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Northrup P-61 Black Widow (Night fighter)

F

Fredrocker

Guest
The Northrop P-61 Black Widow, named for the American spider, was the first operational U.S. military aircraft designed specifically for night interception of aircraft, and was the first aircraft specifically designed to use radar. It was an all-metal, twin-engine, twin-boom design developed during World War II. The first test flight was made on 26 May 1942, with the first production aircraft rolling off the assembly line in October 1944. The last aircraft was retired from government service in 1945.

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Although not produced in the large numbers of its contemporaries, the Black Widow was effectively operated as a night-fighter by United States Army Air Forces squadrons in the European Theater, the Pacific Theater, the China Burma India Theater and the Mediterranean Theater during World War II. It replaced earlier British-designed night-fighter aircraft that had been updated to incorporate radar when it became available. After the war, the F-61 served in the United States Air Force as a long-range, all weather, day/night interceptor for Air Defense Command until 1948, and Fifth Air Force until 1950.

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On the night of 14 August 1945, a P-61B of the 548th Night Fight Squadron named "Lady in the Dark" was unofficially credited with the last Allied air victory before VJ Day. The P-61 was also modified to create the F-15 Reporter photo-reconnaissance aircraft for the United States Air Force.

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P-61 "Black Widow" being unloaded in the South Pacific, 1943.
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I was in awe of this aircraft when I was a kid.
Made the Revell model and then hung it from my bedroom ceiling with sewing thread. My mother wasn't all that happy with multiple airplanes hanging from the ceiling, but Dad sided with me (he was a USAF Officer).
Do kids still make plastic models?
Realized I didn't really know all that much about it so this training video is interesting.


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I was in awe of this aircraft when I was a kid.
Made the Revell model and then hung it from my bedroom ceiling with sewing thread. My mother wasn't all that happy with multiple airplanes hanging from the ceiling, but Dad sided with me (he was a USAF Officer).
Do kids still make plastic models?
Realized I didn't really know all that much about it so this training video is interesting.


7cwGy3z.jpg

Gah! Had the exact same one, but was always in 95% completion status. Pretty sure its still buried amongst a pile of my old stuff at the old mans somewhere. I think it was the windows that did me in!
 
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It packed a punch all right.
Armament
Guns: ** 4 × 20 mm (.79 in) Hispano AN/M2 cannon in ventral fuselage, 200 rounds per gun
4 × .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns in remotely operated, full-traverse upper turret, 560 rpg

"There are only four Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighters known. Of those four, only one is under active restoration, and not just restoration, but to fly. James Kightly recounts the story of this machine, which was the subject of an epic recovery and restoration project driven by WW II veteran Eugene ‘Pappy’ Strine, co-founder of the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum."

 
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