Actually each compartment for the rio and gunner could have held two people.

That is amazing! I heard they were great for getting surface subs as well. What a beast, I really think the YF23 Black Widow 2 was a great plane for the name.

Thanks to your grandfather .My grandfather fought in both WW 1&2 . Austro- Hungarian Army in the first one and Canadian army in the 2 one.

Thanks for sharing. Respect to your grandfather ♡

Korean police action fred!

To your granddad.... *** Salute!!!! **** My great uncle was a pilot on a B17 (before he was unceremoniously grounded for an innumerable number of violations - including buzzing his girlfriend's house stateside and drinking while on duty... haha). I love talking to those old guys. Not many of them left. I hope you had the opportunity to hear some real war stories. Godspeed!

Happy Memorial Day to you and your family

AWESOME GLAD SHES ON OUR SIDE!

I remember reading that and just imagining that scene lol

I was going to 3d print a replica, but had not the resources!

Check maam.com They are rebuilding one to fly right now in Redding, PA.

deep scuba Reading, I've actually seen the progress in person back in june. It has a way to go but it is definitely coming together

BobDawg173 You're right... my bad. I saw it a long time ago. I donated a couple of parts and they turned me loose in the caged area when they had the center fuselage in there. Sure is good to see the booms and horizontal stab in place.

Is the aircraft finished today or?

Cant remember what model company(Revell?),but i used to have a model of this bird of prey when i was a kid in the 70's. Wow...watching another vid of a pilot going through the starting and take off of this beast was mind boggling.

Charles Burnham yeah. They are like anti bombers.

Yes 4 20 mm and 4 50 calibers MA deuces awesome to the max! plus gun mounts in rear of the aircraft! Super powerful for sure and a HUGE AIRCRAFT!

HECK YES same design MUCH BIGGER!

Ummm, no. The P-38 was designed and flown in 1939. It was originally a point defense fighter so it was quick on the climb out. The P-61 was a purpose built night fighter equipped with airborne intercept radar and was much more heavily armed than the P-38. One of the biggest difference was the guns used. The P-38 had a 20mm canon and four fifties all in the nose. The P-61 had four 20’s in the belly and four fifties in a turret on top. That was a significant difference! The P-61 was much bigger and much heavier and had a crew of three. One cool thing in the cockpit was a targeting site for the pilot operated like Luke Skywalker’s X-wing fighter.

Hi DS...........KR here..........is this TR6RRod CS's nephew? Think I know who you are, for sure!

Kevin R Sorry... not the same guy.

deep scuba Was your dad the CO of the 418th NFS in the Pacific? I'm talking about 1945. My mother's brother, Henry Lee Gurley was a P-61 pilot in the 418th NFS. He left Okinawa at 9:15 p.m. on 8-4-1945 in P-61 number 42-39591 (B-15NO) on a mission to Kyshu Japan......he never returned, and has never been found.

Kevin R Sorry... I got that all confused. The "....is this TR6RRod CS's nephew?" threw me off. Yes my dad was recommended by Carroll Smith. Did you go to the 418th reunion in San Antonio, 2007?

deep scuba Hi again............No, but I sure wish I had gone! I was in the middle of working too many hours, at that time. Once I retired, I had time to do a considerable amount of research. If I understand you correctly, you are the son of Sellers? I think we have spoken before.........??

More like the ARC-170 I would say ;)

I only saw this when I was playing warthunder and I was like "Is this a p38, but better?"

give me pizza or give me death freakin hillarious dude

The keyword there is "tweaked".

Shannmeister You don't think the Brits would cheat do you? Nah the Brits would never cheat nor lie nor piss on someone's parade.

crosstimbers2 Not all, I mean that wouldn't be cricket, would it?

Shannmeister Not cricket but it is part and parcel of one upmanship.

Poor crossdresser does not know the RAF did not want the USAAF taking too many Mosquitos so the faster far better Mosquito somehow lost, General Spaatz was right the British had thrown the race so to speak, the USAAF got the very poor P 61 and the RAF kept on using the excellent Mosquito.

Bob N No Bob, it was a "waste"!

+Walter Strong They knew what was eventually going to happen with Commies overtaking China.

Just turn your sound off.

