P-61 Black Widow Units of World War 2

P-61 Black Widow Units of World War 2 PDF Author: Warren Thompson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782007407
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Book Description
The first aircraft to be purposely designed as a radar-equipped nightfighter, Northrop's P-61 Black Widow was heavily influenced by early RAF combat experience with radar-equipped aircraft in 1940/41. Built essentially around the bulky Radiation Laboratory SCR-720 radar, which was mounted in the aircraft's nose, the P-61 proved to be the largest fighter ever produced for frontline service by the USAAF. Twin-engined and twin-boomed, the Black Widow was armed with a dorsal barbette of four 0.50-in Browning machine guns and two ventrally-mounted 20 mm cannon. This volume features all the frontline users of the mighty P-61, and includes many first-hand accounts from pilots and gunners who saw action in the Pacific, Mediterranean and Western Europe.

P-61 Black Widow Units of World War 2

P-61 Black Widow Units of World War 2 PDF Author: Warren Thompson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782006788
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 213

Book Description
The first aircraft to be purposely designed as a radar-equipped nightfighter, Northrop's P-61 Black Widow was heavily influenced by early RAF combat experience with radar-equipped aircraft in 1940/41. Built essentially around the bulky Radiation Laboratory SCR-720 radar, which was mounted in the aircraft's nose, the P-61 proved to be the largest fighter ever produced for frontline service by the USAAF. Twin-engined and twin-boomed, the Black Widow was armed with a dorsal barbette of four 0.50-in Browning machine guns and two ventrally-mounted 20 mm cannon. This volume features all the frontline users of the mighty P-61, and includes many first-hand accounts from pilots and gunners who saw action in the Pacific, Mediterranean and Western Europe.

Combat Squadrons of the Air Force; World War II.

Combat Squadrons of the Air Force; World War II. PDF Author: United States. USAF Historical Division
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 856

Book Description
This collection of squadron histories has been prepared by the USAF Historical Division to complement the Division's book, Air Force Combat Units of World War II. The 1,226 units covered by this volume are the combat (tactical) squadrons that were active between 7 December 1941 and 2 September 1945. Each squadron is traced from its beginning through 5 March 1963, the fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the 1st Aero (later Bombardment) Squadron, the first Army unit to be equipped with aircraft for tactical operations. For each squadron there is a statement of the official lineage and data on the unit's assignments, stations, aircraft and missiles, operations, service streamers, campaign participation, decorations, and emblem.

Northrop's Night Hunter

Northrop's Night Hunter PDF Author: Jeff Kolln
Publisher: Specialty Press (MN)
ISBN: 9781580071222
Category : Black Widow (Night fighter plane)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
World War II changed the face of warfare forever. Now enemies were fighting and flying all night, which mandated that a fighter be developed that could carry a new technological invention aloft - radar. Northrop's Night Hunter covers the development history of the P-61 Black Widow and the radar built specifically for its use. The P-61 was the most successful Allied night fighter of the war, and flew combat in the China-Burma-India, European, and Pacific theaters of the war. This book details the aircraft's offensive and defensive systems, its operations, and covers its unique uses from missile testing to flights by the U.S. Navy.

P-61 Black Widow in Action

P-61 Black Widow in Action PDF Author: David Doyle
Publisher: MMD-Squadron
ISBN: 9780897477192
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Designed by Jack Northrop and Vladimir Pavlecka in response to a secret Army Air Corps request, the Northrop P-61, dubbed the Black Widow, became America's first purpose-built night fighter, and the largest and most heavily-armed operational fighter flown by the United States during World War II. Despite being the size of a medium bomber, the unique control surfaces of the P-61 made it surprisingly agile, and among its many successes was the downing of the final enemy aircraft of the war. This book tells the complete story of the Black Widow from the experimental XP-61 on through the final production variant, the F-15A Reporter photo-recon model. Illustrated throughout with 164 black and white and 30 vintage color photographs, four color profiles, and a dozen detailed line drawings.

Fighting the Night

Fighting the Night PDF Author: Paul Hendrickson
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0593321138
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
From the acclaimed and best-selling author of Hemingway’s Boat, the profoundly moving story of his father’s wartime service as a night fighter pilot, and the prices he and his fellow soldiers paid for their acts of selfless, patriotic sacrifice In the fall of 1944, Joe Paul Hendrickson, the author’s father, kissed his twenty-one-year-old wife and two baby children goodbye. The twenty-five-year-old first lieutenant, pilot of a famed P-61 Black Widow, was leaving for the war. He and his night fighter squadron were sent to Iwo Jima, where, for the last five and a half months of World War II, he flew approximately seventy-five missions, largely in pitch-black conditions. His wife would wait out the war at the home of her small-town Ohio parents, one of the countless numbers of American family members shouldering the burden of being left behind. Joe Paul, the son of a Depression-poor Kentucky sharecropper, was fresh out of high school in 1937 when he enlisted in mechanic school in the peacetime Army Air Corps. Eventually, he was able to qualify for flight school. After marriage, and with the war on, the young officer and his bride crisscrossed the country, airfield to airfield, base to base: Santa Ana, Yuma, Kissimmee, Bakersfield, Orlando, La Junta, Fresno. He volunteered for night fighters and the newly arrived and almost mythic Black Widow. A world away, the carnage continued. As Paul Hendrickson tracks his parents’ journey, together and separate, both stateside and overseas, he creates a vivid portrait of a hard-to-know father whose time in the war, he comes to understand, was something truly heroic, but never without its hidden and unhidden psychic costs. Bringing to life an iconic moment of American history, and the tragedy of all wars, Fighting the Night is an intense and powerful story of violence and love, forgiveness and loss. And it is a tribute to those who got plunged into service, in the best years of their lives, and the sacrifices they and their loved ones made, then and thereafter.
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