The ‘Abandoned’ American Fighter That British Pilots Flew Into The Most Dangerous Skies On Earth Be

October 1941, RAF Duxford.

Pilots of 601 Squadron, the famous Millionaires Squadron gathered around their new American fighters.

These were Battle of Britain veterans, men who had faced the Luft Vafer in Huracans and Spitfires.

Men who knew what a fighter aircraft should look like.

What they saw confused them.

The engine sat behind the cockpit, not in front.

A 10-ft drive shaft ran beneath the pilot’s seat.

Car doors opened on each side instead of a sliding canopy.

And in the nose where an engine should be sat a 20 mm cannon.

The Bera Cobra looked like nothing the RAF had ever flown.

After only a handful of operational sorties in October 1941, the RAF would conclude the type was unsuitable for Fighter Command’s high altitude role and withdraw it from frontline use.

The aircraft Britain rejected would go on to become a mainstay of Soviet Guards units on the Eastern Front, where pilots would claim more kills in this abandoned American machine than in any other foreign aircraft in history.

This is the story of how British test pilots identified a fatal flaw that American engineers had built into their own fighter and how that flaw transformed an intended interceptor into a lowaltitude killer that terrorized the Luft Vafer on the Eastern Front.

The Aracobra’s journey to Britain began with France.

In October 1939, the French government ordered 170 Bell Model 14 export fighters.

The specifications were seductive.

400 mph top speed, a 36,000 ft service ceiling, 1,000mi range.

When France fell in June 1940, the British Direct Purchase Commission absorbed the contract.

Arthur Pervvis, the Canadian industrialist leading the commission, saw an opportunity.

Britain desperately needed fighters.

The Bell brocher promised performance that matched or exceeded the Spitfire.

By April 1940, the commission had ordered 675 aircraft sight unseen.

What the brocher failed to mention was that those figures came from an unarmed, unequipped prototype that weighed a full ton less than production machines.

The British variant carried a 20 mm Hispanosa cannon in the nose, replacing the American 37 mm weapon, which was then banned for export.

250 caliber machine guns sat alongside the cannon in the nose with 4.303 caliber Brownings in the wings.

The tricycle undercarriage offered superb ground handling and forward visibility during takeoff and landing.

A genuine innovation for its time, the Allison V1710E4 engine produced 1,150 horsepower at its rated altitude.

The first British pilot flew an Aera Cobra in America on the 30th of December 1940, 8 months after the order was placed.

Evaluation aircraft reached RAF Kern in the summer of 1941.

Testing began immediately at the airfighting development unit and the airplane and armament experimental establishment at Bosam down.

The results were devastating.

A standard production Araco Cobra managed just 355 miles per hour at its rated altitude of 13,000 ft, not 400.

Bel later admitted the original figures came from the stripped down prototype.

The RAF had bought a promise that could never be kept, but speed was not the critical problem.

The critical problem was altitude.

The Araco Cobra’s Allison V1710 engine used a single stage, single-speed mechanical supercharger.

This device compressed intake air to maintain engine power as altitude increased.

The Allison supercharger reached its critical altitude at roughly 12,000 ft.

Above this threshold, it could no longer compensate for thinning atmosphere.

Power dropped precipitously by 20,000 ft.

According to the AFDU assessment, the Ara Cobra was utterly useless.

This was no accident of manufacturing.

It was a deliberate engineering decision.

The original XP39 prototype had flown with a General Electric turbo supercharger that sustained power at high altitude, but wind tunnel testing at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics revealed the turbo installation created catastrophic drag.

At a pivotal meeting in August 1939, Bell proposed deleting the turbo supercharger entirely.

NACA projected that aerodynamic cleanup alone could push the aircraft to 429 mph without it.

The army agreed.

Available turbochargers were being prioritized for the P38 Lightning.

Lieutenant Benjamin Kelsey, the project officer who had specified the turbo, had been ordered to England and could not intervene.

