XP-59, America’s first jet plane. The Bell P-59 Airacomet was a twin jet-engined fighter aircraft, the first produced in the United States, designed and built by Bell Aircraft during World War II. The United States Army Air Forces were not impressed by its performance and canceled the contract when fewer than half of the aircraft ordered had been produced. Although no P-59s entered combat, the fighter paved the way for another design generation of U.S. turbojet-powered aircraft and was the first turbojet fighter to have its turbojet engine and air inlet nacelles integrated within the main fuselage.
Major General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold became aware of the UK’s jet program when he attended a demonstration of the Gloster E.28/39 in April 1941. The subject had been mentioned, but not in-depth, as part of the Tizard Mission the previous year. He requested, and was given, the plans for the aircraft’s powerplant, the Power Jets W.1, which he took back to the U.S. He also arranged for an example of the engine, the Whittle W.1X turbojet, to be flown to the U.S in October 1941 in the bomb bay of a USAAC Consolidated B-24 Liberator, along with drawings for the more powerful W.2B/23 engine and a small team of Power Jets engineers.
On 4 September, he offered the U.S. company General Electric a contract to produce an American version of the engine, which subsequently became the General Electric I-A. On the following day, he approached Lawrence Dale Bell, head of Bell Aircraft Corporation, to build a fighter to utilize it.
Bell agreed and set to work on producing three prototypes. As a disinformation tactic, the USAAF gave the project the designation “P-59A”, to suggest it was a development of the unrelated Bell XP-59 fighter project which had been canceled. The design was finalized on 9 January 1942, and construction began. In March, long before the prototypes were completed, an order for 13 “YP-59A” preproduction machines was added to the contract.
[Source, Wiki].
Bell XP-59 Airacomet
Span: 45ft 6in (13.87m)
Length: 38ft 2in (11.63 m)
Height: 12ft 4in (3.76 m)
Powerplant: Two General Electric I-A’s (each 1,250lb (567kg) thrust)
Maximum speed: 404 mph
Weight: Empty 7,320lb (3,320 kg), Loaded 12,562lb (5,698 kg)
Armament: 2x 37mm cannons
Range: 400 miles