The engine/gun sounds aren't audio from the filming btw

I like the period-correct music. Way better than that rap rubbish that people like to inflict on videos

***** The P-61 may have been the most maneuverable fighter in the war despite its size. It had a unique spoiler and aileron control system that gave it extraordinary maneuverability. The P-61 supercharging gave it top performance at a lower altitude where it was believed it would more likely be used. A later version that did not see combat had a much higher top speed at a higher altitude. When the P-61 came to England they actually had a fly-off against the Mosquito - it was pretty much a draw, each had advantages and disadvantages. By the way, the fighter versions of the Mosquito were the slowest versions due to the drag inducing flat windscreen. The 4 x .50 cal turret had a problem when skewed as it caused turbulence across the tail and elevator. This could be alleviated by locking the gun forward to fire with the cannons. There was a variety of solutions and eventually they resolved the issues, however the turret was also used for the B-29 top front gun and the B-29 got priority for deliveries, so many P-61's didn't get the turret. It is claimed that a P-61 engaged 3 FW-190's and shot down two of them on a daylight mission. The P-61 also saw considerable use for night interdiction attacks carrying up to 6400 lbs of bombs.

Dan Zervos Indeed, reportedly the plane could do a split-s, immelmann, or any other precision move -- and supposedly could be slow-rolled with one engine out in the direction of the dead engine. I'm not seeing the 4-gun turret in the planes shown in this video, however. Whomever was on the other end of that gun camera footage was having a very bad day.

Dan Zervos Even a/c with the dorsal guns may have not had turrets, a lot of them had fixed guns under a fairing that looked similar to the turret.

18tangles While the Mosquito was a remarkable multi role aircraft, having more variants(it could be argued having fewer is a sign of a better design) and larger numbers doesn't necessarily make it better. I don't agree that the P-61 was the best twin engine fighter(far too broad a spectrum) but it was easily arguable a better night fighter than the Mosquito or any of the other ad hoc or even purpose built night fighter aircraft of that time period. Like a lot of aircraft the P-61 was created in a time of rapidly advancing technology, there was nothing wrong with it other than it was deemed to be nearing obsolescence so there was no point in keeping it in production. Also, for a plane it's size at the time it may have seemed ludicrous to call it a fighter but it did have remarkable performance in that role considering it was the size of a medium bomber. Comparing just about anything is meaningless without parameters, often the things being compared are like apples and oranges.

Comparing the Mosquito and the Black Widow really is comparing apples and oranges. The Mosquito was originally designed as a fast attack bomber and its capabilities were seen as usable in many other roles as you noted. The Black Widow was specifically designed as a night fighter and at that it had no peer. I would suppose then that given the relative versatility, the Mosquito would be more desirable. That was one of the rare successes at versatility and it was unintentional AFAIK. Most of the time, when there is a deliberate attempt to design a military aircraft that does everything, it tends to be mediocre -- the F-4 arguably stands as a conspicuous example of that. There is something to be said for an airframe being designed for a specific purpose and excelling at it. That is why the A-10 is so deservedly admired.

Radar

Buffeting at high speeds. Z

One gunner played bass, the other piano

That, and when it was fired at night, even when it was expected, it scared the hell out of the pilot.

'Schräge Musik' refers to oblique-firing 20mm cannons mounted in the fuselage, allowing the night fighter to attack from below

The early production run of the P-61 didn't have a turret its was add it on later

The B-29 had priority on the 4 gun turrets.

I read that the turrets caused buffeting at high speeds so they weren't retained.

ZenosWarbirds I've heard that too, when the turret was rotated, but the added ability to shoot up into a target and follow it right or left was a plus. But I still think it was the B-29 program and it's demands for the 4 gun turret that caused the P-61 to lose out. If buffeting was a problem they could leave the turret pointing forward and elevate the guns for a belly shot.

heard the Same thing Capt Cliff

Baruch Hashem

4. 4 P-61’s were lost in WWII. None to enemy action. And they downed 158 enemy aircraft. Do you just say things and hope they’re true?

Melvin Johnson= troll

The last model (p-61-c) could go around 420 or 430 miles per hour. Thats like 10 miles per hour shy of catching up to a p51 mustang at top speed

Squilliam. The P 61 C was reasonably fast but too late for the war and it hardly saw any service because jets were starting to enter service, by the time it could do 430 mph there were piston engine planes that were considerably faster and jets even faster.

Barrie you are correct. An interesting A/C but overall a failure.

Look it's fairy, I mean barri

Thomas Pratten your joking right? this baby is sexy as hell!

You’re crazy man! BW was cool looking!