He later expressed deep regret at his absence from that meeting.

The consequences were stark.

At 13,000 ft, the Ara Cobra was actually 18 mph faster than the Spitfire Mark 5B.

But at 20,000 ft, the Spitfire was 35 mph faster.

At 24,000 ft, the gap widened to 55 mph.

The Rolls-Royce Merlin’s two-stage, two-speed supercharger maintained power to 26,000 ft and beyond.

The Allison’s single stage unit simply could not compete.

For an Air Force fighting the Luft Vafer at altitudes routinely exceeding 20,000 ft over Western Europe, this was disqualifying.

601 Squadron received its first two error Cobras at Duxford on the 6th of August, 1941.

The aircraft immediately required 25 modifications before being deemed combat ready.

oxygen valve changes, gun site improvements, IFFF set relocation.

By late September, 11 machines had arrived.

Four were declared operational in early October.

Squadron leader Edward John Gracie, a Battle of Britain Ace with seven confirmed kills, led his pilots into action.

The RAF flew only a handful of operational sorties in the Ara Cobra.

During October 1941, it never saw the sustained fighter role the service expected.

On the 9th of October 1941, two Araco Cobras launched from RAF Manston on a rhubarb.

A low-level fighter sweep.

They strafed an enemy trwler near Graalins and German troops on a pier along the French coast.

On the 10th of October, two aircraft returned to the Graalins area, but found no targets.

On the 11th of October, two aircraft hit enemy barges near Gralins and Calala.

A later mission of three Araccobras to Oend found nothing.

Approximately eight individual combat sorties were flown in total.

There were no air-to-air engagements with the Luftvafer.

Every mission was ground attack.

The type was soon grounded for further work on the accumulating technical issues.

Then the technical problems struck.

Pilots and ground crews reported navigation and fume problems during gun trials.

Compass deviations after firing made accurate navigation difficult.

Cockpit fumes were recorded in test reports and forced restrictive operating procedures.

Orders mandated oxygen masks from engines start to shut down as a precaution.

The nose gun flash was blinding at night.

The 2250 ft takeoff run excluded operations from smaller grass airfields that the RAF depended upon.

The mid-engine layout meant rearming and refueling had to be done sequentially rather than simultaneously crippling turnaround times.

And then there was the flat spin risk.

Under certain loading conditions, particularly when nose ammunition was expended, the center of gravity shifted rearward.

In these configurations, the aircraft could become prone to flat spins that were difficult or impossible to recover from.

The problem was conditional rather than inevitable, appearing with specific load configurations.

Several aircraft were lost in accidents during 601 Squadron’s tenure.

One tragic accident at Acasta Malbis in February 1942 resulted in a fatality when a pilot could not escape the stricken aircraft.

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Right back to the Araco Cobra.

By December 1941, the Araco Cobra was officially withdrawn from RAF service.

In March 1942, 601 Squadron relinquished its 13 remaining aircraft and re-equipped with Spitfire Mark 5Bs.

Of the 675 ordered, roughly 80 were assembled in Britain.

Approximately 212 were diverted to the Soviet Union.

Around 200 were requisitioned by the USAAF as P400s after Pearl Harbor.

The aircraft Britain rejected became a Soviet weapon of extraordinary potency through lend approximately 4,700 to 4,800 P39s reached the USSR, though sources vary slightly on the exact figure.

This made it the most numerous and valued foreign fighter in Soviet service.

Three delivery routes fed the pipeline.

The earliest shipments 212 diverted British Air Cobra Mark 1’s traveled via Arctic convoy to Mmansk with the first 20 arriving by December 1941 and roughly 54 lost at sea.

The Alcib route Alaska to Siberia opened on the 29th of September 1942.

Approximately 2,565 P39s flew the grueling 3,498 mile chain from Fairbanks to Crash through five relay segments.

