Northrop P-61 Black Widow ("Black Widow") - American heavy night fighter, designed and produced during the Second World War. In addition to its rather unusual appearance and outstanding dimensions for a fighter, this aircraft was the first American fighter that was specially designed for night operations. The first flight of the aircraft took place on May 26, 1942, and the operation of the "Black Widow" continued until 1952. In total, 706 aircraft of this type were produced by Northrop enterprises during serial production: 215 P-61A fighters, 450 - P-61V and 41 - P-61C.
At the very beginning of World War II, the United States simply did not have night fighters. This was mainly due to the belated start of the development of similar aircraft and radar guidance for fighters. The creation of specialized night aircraft stalled, since there was no experience in their combat use. In contrast to the European theater of operations, the air war in the Pacific Ocean and on the territory of China was fought mainly during the day and in good weather; Japanese aviation was not active at night. In turn, in Europe, after the failure of the daytime Luftwaffe raids on Britain, the Germans switched to night raids.
Despite this, the American military insisted on the need to have specialized night fighter-interceptors in service with the Air Force, predicting a sharp increase in the activity of the Japanese Air Force at night. But regarding a particular aircraft, the opinions of the military differed. Some advocated the use of the British night fighters Bristol Beaufighter and De Havilland Mosquito, already tested in combat, and some advocated their own American project, the Northrop P-61 night fighter. In the end, the American command settled on the Northrop P-61 Black Widow fighter, before the start of its serial production, the US Air Force had only a limited number of "early maturing" night fighters - adapted for night operations versions of the "Lighting" model P-38M and a specialized version bomber A-20 "Havok". These combat aircraft, with the exception of a small number of "experimental" cases, were used only in the United States to train and train crews.
YP-61 - pre-production series during a test flight, photo: waralbum.ru
As a result, the Northrop P-61 Black Widow became the only American combat aircraft produced during the Second World War, which was originally developed exclusively as a specialized night fighter. In addition, the Northrop P-61 became the heaviest and largest fighter to enter service with the USAAF during World War II. This fighter first took part in hostilities in the summer of 1944 in the South Pacific, and after the end of hostilities it remained the standard USAAF night fighter until 1952, when the aircraft was discontinued.
The P-61 night fighter was developed by a group of engineers led by designer John Northrop; work on the aircraft has been actively carried out since the summer of 1940, while Northrop itself was founded only in August 1939. Already on January 10, 1941, the US military signed a contract with the company for the construction of 10 night fighters, which received the army designation XP-61. The contract for the first prototypes on March 10, 1941 was followed by a contract for the production of 13 YP-61 fighters for operational tests and another machine for static tests.
Already on December 24, 1941, even before the production of the first prototype of the new aircraft, a contract was signed with Northrop for the production of 100 serial P-61 fighters and their supply with the necessary number of spare parts. On January 17, 1942, the military ordered 50 more aircraft, and on February 12, the order was increased by 410 aircraft, 50 of which were planned to be delivered to the Royal Air Force of Great Britain as part of the lend-lease agreement. Subsequently, the order for the RAF was canceled, and the order for the United States Air Force was increased to 1,200 aircraft.
P-61A from the 419th Night Fighter Squadron
In the process of creating the first prototype XP-61, due to various changes in its design, the take-off weight of the aircraft was constantly increasing. By the time the fighter was ready, its dry weight was already 10 150 kg, and the take-off weight reached 13 460 kg. Taxi testing of the new night fighter began almost immediately after the assembly of the first aircraft. And already on May 26, 1942, the first prototype XP-61, equipped with two Pratt & Whitney R-2800-25 Double Wasp radial engines, took to the skies for the first time, the car was lifted into the air by Northrop test pilot Vance Brice. The first flight lasted only 15 minutes, while the pilot already noted that the plane was perfectly controlled.
The second XP-61 flight prototype was ready on November 18, 1942. From the outset, this aircraft was painted a shiny black color, which helped give the night fighter its name - Black Widow - in honor of the spider widespread in the Americas. It is worth noting that covering the plane with black paint was not someone's whim. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology specially created a paint that was supposed to make the night fighter invisible when the plane fell into the beams of enemy searchlights. The best paint for this purpose turned out to be glossy black, which was invisible 80 percent of the time it passed the spotlight.
Aircraft Northrop P-61 Black Widow
The P-61 Black Widow night fighter was an all-metal cantilever mid-wing that was built according to a two-boom configuration. The power plant of the aircraft included two powerful piston twin-row radial Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines, the power of which reached 2x2250 hp. The engine nacelles went into the tail booms, the keels were made in one piece with the booms and stabilizers located between the keels. The fighter's unique two-boom configuration made it possible to place its crew in a large gondola, which was installed on the center section. The landing gear of the aircraft is tricycle, retractable, with a nose strut.
