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Bell XP59-A Airacomet

675 IamD  3.8 years ago

The Bell XP-59A Airacomet is widely regarded as the United States’ first jet aircraft. Its first flight was on October 1st, 1942, but it did not impress the Army Air Force and so they decided to cancel the contract. Only three of the ‘A’ variants were built before the ending of the project, powered by 2 × General Electric J31-GE-5 centrifugal-flow turbojet engines. In the end, none would see combat but they are still remembered as the first US turbojet fighter aircraft.
Armament:
-1 37 mm M10 auto-cannon carrying 44 rounds
(-The 37 mm is multi-role, but unless you like tickling ground targets, use it for aircraft.)
-3 50 cal M2 Browning heavy machine guns carrying 200 rounds per gun
-Up to 2,000 lbs (910 kg) of bombs
-Up to 8 x 60 lb (30 kg) rockets

Controls:
-VTOL for landing flaps
-AG-1 for external drop tanks

I’ve linked my blueprints as sort of a bibliography: https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?topic=49210.0

So I decided it was a worthy investment to get SP on Steam, and possibly put some actual effort into building a plane. You see, my account was made when I was playing on iOS, had never heard about Overload and Fine Tuner. Now that I’ve actually taken multiple days to make a plane based on blueprints and a few Wiki articles (yes, I used Wikipedia, sorry high school), I must say that the product is much more satisfying than making a plane and using the fictional tag to hide behind any impracticalities.

Most of all, enjoy. =D

General Characteristics

  • Created On Windows
  • Wingspan 31.0ft (9.5m)
  • Length 30.1ft (9.2m)
  • Height 8.5ft (2.6m)
  • Empty Weight 8,467lbs (3,840kg)
  • Loaded Weight 11,427lbs (5,183kg)

Performance

  • Power/Weight Ratio 0.589
  • Wing Loading 52.0lbs/ft2 (253.7kg/m2)
  • Wing Area 219.9ft2 (20.4m2)
  • Drag Points 3423

Parts

  • Number of Parts 125
  • Control Surfaces 7
  • Performance Cost 543