View CAF Centex's Rare Vintage Bell P-63 Kingcobra

View Rare Flying Bell P-63 at the CAF-Central Texas Wing Museum and historic hanger. 

This World War II fighter was developed from the P-39 Airacobra, which it closely resembles. The Army Air Forces never used the P-63 in combat, but some were used for fighter training. Many P-63s were exported as Lend-Lease aircraft; the Soviet Union received 2,456 and Free French forces obtained 300. P-63 performance was adequate for low-level fighting, and P-63s were widely used by the Soviets for such missions as "tank busting." Bell produced 3,305 P-63s, 13 of which were E models. 

The Bell P-63 Kingcobra was a United States fighter aircraft developed by Bell in World War II from the Bell P-39 Airacobra in an attempt to correct that aircraft's deficiencies. Although the aircraft was not accepted for combat use by the United States Army Air Forces, it was successfully adopted by the Soviet Air Force.[2]

Bell P-63 Kingcobra Flight Demonstration- BIG ALLISON SOUND!

This is a nice video of a flight demonstration of the Palm Springs Air Museum's Bell P-63A Kingcobra. Not the greatest aircraft of WWII, but a significant one nonetheless, especially to the Soviets. This is one of the most wicked looking fighters of all time, in my honest opinion. This thing also really scoots off the runway despite the reduced, low-octane-fuel power settings that need to be used these days!

Bell P-63 Kingcobra cockpit controls

P-63 Kingcobra Pilot's Cockpit Video

Cockpit video footage of the start, takeoff, passes and landing the P-63 Kingcobra at the 2011 Legacy Flight Museum's fly in at Rexburg Idaho

KING COBRA P-63 AEROBATIC FLIGHT DEMO

A stunning aerobatic display performed in the brutish Bell P-63 King Cobra.

The P-63 Kingcobra Technical Data

Crew: One (Pilot)
Engine: 1x Allison V-1710-117, liquid-cooled V-12, produced 1,800 hp (1,340 kW)
Span: 38 ft 4 in
Length: 32 ft 8 in
Height: 12 ft 7 in
Maximum Speed: 410 mph at 25,000'
Range: 450 miles
Armament: (nose & wings) 4 x 50 caliber machine guns (propeller hub) 37mm cannon
External:  1,500 lb in bombs or drop tank

P-63 Production: Over two thirds of Kingcobra production, some 2,400 aircraft were ferried from Alaska to Russia over the ALSIB (Alaska-Siberia) route. 

For more historical data on the P-63 and its role in WWII:  

P-63 Historical Blog

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CAF-Centex Wing P-63 Historical WWII Data

The improved Bell P-63 Kingcobra's role in WWII.

The first version to be supplied in quantity to the USSR was the P-63A-7 with a higher vertical tail, and reinforced wings and fuselage. The fuselage proved to require strengthening, consequently in October 1944, a reinforcement kit for operational P-63s was developed.[11])

The WASPs and the Lend-Lease Act.

Air Transport Command ferry pilots, including U.S. women pilots of the WASP program, picked up the planes at the Bell factory at Niagara Falls, New York, and flew them to Great Falls, Montana and then onward via the Northwest Staging Route through Canada to Alaska, where Russian ferry pilots, many of them women, would take delivery of the aircraft at Nome [12] and fly them to the Soviet Union over the Bering Strait via the Alaska-Siberia route (ALSIB). A total of 2,397 (2,672, according to other sources [13]) such aircraft were delivered to USSR, out of the overall 3,303 production aircraft (72.6%).[14]

Vintage WWII footage of the Bell P-63 Kingcobra

By a 1943 agreement, P-63s were disallowed for Soviet use against Germany and were supposed to be concentrated in the Soviet Far East for an eventual attack on Japan.^[citation needed^] However, there are many unconfirmed reports from both the Soviet and German side that P-63s did indeed see service against the Luftwaffe. Most notably, one of Pokryshkin's pilots reports in his memoirs published in the 1990s that the entire 4th GvIAP was secretly converted to P-63s in 1944, while officially still flying P-39s. One account states they were in action at Königsberg, in Poland and in the final assault on Berlin. There are German reports of P-63s shot down by both fighters and flak. Nevertheless, all Soviet records show nothing but P-39s used against Germany.

In general, official Soviet histories played down the role of Lend-Lease supplied aircraft in favor of local designs, but it is known that the P-63 was a successful fighter aircraft in Soviet service. A common Western misconception is that the Bell fighters were used as ground attack aircraft.

The P-63 Kingcobra's role in the Pacific theater.

