about shooting "flat irons" with such a low muzzle velocity, you could see them flying. The high altitude performance was poor and the 109s were there much better, so they mostly had the advantage of atacking from altitude. "Beware of the hun in the sun". He said: "Den taktischen Vorteil der besseren Höhenleistung haben wir immer genutzt."

Please do not concern yourself about the format. You have a following so I understand your desire to meet your own standards, but the video was wonderful - informative factually but with good video quality and content and great flow. Thank you so much for expanding my understanding of the P39. I look forward to more. And I think Salvador Hurtado (before me) is spot on. Low altitude, good survivability, and good armament add up to success in devoted pilots hands.

Great video keep up the good work 👍 . Love to see a video on early war fighter Pzl11, Polikarpov1-15 Kawasaki ki 10 . Thanks for your endeavours. Have a good Xmas.

Wonderful report - thorough, informative.

Your videos are well researched and delivered with style, you've gained another subscriber.

Great video, well documented and well explained. I wish you can make a video like second part of the P-39`s Big brother; The P-63 King Cobra. Regards

That seemed to be a very balanced assessment of the design. It is interesting that the USSR preferred the P-39 to 3 classic fighters that were workhorses that really did the heavy lifting for the Western Allies during the toughest stages of the war. I think that well illustrates how different the air war was on the Eastern Front.

Excellent presentation, the mix of facts and personal accounts was very engaging.

Thanks for the excellent presentation on a much misunderstood plane. One of my uncles was a flight instructor in P-39s and he had absolute confidence in it. He was assigned to P-47s when he went into combat and he thought the 39 was superior down low. I've been building and flying radio control models since 1971 and the Cobra is the best flying WW2 fighter from a modelers perspective. I've had four from 36" to 80" span and all are superb. Stable and aerobatic, it's just beautifully designed for scale modelling. They make me look good compared to those flying just about any other WW2 fighter. Also. Part of the reason the Soviets did so well with the beautiful bird was they yanked out a lot of "extra" stuff then had the time to develop tactics. Most of that seemed to be waiting at their best altitude for the Germans to come down to them and taking the hits from the first bounce. Then? The Cobras held most of the cards. Even the Americans discovered by Guadalcanal that down low and at high speed the Cobra could outmaneuver anything the Japanese had. They did quite well if there were Wildcats or P-38s to fly top cover.

I like this video format, subscribed!

Great video....much not know information of this aircraft, I learned much. Thank you!

I've always been fascinated with this plane after I learned it was mid engine and the big cannon, subscribed!

You make intelligent, enjoyable and understandable documentaries sir!

hey man that was a great video, really informative and well written and narrated.

It has always been my impression that the turbocharged version of the P-39 was canceled due to production shortages of the GE turbocharger which was also needed for the P-36. Bell was asked to build a more lightened and streamlined non-turbocharged version which was what went into production. The installation of the turbocharger as well as the cannon were what dictated the unique engine installation and the removal of something so central in the design likely had something to do with the center of gravity problems as there were major changes to the design very shortly before it went into production. Still Chuck Yeager spent significant time doing his advanced training in the P-39 and he did not have any thing bad to say about it. He was transitioned into P-51s when he went into combat though.

Beautiful aircraft. Great video, very informative.

Great channel, I've subscribed.

You had a great opportunity to use IL-2 Great Battles for this video, as the P-39 is featured in the Battle of Kuban module. Hoping you decide to utilize IL-2 in the future!

Really enjoyed this video. A nice channel with quality content... Best wishes, stay safe.

Good video. Keep up the good work. 👍

Interesting comments.Great video 👍🙂💯

The Spitfire Mk V was utterly useless at low level. It had a single stage single speed supercharger geared for use at high altitude. At low level the engine had to be throttled back to avoid the supercharger exceeding the allowed manifold pressure wasting much of the engine power. The Soviets liked the later Mk IX.

Very nice presentation! We yanks remain happy that our Soviet allies used the airplane so skillfully against the enemy.

Yeager LOVED the P-39. Yes, it was a low altitude plane. It's poor performance vs the Zero was the poor early-war understanding (in all US types) of the proper tactics vs the Zero. By then it had a reputation. How many lives, USSAF and USN, would have been saved if they had listened to Chennault?

I love my P-39 Cobra It's a 80 inch flying model and looks like no other warbird. It looks fast while sitting still! Boy is it fast. I use to race them in AMA events. Mine has reached speeds up to 144 mph's. It's ironic that I lived in Buffalo NY and had no idea it was built there, same with the P-40. maybe I'll build a P- 63 King cobra.PS love the sound of them taking off in the movie Airforce.

It is a good-looking air-craft, no doubt. You described the different philosophies between the Soviet & Western Air Forces regarding flying this plane in a most succinct & interesting manner. Good show.

