Word: airacobra
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...Bell Aircraft Corp., it waddled up to the apron on three wheels with its tail in the air, something no pursuit ship had ever done before. More mindful of its deadly speed, its paralyzing armament, than of its spraddle-legged look on the ground, proud Bell Aircraft called it "Airacobra...
Last week Bell made international aviation news by telling just how fast and how heavily Airacobra could strike. Out of the experimental stage and now plain P-39, it has a speed of 400 miles an hour with full military load. It is the fastest pursuit ship in the U. S. and probably in the world, can leg it a full 20 to 40 miles an hour faster on war missions than Germany's famed Messerschmitt 109 (which had to be stripped of its guns and precariously ''souped up" to set the international speed record...
...that its engine, a 1,000 h. p., Prestone-cooled, inline Allison, is not in the nose, but behind the pilot. Built for sleek streamlining, the twelve-cylinder Allison (made by General Motors) drives the three-bladed prop through a shaft. Best thing about this is that it makes Airacobra's air-splitting nose thin and wartless, still leaves room up front for Airacobra's most deadly fang: a 37-millimeter (1½ |inch) cannon which fires through the propeller hub. Alongside its cannon, biggest carried by any single-engined pursuit ship, are two .30-calibre...