Staffed by Soviet ferry regiments, the Persian corridor through Iran handled roughly 2,000 aircraft shipped in crates to Abdan for assembly before being flown to Azabaijan.

Soviet pilots christened the P39 Cobra with affectionate dimminionatives like Kabushka, meaning little Cobra.

They immediately set about adapting it to Eastern front realities.

Wing-mounted machine guns were routinely stripped to shed weight and improve roll rate.

Cannon and machine gun triggers were wired together for devastating simultaneous fire.

Hydraulic fluid was replaced to prevent freezing in Arctic conditions.

The P-39 thrived in Soviet hands for several interconnected reasons.

Eastern front air combat typically occurred below 15,000 ft, well within the Allison engine’s comfort zone.

Soviet tactical doctrine prioritized army support, patrolling above friendly ground forces, intercepting German bombers, and escorting Illusion 2.

Soviet airfield sat close to the front, negating the P39’s limited range.

The mid-enine layout provided sports car balance that made it an exceptionally stable gun platform.

Soviet pilot skill and adaptation played as much a role as the aircraft’s characteristics and the nosemounted 37 mm cannon delivered devastating one-hit kills against fighters.

Soviet veteran pilot Nikolai Golodnikov later recalled that the projectile was very powerful.

Normally one strike on an enemy fighter and he was finished.

Bombers, watercraft, you name it.

For such targets, 37 mm was very effective.

But he added a critical caveat about tactics.

If we had flown it as the Americans outlined in the aircraft specifications, they would have shot us down immediately.

This fighter was a dud in its design regimes.

But we conducted normal combat in our regimes.

Critically, every P39 arrived with a reliable HF radio.

This was transformative for an air force whose domestically produced radios were notoriously unreliable.

Coordinated tactics that had been impossible before suddenly became standard practice.

Five of the top 10 highest scoring Soviet aces logged the majority of their kills in the P39.

The 9inth Guard’s Fighter Aviation Division, which flew Era Cobras from August 1942 to wars End, was credited with 1,147 aerial victories and produced 31 heroes of the Soviet Union.

Alexander Pushkin embodied the P39’s transformation, the second highest scoring Soviet ace and highest scoring allied pilot in an American aircraft is commonly credited with 59 official individual victories with 47 or 48 of those in the P39.

Exact tallies have been revised and debated by historians with modern Russian research suggesting different figures.

He received three hero of the Soviet Union awards and the American Distinguished Flying Cross.

His tactical formula, altitude, speed, maneuver, fire, became standard Soviet doctrine.

His Cuban stairs formation replaced rigid three aircraft formations with stacked pairs that provided mutual support.

During the battle of the Cuban from April to June 1943, Krishkin claimed 20 victories.

On the 4th of May 1943, his eight era Cobras attacked three squadrons of Junas J 87 stukers escorted by a full Ghadada of Messmitt BF 109s.

According to Soviet records, they claimed 12 Stookers destroyed, but Krishkin repeatedly refused offers to convert to the Lavoskin Leaf 5 or Yakov Levy Yak 3, finding their firepower insufficient, Grigory Rkalov, Pushkin’s regimental comrade, achieved 56 individual plus six shared victories.

Initially grounded for colorblindness.

He was allowed to fly when the war began.

Between 44 and 50 of his kills came in the P39, though sources differ due to conflicting documentation, he received two hero of the Soviet Union awards.

Nikolai Goliv was perhaps the most efficient P39 ace of all.

He scored 41 individual victories plus one shared in just 12 months and 5 days of Aeric Cobra combat before being ordered to attend military school.

Dmitri Glinker claimed 39 kills in the P39, including 20 during the Battle of the Cuban alone.

In one engagement, his six era Cobras scattered a formation of 60 German bombers escorted by eight BF-109s.

German pilots developed respect for the Cobra.

Ga Ral, the Luftvafer’s third highest scoring ace with 275 victories, stated plainly that in capable hands, the P39 was a challenge to the BF 109 FNG models.