Great vid! The prototype should have had weight to simulate weapons and armor added during its evaluation. Perhaps then it would have gotten the supercharger it needed.

Greatly enjoyed that video! Educated me and made me laugh out loud. Well done squire.

Great video!

Thank you, it was a great video

Very good and explaining video i liked it and i want to see more

In my personal opinion .... an American built fighter "Airacobra" P-39 ... it was an unique airplane with some advantages and some disadvantages, as well ... but in general .... a pretty good one !!!!

Hello, this is a nice video. I am from Bulgaria. I read to P-39 aircraft from in book "Sky of War" from fighter pilot A.I. Pokrishkin. You have 12 victory with P-39 in WW2.

Great content. And good job of setting the record straight for this unfairly and much-maligned aircraft without overstating its qualities. Though far from a perfect aircraft, it was nonetheless extremely formidable at altitudes less than 12,000. Your English is excellent, by the way. Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work!

It's amazing the Soviet air-to-air scores, specially taking into account that there was barely any Luftwaffe in the Eastern Front after mid-43.

Very good briefing on the P-39 well presented. A hand salute from an American Legion Historian.

I enjoyed this video just fine. Thank you for your efforts.

Spitfire Mk Vs were the worst Spitfires, so I can believe the P 39 seemed a wiser choice. Requirements in an area are situational. Good video.

Very nicely done video! Great in this meta 😂. But it is kinda what people love. I like to imagine the men who designed, built, and worked on these planes. I personally love the P-39 and the story of two powers collaborating

Excellent video.

I agree with you. And,as a Brit, I have to say the mk5 spitfire wasn't the best of it's kind.

Thanks ! Good video ! Greetings from Siberia !!

I read that the P-400 in US service, in the Pacific, had an extra problem. The British modification (P-400) had changed the oxygen canisters for their own type. Yet the US didn't have any, or nearly enough, of those oxygen canisters to equip their P-400s. So they were further limited to operationally lower altitudes, giving their opponents easy bounces from above.

I wish you went into the final version of the P-39, the P-63. When you have a great team, you can achieve some amazing things.

FIRST TIME SEEING THIS… Dec. 18th 2021… I build plastic models… I have a couple of P - 39 model kits I enjoyed watching this… very well done Interesting and informative… Thanks for putting this together CHRIS from OHIO

The Brewster Buffalo begs to differ with the P-39 being the most controversial US fighter. But it is surprising that the Soviets didn't show much of an interest in the P-38 and P-47, even though both are better suited for the ground attack role than the Airacobra. I do seem to recall that the Spitfires were used planes that went through a lot by the time they were handed over to the USSR, not that much of a surprise that they choose the american planes that came right off the production line instead. Great channel btw, really like the "less known planes" theme.

I visited a USAAF training center in Central Washington (Ephrata) state where P-39 training occurred. My friends bomb group also trained there (483rd). My friend was shot down in july ,1944 in a B-17G. He remained a POW until end of war.

Very fair video, thanks.

Horses for courses, as we say in English. I like the Airacobra layout; with a more powerful 2 speed, 2 stage supercharged Merlin in it, it could have been a better all rounder. Even so, it gave good service in some theatres, especially the Soviet Union.

The Allison engine lack of high altitude performance on the P-39, P-40 and P-51 deserves more explanation. The supercharger on the Allison V-1710 was intended only as a low altitude device. In the late 30's, the USAAF was hell bent in using turbochargers in all its aircraft, as a second stage charging system for good high altitude performance. When the turbocharger was yanked from the P-39, it was left with a unmodified supercharger. Almost all other engine manufacturers, like Rolls Royce (Merlin), Dainler-Benz (DB-601) and Nakajima (Sakae), had their superchargers developed as medium to high altitude devices. Rolls Royce would even produce Merlin variants specifically to operate the best at low, medium or high altitude. But in the US the Allison was developed focusing solely on the P-38, leaving the P-39 and P-40 with a under-developed engine. This situation would change only in 1943, when a V-1710 equipped with dual stage supercharger (a technology available years before in naval US fighters with Pratt & Whitney engines) became available. But by them it was too late, because Packard was rolling out the V-1650 for the Mustang and both the P-39 and P-40 were relegated to secondary holes.

BTW another (American!) fan of the Airacobra was one Chuck Yeager. He finished his fighter pilot training flying Airacobras and it remained one of his favorite aircraft to fly.

Great video & Thanks. Funny how the Finns made great use of the Brewster Buffalo, Russians the Bell Airacobra & Brits the Vought Corsair when we wrote them off. Merry Christmas all!