In the Pacific theatre, the Kingcobras flew escort, close air support and ground attack missions. The Soviet P-63s achieved their first air victory on 15 August 1945, when Lejtenant I. F. Miroshnichenko from 17th IAP/190 IAD, shot down a Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa Army fighter off the coast of North Korea.[13]

Sufficient aircraft continued in use after the war for them to be given the NATO reporting name of Fred. By 9 May 1945, operational units had still 1,148 Kingcobras on strength.[13]

On 8 October 1950, two USAF F-80Cs from 49 FG breached the USSR's border and attacked Sukhaya Rechka airfield, making two strafing runs before returning to their home base. Although Soviet sources claim the attack was intentional, the pilots claimed it was a result of a navigational error.[15] The airfield belonged to the VVS TOF, but it was occupied by the 821 IAP / 190 IAD. Mostly aircraft of the 1st Squadron of 821 IAP were hit with 12 P-63s damaged, one P-63 burned to the ground while the other damaged aircraft were able to be repaired. No human losses were suffered.[16]

In 1945, 114 later models were delivered to the French Armée de l'Air, but they arrived too late to see service in World War II. They however saw service during the First Indochina War before being replaced in 1951.

Postwar air racers

Numerous surplus P-63s ended up on the air racing circuit in the immediate postwar era. Charles Tucker purchased two P-63s from the disposal facility at Kingman, Arizona just after the war. He entered one of them, the Tucker Special as Race 28 with the name Flying Red Horse emblazoned on the nose (civilian register N62995) in the 1946 Thompson Trophy race. He had clipped the wing 12 ft 9 in (3.89 m) in an attempt to improve its speed, reducing the span to 25 ft 9 in (7.85 m). The second one (44-4126 (XN63231 Race 30) was intended for the 1946 Bendix cross country race. It was initially fitted with two wingtip drop tanks. In 1947, the drop tanks were removed and the wings were clipped to 28 ft 6 in (8.69 m)

Two other significant racers were flown later. Tipsy Miss, John Sandberg's clipped-wingtip P-63 unlimited racer, was identified as "Race 28," and painted in bright orange, white and black race numbers with a chrome spinner. Later sold to a European pilot, this P-63 was destroyed in an accident in 1990[21] Crazy Horse Campgrounds was the most radically modified P-63 Kingcobra ever. Larry Haven's "Race 90" clipped-wing unlimited racer had a tiny bubble canopy installed; it appeared in all silver (unpolished aluminum) finish with a white rudder and black trim. The aircraft later crashed into the ocean on a test flight in 1972.[22]

Bell P-63 Kingcobra at Wings & Wheels Airshow August 2012

A rare air-worthy Bell P-63 Kingcobra WWII fighter showing its stuff at the "Wings and Wheels" airshow, Powell, Wyoming, USA - August 2012. 

For More in formation on The Central Texas Wing of The Commemorative Air Force 

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CAF Centex Wing Museum honors the vital role women played in aviation during WWII

Women played a vital role in the Allied victory in WWII. Aviation was particularly well suited to their skills.

"Jackie" Cochran an expert pilot instrumental in the creation of the WASPS.

Women served the air war in both manufacturing & military service as versatile machinists and very competent pilots. 

Women in Military Service

Service members of WASP on the flight line at Laredo Army Air Field, Texas, January 22, 1944.

Twenty-five thousand women applied to join the WASP, but only 1,830 were accepted and took the oath. Out of these, only 1,074 of them passed the training and joined.

Thirty-eight WASP fliers lost their lives while serving during the war –- all in accidents—eleven in training and twenty-seven on active duty. Because they were not considered military under the existing guidelines, a fallen WASP was sent home at family expense without traditional military honors or note of heroism. The army would not even allow the U.S. flag to be placed on the coffin of the fallen WASP.


Service members of WASP in their dress uniforms.

Shirley Slade, WASP trainee—Life magazine feature story, July 1943.

After training, the WASPs were stationed at 120 air bases across the U.S., assuming numerous flight-related missions, and relieving male pilots for combat duty. 
They flew sixty million miles of operational flights from aircraft factories to ports of embarkation and military training bases. They also towed targets for live anti-aircraft artillery practice, simulated strafing missions, and transported cargo. Women in these roles flew almost every type of aircraft flown by the USAAF during World War II. In addition, a few exceptionally qualified women were allowed to test rocket-propelled planes, to pilot jet-propelled planes, and to work with radar-controlled targets. Between September 1942 and December 1944, the WASP delivered 12,650 aircraft of 78 Different types.

Stories from the Northwest: WWII - WASP Pilot. 6 minutes.

The WASPS, the Lend-Lease act and the P-39/P-63.

WASP stands in the distinctive cockpit door of P-39 en route to Russia.

President Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act with the Allies in March 1941. The Alaska-Siberia Lend-Lease was conceived, partially, as a way to avoid shipping war equipment through the range of Axis submarines in the Pacific Ocean. Between 1942 and 1945, the program shuttled supplies and almost 8,000 aircraft (many of them like Centex Wing's P-39 and P-63) from Great Falls, Mont., through Canada and Alaska, to the Soviet Union.

When World War II began, there were 2,733 licensed female pilots in the United States; a big part of the job of flying warplanes from manufacturers to embarkation points fell to the 1,074 of them who became Women Airforce Service Pilots. The WASP flew all 78 types of aircraft in the Army Air Forces inventory, including the Bell P-39 Airacobra and later the improved P-63.

WASP ferrying a P-63 to the Canadian border on its way to fight the Germans.

To many WASPs, ferrying the P-39 and P-63 was just one leg of a round-robin flight. “We liked it because it kept us away from the base,” laughs Bobby Willis Heinrich, a WASP who was based in Dallas. “We’d take the P-51 from Dallas to Newark. Then in Newark, [we’d] pick up orders to pick up the P-39 from Buffalo [and fly it] to Great Falls.” Single-seat fighters weren’t known for having luggage space, so WASP Rosa Lea Fullwood Meek Dickerson had to improvise. “I had to carry a map case so I put an extra shirt, a pair of socks and underwear in there,” she says. “Sometimes you’d be gone for two or three weeks with the same uniform on.” Once the WASPs got the fighters to Great Falls, their jobs were done; military brass had decided that the women would be restricted to domestic flights, which ruled out flights even through Canada. Many of the women pilots were frustrated by that decision and wanted to deliver the aircraft to their destination in Alaska. “We thought it would be fun, exciting. We were up for the adventure,” says Heinrich before scorn enters her voice. “But they said, no, they had no facilities for women up there. So the men took them from Great Falls to Alaska where the Russians picked them up."

Women in Aviation Manufacturing

Military production during World War II was a critical component (see our blog on production) to military performance during World War II. Over the course of the war, the Allied countries outproduced the Axis countries in most categories of weapons.

WWII music "Rosie the Riveter Song" - 2 minutes

Women play vital role with the war effort.

A photo from the Library of Congress and show women involved in airplane production. The women are installing fixtures and assemblies to a tail fuselage section of a B-17F Bomber.

During 1939-1945, the aircraft industry became the largest single industry in the world and rose from 41st place to first among industries in the United States. From 1939, when fewer than 6,000 planes a year were being produced, the industry doubled production in 1940 and doubled it again in 1941 and 1942. In the first half of 1941, it produced 7,433 aircraft, more than had been produced in all of 1940. From January 1, 1940, until V-J Day on August 14, 1945, more than 300,000 military aircraft were produced for the U.S. military and the Allies.

Vintage film - Women at work WWII (1943) 1.5 minutes

Frances Green, Margaret (Peg) Kirchner, Ann Waldner and Blanche Osborn leaving their plane, "Pistol Packin' Mama," at the four-engine school at Lockbourne AAF, Ohio, during WASP ferry training B-17 Flying Fortress.

Famous 1942 poster commissioned by The Westinghouse Company by Pittsburgh artist J. Howard Miller.

Rosie the Riveter is a cultural icon of the United States, representing the American women who worked in factories during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who were in the military. Rosie the Riveter is commonly used as a symbol of feminism and women's economic power.

Women on the War Path - 1943 - American Women Building B-24 Bombers in WWII. Ford Motor Co.-10 minutes.

Housewives brought into the war effort.

Although women took on male dominated trades during World War II, they were expected to return to their everyday housework once men returned from the war. Government campaigns targeting women were addressed solely at housewives, perhaps because already employed women would move to the higher-paid "essential" jobs on their own, perhaps because it was assumed that most would be housewives. One government advertisement asked women "Can you use an electric mixer? If so, you can learn to operate a drill."Propaganda was also directed at their husbands, many of whom were unwilling to support such jobs.[13] Most women opted to do this. Later, many women returned to traditional work such as clerical or administration positions, despite their reluctance to re-enter the lower-paying fields. However, some of these women continued working in the factories.

Women's role in society forever changed.

A "Rosie" working on the A-31 Vengeance bomber in Nashville, Tennessee (1943)

According to the Encyclopedia of American Economic History, "Rosie the Riveter" inspired a social movement that increased the number of working American women from 12 million to 20 million by 1944, a 57% increase from 1940. By 1944 only 1.7 million unmarried men between the ages of 20 and 34 worked in the defense industry, while 4.1 million unmarried women between those ages did so. Although the image of "Rosie the Riveter" reflected the industrial work of welders and riveters during World War II, the majority of working women filled non-factory positions in every sector of the economy. What unified the experiences of these women was that they proved to themselves (and the country) that they could do a "man's job" and could do it well. In 1942, just between the months of January and July, the estimates of the proportion of jobs that would be "acceptable" for women was raised by employers from 29 to 85%.