The crew of the night fighter consisted of three people - a pilot, a gunner and a radar operator. The front two-seater cockpit housed the workplaces of the pilot and the radar operator, who sat behind him and above, as on modern attack helicopters. The shooter's workplace was located in the rear of the fuselage nacelle. Depending on the presence or absence of an upper turret with four 12, 7-mm machine guns, the gunner could be turned on or, on the contrary, excluded from the crew. Planes often flew with two crew members on board. At the same time, in some flights, even without the top turret, the shooter was included in the crew, but as an air observer.
Northrop P-61 Black Widow fighter scheme
A distinctive feature of the aircraft was that it was originally designed for use as a night fighter (as opposed to numerous modifications of conventional production vehicles used by the belligerents), equipped with an on-board radar and various electronic devices. The aircraft used an onboard radar interception system (Airborne Interception - AI). The development of the radar for the P-61 fighter was overseen by the National Research and Defense Committee, which set up a radar laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The preliminary development of the radar, designated AI-10 (army designation SCR-520), was completed by June 18, 1941. It was created on the basis of the British aircraft centimeter-range locator.
The SCR-520A radar included a search radio transmitter, which was located in the bow of the fighter, with a range of up to five miles. Also, this radar could be used as an on-board beacon, provide navigation assistance and be used for actions in connection as an answering machine "friend or foe". The SCR-520 radar operator in the P-61 Black Widow night fighter determined the air target and the direction to it, and the pilot guided the aircraft towards the target using instruments located in the center of his dashboard. Black Widow used airborne radar only to determine the course of intercepting an air target and the subsequent pursuit of an enemy aircraft. Having detected the target and approached it at a sufficient distance for attack, the pilot used an ordinary telescopic sight.
In essence, the Black Widow was a heavy and rather large aircraft that was extremely complex in terms of design. At the same time, outwardly the plane, to put it mildly, looked strange and seemed very large for a fighter. For example, its wing area was 61.53 m2, which is by a minute more than that of the heavy American all-weather fighter of the 4th generation F-15. The cockpit of the P-61 Black Widow night fighter was more spacious than that of many medium bombers of the time.
Northrop P-61 Black Widow 415th night fighter squadron at Van airfield in France, photo: waralbum.ru
The fighter's armament was truly impressive. In the lower part of the fuselage nacelle was located a battery of four aviation automatic 20-mm cannons. In addition to this, many aircraft had a rotating upper turret for four large-caliber 12.7 mm machine guns. The aircraft was a real "flying anti-aircraft battery", which was quite effective. None of the enemy aircraft could resist the salvo of this fighter. However, as the Black Widow was in operation, they began to abandon the upper fuselage turret, since air targets were guaranteed to be hit by a salvo of four cannons. In addition, the turret itself weighed 745 kg, so its dismantling provided the aircraft with a significant gain in speed and maneuverability. Among other things, when turning the turret, there was often such an effect as buffing the tail of a fighter. Sometimes, due to this effect, the turret was simply fixed in the forward position, it was impossible to rotate it.
The peculiarities of the aircraft could be attributed to the unusually powerful flaps. John Northrop understood better than many aircraft designers how important the coefficient of lift is for an aircraft, so his night fighter had flaps along almost the entire wingspan. The usual ailerons were small, but four sections of differential spoilers on each of the consoles also took part in the roll control. This design solution provided the Black Widow with excellent maneuverability, especially considering the size and weight of the fighter. Of course, in a daytime battle, neither this nor powerful weapons could have saved the plane from the German FW-190 fighter, but in the night sky the P-61 was superior in maneuverability to any twin-engine aircraft of its time.
The aircraft was built in three major series. The first was the P-61A version, with a total of 215 fighters produced. The first 45 cars received R-2800-10 engines, the next ones - R-2800-65. The first 38 aircraft were fired with an upper machine-gun turret, the rest without. At the same time, the turret was later installed on some P-61A aircraft. The second series - P-61B fighters, 450 aircraft were produced. This model was distinguished by minor design improvements, most had an upper machine-gun turret, as well as four underwing pylons for suspension of air-to-surface weapons. Another difference was the more powerful and sophisticated SCR-720C airborne radar. The third series - P-61C fighters, 41 aircraft were produced at the very end of the war. It was originally planned to build a series of 476 aircraft, but these plans were canceled. The aircraft were distinguished by the installation of more powerful R-2800-73 engines with CH-5 turbochargers, which developed a maximum power of 2800 hp. each. With these engines, the maximum speed of the fighter increased to 692 km / h.
