P-39 Tumble Recovery

[Subdeacon Joe]

 

[Sixgun Sheridan]

Well, I guess that's one way to evade a Zero.

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

These WWII training films are interesting.  I watch a lot of them.  You seldom hear about the P-39 even though they made a lot of them.  Did a little research and it seems the P-39s performance at high altitude was sub-standard so they were not adopted for use in the European theatre.  Seems a lot of them went to Russia and were quite successful on the Eastern Front.  The last Allied plane shot down by a Luftwaffe plane was on May 8, 1945 and it was a Russian P-39.

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

3 hours ago, Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933 said:

These WWII training films are interesting.  I watch a lot of them.  You seldom hear about the P-39 even though they made a lot of them.  Did a little research and it seems the P-39s performance at high altitude was sub-standard so they were not adopted for use in the European theatre.  Seems a lot of them went to Russia and were quite successful on the Eastern Front.  The last Allied plane shot down by a Luftwaffe plane was on May 8, 1945 and it was a Russian P-39.

 

To "save money" the powers-that-were decided to omit the turbo-supercharger necessary for high altitude performance. 

 

A buddy's dad was a '39 pilot in the Pacific, and actually did shoot down a zero.