African American women were some of those most affected by the need for women workers. It has been said that it was the process of whites working along blacks during the time that encouraged a breaking down of social barriers and a healthy recognition of diversity. African-Americans were able to lay the groundwork for the postwar civil rights revolution by equating segregation with Nazi white supremacist ideology.

Women's role finally acknowledged.

On October 14, 2000, the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park was opened in Richmond, California, site of four Kaiser shipyards, where thousands of "Rosies" from around the country worked (although ships at the Kaiser yards were not riveted, but rather welded). Over 200 former Rosies attended the ceremony.

Rosie the Riveter Saturday Evening Post Cover - 1943

Norman Rockwell's image of "Rosie the Riveter" received mass distribution on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on Memorial Day, May 29, 1943. Rockwell's illustration features a brawny woman taking her lunch break with a rivet gun on her lap and beneath her Penny loafer a copy of Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf. Her lunch pail reads "Rosie"; viewers quickly recognized this to be "Rosie the Riveter" from the familiar song.[34] Rockwell, America's best-known popular illustrator of the day, posed his model to match the Sistine Chapel ceiling image of the prophet Isaiah, painted by Michelangelo in 1509. Rockwell's model was a Vermont resident, 19-year-old Mary Doyle who was a telephone operator near where Rockwell lived, not a riveter. Rockwell painted his "Rosie" as a larger woman than his model, and he later phoned to apologize.[35] The Post's cover image proved hugely popular, and the magazine loaned it to the U.S. Treasury Department for the duration of the war, for use in war bond drives.

More Information on the WASPS

Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP)

Service Pilots (WASP) predecessors: The Women's Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) and the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) organized separately in September 1942. They were the pioneering organizations of civilian female pilots, employed to fly military aircraft under the direction of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. The WFTD and WAFS were merged on August 5, 1943, to create the paramilitary WASP organization. The female pilots of the WASP ended up numbering 1,074, each freeing a male pilot for combat service and duties. They flew over 60 million miles in every type of military aircraft.[1] The WASP was granted veteran status in 1977, and given the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.

"Jackie" Cochran and Nancy Harkness Love instrumental in creating the WASPS.

"Jackie" Cochran and Nancy Love instrumental in the creation of the WASPS.

By the summer of 1941, Jacqueline "Jackie" Cochran and test-pilot Nancy Harkness Love, two famous women pilots, independently submitted proposals to the U.S. Army Air Forces (the forerunner to the United States Air Force) to use women pilots in non-combat missions after the outbreak of World War II in Europe. The motivation was to free male pilots for combat roles, by employing qualified female pilots to ferry aircraft from factories to military bases, and to tow drones and aerial targets. Prior to Pearl Harbor, General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, commander of the USAAF, had turned down both Love's 1940 proposal and that of the better connected and more famous Cochran, despite the lobbying by Eleanor Roosevelt. But he essentially promised the command to Cochran, should such a force be needed in the future. While the U.S. was not yet fighting in World War II, Cochran had gone to England to volunteer to fly for the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA).[6] The ATA had been using female pilots since January 1940, and was starting to train new ones as well. The American women who flew in the ATA were the first American women to fly military aircraft. They flew the Royal Air Force's front-line aircraft—Spitfires, Typhoons, Hudsons, Mitchells, Blenheims, Oxfords, Walruses, and Sea Otters—in non-combat roles, but in combat-like conditions. Most of these women served in the ATA during the war. Only three members returned to the U.S. to participate in the WASP program.

The Texas Connection

The first Houston class started with 38 women with a minimum of 200 hours. Twenty-three graduated on April 24, 1943, at the only Houston WASP graduation at Ellington Army Air Field. 

The second Houston class, started in December 1942 with a minimum of 100 hours, but finished their training just in time to move to Sweetwater, Texas and become the first graduating class from Avenger Field on May 28, 1943. The third class completed their advanced training at Avenger Field and graduated July 3, 1943. Half of the fourth class of 76 women started their primary training in Houston on February 15, 1943, and then transferred to Sweetwater.

Duties of the WASP

Each WASP had a pilot's license. They were trained to fly "the Army way" by the U.S. Army Air Forces at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. More than 25,000 women applied for the WASP, and fewer than 1,900 were accepted. After completing four months of military flight training, 1,074 of them earned their wings and became the first women to fly American military aircraft.

The women were not trained for combat. Their course of instruction, however, was essentially the same as that for aviation cadets. The WASPs thus received no gunnery training, and very little formation flying and aerobatics, but went through the maneuvers necessary to be able to recover from any position. The percentage of trainees eliminated compared favorably with the elimination rates for male cadets in the Central Flying Training Command.

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