American heavy night fighters P-61C "Black Widow" at the airport, photo: waralbum.ru
Combat use of the "Black Widow"
In total, 14 squadrons of night fighters armed with P-61 Black Widow aircraft took part in battles in all theaters of war. These squadrons were part of the 5th, 7th, 9th, 13th and 14th air armies. The first squadron to be re-equipped with new aircraft was the 6th Night Fighter Squadron (6 NFS), which was part of the 7th Air Force. She received new aircraft on May 1, 1944, at the time she was based at John Rogers Field in Hawaii. Since September 1944, the aircraft of this squadron took part in the hostilities over Saipan and Iwo Jima.
The 6 NFS pilots achieved their first night victory on June 30, 1944. On this day, during a night flight, the squadron's aircraft detected a group aerial target, which was then identified as a Japanese Mitsubishi G4M Betty bomber, accompanied by a Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter. The crew of the American aircraft from the first approach achieved hits in the left engine of the bomber, which fell into the sea and exploded near Saipan. At the same time, the escort fighter Mitsubishi A6M Zero did not manage to find the American plane. In total, the crews of the 6th night fighter squadron won 15 night victories until the end of World War II. One of the main combat missions of the "Black Widows" in this theater of operations was to protect the bases of B-29 strategic bombers on Saipan from enemy night raids. They also protected damaged B-29 bombers returning from combat missions to Japan from attacks.
The P-61 Black Widow fighters won their first victory in the European theater of operations on the night of July 15-16, 1944. The crew of 422 NFS shot down a German V-1 projectile, which was flying towards the English Channel. The V-1 was shot down from a distance of about 280 meters with 20-mm cannon fire. Hits into the power plant of the projectile led to the fact that it first entered a steep dive, and then exploded over the English Channel. In the future, night fighters of this type were widely used against German projectile aircraft. At the same time, since the V-1 was slightly faster than the American fighters, they sometimes had to enter a small dive before the attack.
Three fighters P-61 "Black Widow" in the skies over France, photo: waralbum.ru
In total, during 1944-1945, in fact, the combat use of fighters fit into a calendar year, the crews of the Widows shot down 127 enemy aircraft and 18 V-1 shells. Unlike other American fighters such as the P-51 Mustang or P-47 Thunderbolt, the P-61 Black Widow did not boast an impressive number of aerial victories. But this had its own explanation, by the time the aircraft began to operate, the Allies already had overwhelming air superiority on all fronts, and the number of enemy aircraft participating in night flights was very limited, especially over the Pacific Ocean.
At the same time, in Europe, the activity of the Luftwaffe at night remained almost until the very end of the Second World War. Therefore, in this theater of operation, the P-61 Black Widow aircraft were used in the role for which they were designed - as night fighters. But in the Pacific, the situation developed differently. The Japanese practically did not fly at night. Therefore, the headquarters of the 5th and 13th air armies decided to re-target their existing night fighters for night attacks on enemy ground targets and direct fire support for the US Army and the Marine Corps. The powerful cannon armament of the P-61 Black Widow fighters, concentrated in the center of mass of the aircraft, made it possible to hit ground targets with high accuracy and very effectively. Additionally, under the wings of the aircraft, pylons could be installed to suspend bombs, unguided missiles and tanks with napalm, which only supplemented the already monstrous onboard salvo of this "flying battery". So in the spring and summer of 1945, Black Widow night fighters were actively used in the Philippines to support ground forces, mainly attacking targets in the daytime.
Flight performance: Northrop P-61 Black Widow (P-61B):
Overall dimensions: length - 15, 11 m, height - 4, 47 m, wingspan - 20, 12 m, wing area - 61, 53 m2.
The empty weight of the aircraft is 10,637 kg.
Maximum takeoff weight - 16 420 kg.
Power plant - two double-row radial engines Pratt & Whitney R-2800-65W "Double Wasp" with a capacity of 2x2250 hp.
The maximum flight speed is 589 km / h (at an altitude of 6095 m).
Cruising flight speed - 428 km / h.
The rate of climb is 12.9 m / s.
Combat radius - 982 km.
Ferry range (with PTB) - 3060 km.
Service ceiling - 10 600 m.
Armament: 4 × 20 mm Hispano AN / M2 cannon (200 rounds per barrel) and 4x12, 7-mm M2 Browning machine gun (560 rounds per barrel).
Crew - 3 people (pilot, gunner, radar operator).