It's nicely proportioned aircraft.I often imagine a number of changes could have greatly improved it.I bet if the cockpit was forward a little more the cg would have improved and would have also given the pilot incredible visibility

Another flaw in the P-39D was that the 37mm gun was very prone to jam, after only 3 to 6 shots fired. The P-400 with the 20mm gun did not have that problem, and most had been sent to the Soviets, who loved them. Later models fixed the 37mm gun issue, and the Soviets loved them, too.

love the detail

When I was a tween, about 1965, I purchased and built a tiny P-39 plastic model, 6" wingspan, because I felt sorry for it. In those days the only word in common library language is that the Airicobra was a dog. The Russian factor didn't reach English-written books till much later, when the ground attack cliche reached our shores. The P-39 looks so innocent until you notice the cannon. It warms my heart to find that many Russian pilots genuinely loved the airplane. thank you for this.

The same high altitude interceptor specification resulted in the P-38, P-39, and P-40. Quite different outcomes.

The P-400 is a P-40 with a Zero on it's tail - that's brilliant! :^)

The P-63 King Cobra looked the same but it had the 1,800hp V12 Allison tubo used in the P-38 lightning and could fly high and over 400 mph . Odd he never mentioned it. Over 3000 were made,

could someone please let me know from which game the footage at the end of the video from about 11:30 onwards is?

Great video! Woodlark island PNG, 1943, July: the Americans occupying the island had a poor opinion of the plane, as the Japanese scorned both the Aircraft and the pilots. Then, the P-38 REPLACED the P-39, and one day 25 of of a group of 27 Japanese Betty bombers were shot down by the P-38s, morale soared on Woodlark Island.

"A P-40 with a zero on it's tail" ... LOL!

The removal of the supercharger was a huge mistake. It doomed the aircraft in American service. I have talked with some of the American pilots who flew the P400 (which was the version built for the British and rejected and pressed into service by the U.S.) in the South Pacific and they all said its one redeeming quality was it was tough. One of the pilots I talked to said that if he had been in any other aircraft when the Zero shot him down, he would have been dead. The engine took two cannon shells that would have punched through ordinary armor plate. He managed to bailout of his craft. He also stated that it was a sitting duck to the Zero. So it was probably the most enigmatic of all of the American aircraft built. It was not as bad as the Brewster Buffalo though.

P-38 was a dog without its superchargers too! Good vid Man!

Ive always liked this plane, it certainly is one of my favorite looking ones from the period

Looks like a tough bird to fly, but wondering if the turbo wasn't removed and the instrument fine-tuning was adopted, would it have less issues .. ?

It would be nice if you could do the video on the P-63 king Cobra.What differences there was between the P-39,airacobra & P-63 king Cobra

About half of the P39's Lend Leased to USSR were flown from the factory in upstate New York to the start of the Northwest Staging Route in Montana then on to Alaska where they were turned over to USSR pilots. As I understand it. Lend-Lease program in Alaska - KZfaq

I wonder why Bell could not just put back that second stage supercharger and so what if it caused more drag? I would love to build a 1/72 scale model kit of one in Soviet markings.

"A P-40 with a zero on it's tail" Plane was prone to flat spins. Yeager said it wasn't all that bad.

Five of the 10 highest scoring Soviet aces logged the majority of their kills in P-39s. Grigoriy Rechkalov scored 44 victories in Airacobras. Pokryshkin scored 47 of his 59 victories in P-39s, making him the highest scoring P-39 fighter pilot of any nation, and the highest scoring Allied fighter pilot using an American fighter.

My father was Chief Supply Officer at Ladd Field during the war. As a child of immigrants, he spoke Russian, so he was in charge of the transfer of P-39s to Soviet pilots. He spoke glowingly of the Soviet pilots, saying that many of them were "just kids," but, very skilled flyers. They had flown to Fairbanks in airplanes that were in disposable condition, hopped into the P-39s, and headed back across Siberia. Once, in talking about the Lend Lease program, he said, "All we did was paint red stars on them and hand them over."

Excellent video 📹 Without the airacobra, the USSR would have lost the war..huge numbers

The Brits did not only find flaws. They evaluated the P-39 vs the Bf-109 E and the Spit VB. In mock combat with a Bf109 E at 6,000 and 15,000 ft they found that given a 1,000 ft altitude advantage, the Bf could possibly get in a fleeting shot in a diving and zooming attack. They also found that the Bf could not compete with the P-39 in a turning combat, even if behind at the start of the encounter; the P-39 could get behind the Bf and get in a shot before two full turns had been completed. When the Bf tried to dive, shoot and continue its dive to get away, it was found that the P-39 could follow and catch up in a dive of over 4,000 ft. The conclusion reached was that at combat altitudes below 20,000 ft., the P-39 was superior on the same level and in a dive. Against the VB, the P-39 proved faster up to 15,000 ft., but the VB could outclimb the heavier P-39 and just out-turn it. The conclusion here was that above 15,000 ft., the P-39 could not compete with the VB; however, up to 15,000 ft., the P-39 could rely on its superior level and diving speeds and its ability take take negative Gs without the engine cutting out to give the VB a workout.