Gard Barkhorn, the second highest scoring ace in history with 301 victories, shot down over 20 P39s.

But on the 31st of May 1944, near Hushi in Romania, a P39 Araco Cobra shot him down, shattering his right kneecap and requiring 5 months of recovery.

The war’s final aerial encounters bookend the Araco Cobra’s story symmetrically.

On the 8th of May 1945, a Soviet P39Q became the last aircraft shot down by the Luft Vafer when Lieutenant Fritz Steelely of JG7 destroyed it with his Messi 262 jet.

The very next day, a Soviet P39 destroyed a Fauler Wolf FW189 near Prague.

The last luftafa aircraft killed in the conflict.

Several myths persist about the Araco Cobra.

The tumbling problem was real but conditional.

When Nose ammunition was expended, the center of gravity shifted after making the aircraft prone to flat spins that could become unreoverable.

Bell’s factory test pilots conducted extensive spin testing in August 1943 without reproducing the tumble.

because all testing used simulated full ammunition loads.

Decades later, NACA and NASA spin tunnel research confirmed the conditional nature of the phenomenon.

When a spin tunnel model was rebalanced to simulate empty ammunition, it tumbled with full loads.

Behavior was normal.

The tank buster myth persists in Western accounts.

In reality, the Soviets never received armor-piercing ammunition for the 37 mm cannon.

Only 1.2 million rounds of M54 high explosive shells were delivered through lend lease.

The P-39’s primary mission was air-to-air combat and providing air coverage over ground forces, not close air support.

Soviet kill tallies remain actively disputed.

Pushkin’s official 59 victories have been revised downward by historian Mikuel Beoff to 43 individual plus three shared, while Pushkin’s own notebook suggests the true figure may exceed 100.

Soviet policy did not confirm kills whose wreckage fell in enemy territory.

The practice of crediting a fallen pilot squadron mate’s kills to his account to secure family bonuses further complicates the record.

Bell aircraft’s Buffalo New York plant produced approximately 9,500 Aeracco Cobras from 1940 to August 1944, though sources site slightly varying totals.

The P39N and P39Q variants together constituted the majority of production.

About 4,700 to 4,800 went to the Soviet Union.

Around 4,000 went to the USAAF.

Fewer than 80 saw operational use with the RAF.

Small numbers served with the free French air force and company belligerent Italy.

The era Cobra’s story is ultimately about the gap between design intention and operational reality.

The August 1939 decision to remove the turbo supercharger transformed an intended highaltitude interceptor into an aircraft that was a square peg for the RAF’s round hole, but a perfect fit for Soviet lowaltitude doctrine.

The 37 millimeter cannon that was irrelevant in high altitude sweeps over France became a one-shot killer in the swirling dog fights above the Cuban.

The short range that limited Western European operations was irrelevant when Soviet airfield sat within artillery range of the front.

British test pilots identified the Aracobra’s fundamental limitation within weeks of receiving it.

The RAF’s decision to abandon the aircraft was not failure.

It was recognition that a fighter designed for one war was unsuited to another.

when 1,178 P39s still stood on Soviet airfields at wars end and Soviet combat losses totaled just 1,030 across the entire conflict.

The numbers vindicate both judgments.

The RAF was right to reject the Ara Cobra for their needs.

The Soviets were right to embrace it for theirs, and the Luftvafer learned to fear it either way.

The aircraft that saw only limited RAF service spent 3 years terrorizing German pilots over the deadliest front on Earth.

From Mmansk to the Caucusesus, from Stalingrad to Berlin, Soviet pilots proved that context determines whether a weapon succeeds or fails.

What the RAF saw as an unsuitable fighter, the Soviets turned into a devastating weapon through adaptation and doctrinal fit.

British judgment ensured the right aircraft flew over the channel.

Soviet adaptation ensured the rejected Araco Cobra found its war.

Pushkin’s formula endures as the Aracobra’s epitth.