WI the Bell XP-59 Airacomet had been adopted?

General Electric was doing studies in the late '40s about a Gatling-type gun, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. (BTW, that led to the GAU-8 Avenger).
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
That's because it was converted to fighter bomber out of necessity. When
the swept-winged MiG-15 entered the war, flown by Soviet pilots, out of
the PRC, it proved to be a terrible fighter. That was why the F-86 was sent to
Korea in the first place. The P-80 became the F-80 after the Air Force changed its nomenclature. Also, there was another fighter bomber in Korea
at the time, that was the F-84. Korea also turned out be the last wars of both the F-51, (formerly P-51), Mustang, and the F4U Corsair. The last
Corsair rolled off the assembly line in 1952. The last Mustang rolled off the
assembly line in the mid-50s.

You did catch the whole eight years old thing right?

Why am I asking, of course you didn't. Never mind.

Korea was far from the last war for wither the F4U or the Mustang. The French flew Corsairs in Vietnam, Algeria, and during the Sues Crisis (where the IAF flew Mustangs). The Hondurans and Salvadorans BOTH flew them in the 1969 dust up after the soccer game (Hondurans used P-51s as well). The Indonesians flew Mustangs against the British, RAAF, & RNZAF as late as the early 1960s. In the name of the Alt History gods read something that didn't come wrapped up with bubble gum.
 
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General Electric was doing studies in the late '40s about a Gatling-type gun, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility. (BTW, that led to the GAU-8 Avenger).
SWEET!!!

You did catch the whole eight years old thing right?

Why am I asking, of course you didn't. Never mind.

Korea was far from the last war for wither the F4U or the Mustang. The French flew Corsairs in Vietnam, Algeria, and during the Sues Crisis (where the IAF flew Mustangs). The Hondurans and Salvadorans BOTH flew them in the 1969 dust up after the soccer game (Hondurans used P-51s as well). The Indonesians flew Mustangs against the British, RAAF, & RNZAF as late as the early 1960s. In the name of the Alt History gods read something that didn't come wrapped up with bubble gum.
But i like bubblegum
 
Try losing the radiator intakes from the Lightning. Also, the wing root guns preclude the natural fuel tank location, and the tail has too much interference drag. Try the tail of the OV-10 Bronco. And unframe the cockpit canopy.
 
The P-59 with J-33 engines. The P-83. Performance was disappointing.

bell-xp-83-3-view.jpg
 
Try losing the radiator intakes from the Lightning. Also, the wing root guns preclude the natural fuel tank location, and the tail has too much interference drag. Try the tail of the OV-10 Bronco. And unframe the cockpit canopy.
NEVER!!! Oh... and Fuel Tank location doesn't mean very much. I mean... there are two fuel reserve tanks in the Horizontal Stab.

The P-59 with J-33 engines. The P-83. Performance was disappointing.
because they didn't improve the design. I did. :D though i might need to make the wings larger

Bell Airacomet.png

Bell Airacomet.png
 

Larrikin

Banned
HAHA! well... you have a point... But i have something else in mind. ;)

The Bell 16-529 Prototype (also known as the Bell P-74)
Armament:
4x .50 caliber machine guns in the nose.
1x 30 mm cannon in the nose
2x 20 mm cannons in the wing roots
4x .30 caliber machine guns in the wing leading edge

It could be tested throughout 1943 and operational by mid-1944. and it would use the same engine as the P-80, though using 2 instead of 1. as the Engine was available by 1942


IF you really want to do some major breakage, replace the entire nose armament with a Molins S gun and put 4 H-S 20mms in the wings. Now that would kick some serious butt.
 
I think Bell gets a bad rap. The P-39 was a very innovative design that was crippled, in part, because of requirements placed on it's engine by the USAAC. According to Soviet accounts, the P-63 was an outstanding all-round fighter and ground attack plane. Had the British Purchasing Commission not asked North American to develop what became the P-51 Mustang, it is possible that the P-63 could have been re-engined with the Merlin and gone on to be a very useful fighter for the United States.

The P-59 was, however, a dog. Had it entered production as a fighter (it did enter production as a testbed/trainer) the USAAF could have been the proud possessor of a plane almost as good as a 1943 Fw-190. But it needs to be understood that the P-80 was, to some extent, a "cleaned up" P-59 with a single, more poweful, engine replacing the twin wing-root engines in the Bell jet.
 
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