Subject: Number Sixty-One in the Series--Northrop P-61 Black Widow (10 of 10)

From: [email-masked]
Date: 12 Apr 93 14:58:54 GMT

>From [email-masked]

This story of the P-61 Black Widow concludes with an account of its 
post-war service as experimental and test aircraft.  A description is 
also given of some P-61s that survive today in museums.  

The useful life of the Black Widow was extended for a few years into 
the immediate postwar period due to the USAAF's problems in developing 
a useful jet-powered night/all-weather fighter.  The Curtiss P-87 had 
initially been scheduled as the jet-powered replacement for the Black 
Widow, but the failure of the XP-87 project forced the Black Widow to 
have to soldier on for another few years.  Replacement of the Black 
Widow by F-82F Twin Mustangs night fighters began in early 1948.  By 
early 1950, most Black Widows were out of operational service.  The 
last operational Black Widow left Japan in May 1950, missing the 
Korean War by only a month.  

P-61B-1-NO serial number 42-39458 was operated by the Navy at the 
Patuxent River test facility in Maryland in a number of tests.  
P-61A-10-NO serial number 42-39395 was subjected by the Navy to a 
series of test catapult launches to qualify the aircraft for shipboard 
launches, but so far as I am aware the Black Widow was never flown 
from an aircraft carrier.  

Shortly after the war, the Navy borrowed two P-61Cs (43-8336 and 
43-8347) from the USAAF and used them for air-launches of the 
experimental Martin PTV-N-2U Gorgon IV ramjet-powered missile.  The 
first Gorgon launch took place on November 14, 1947.  In the role as 
mother ship, the Black Widow would carry a Gorgon under each wing.  
During launch, the P-61C would go into a slight dive in order to reach 
the speed necessary for ramjet operation to be initiated.  These two 
naval Black Widows were returned to the USAF in 1948, and were 
transferred to the boneyards shortly afterwards.  

A Black Widow participated in early American ejector seat experiments 
performed shortly after the war.  The Germans had pioneered the 
development of ejector seats early in the war, the first-ever 
emergency use of an ejector seat having been made on January 14, 1942 
by a Luftwaffe test pilot when he escaped from a disabled Heinkel He 
280 V1.  American interest in ejector seats during the war was largely 
a side-effect of the developmental work done on pusher aircraft such 
as the Vultee XP-54, with the goal being giving the pilot at least 
some slim chance of clearing the tail assembly and the propeller of 
the aircraft in the case of an emergency escape.  However, not very 
much progress had been made, since pusher aircraft development had 
never really gotten past the drawing board or the initial prototype 
stage.  However, the development of high-speed jet-powered aircraft 
made the development of practical ejector seats mandatory.  Initially, 
an ejector seat was "borrowed" from a captured German Heinkel He 162 
and was installed in a Lockheed P-80 in August of 1945.  However, it 
was decided that the single-seat P-80 would not be suitable for these 
tests, and it was decided to switch to a three-seat Black Widow.  A 
P-61B-5-NO (serial number 42-39489) was modified for the tests, the 
ejector seat being fitted in the forward gunner's compartment.  The 
aircraft was redesignated XP-61B for these tests (there having been no 
XP-61B prototype for the initial P-61B series).  A dummy was used in 
the initial ejection tests, but on April 17, 1946 a brave volunteer by 
the name of Sgt.  Lawrence Lambert was successfully ejected from the 
P-61B at a speed of 302 mph at 7800 feet.  With the concept having 
been proven feasible, newer jet-powered aircraft were brought into the 
program, and the XP-61B was reconverted back to standard P-61B 
configuration.  

Nine P-61Cs participated in tests designed to measure the hazards of 
thunderstorms.  This was very dangerous work, as thunderstorms were 
very poorly understood in those days (and still are today) and 
aircraft unlucky enough or unwise enough to fly into them often did 
not come out again in one piece.  These tests were carried out 
initially by Army pilots.  Later, some F-15 Reporters also joined the 
project.  Trans World Airlines also got involved in the project and 
professors and staff at the University of Chicago participated in the 
analysis of the data.  

The last USAF F/RF-61C finally left USAAF service in 1952.  Surviving 
aircraft were offered to civilian governmental agencies or declared 
surplus and offered for sale on the commercial market.  

An RF-61C (ex-F-15A, serial number 45-59300) was used by NACA at 
Moffett Field in California to carry recoverable aerodynamic test 
bodies to high altitude, then drop them.  This program was used to 
test some early swept-wing designs.  This program was later joined by 
F-61C serial number 43-8330 which was borrowed from the Smithsonian 
Institution.  These drops were carried out over Edwards Air Force Base 
in the Mojave Desert in California.  F-61B-15-NO serial number 
42-39754 was used by NACA's Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in 
Cleveland, Ohio for tests of airfoil-type ramjets.  F-61C 43-8357 was 
used at Ames as a source for spare parts for other F/RF-61 aircraft.  
After the tests were completed, the F-61C 43-8330 was returned to the 
Smithsonian Institution.  

In 1955, the NACA RF-61C and F-61C aircraft were finally declared 
surplus and were disposed of on the commercial market.  In April 1955, 
Steward-Davis, Inc of Gardenia, California purchased the RF-61C 
45-59300 and the "spare parts" F-61C 43-8357.  The RF-61C was assigned 
the civilian registration N5093V, and the F-61C was given the number 
N5094V.  The F-61C was rebuilt as a high-altitude mapping plane, and 
was offered on the commercial market.  However, it attracted no 
customers and was finally scrapped in 1957.  The RF-61C was sold to 
Compania Mexicana Aerofoto S.  A.  of Mexico, and was assigned the 
Mexican registration XB-FUJ.  It was bought by Aero Enterprises, Inc 
of California and returned to the USA in 1964.  It now carried the 
civilian registration number N9768Z.  The fuselage tank and 
turbosupercharger intercoolers were removed, and the plane was fitted 
with a 1600-gallon chemical tank for fire-fighting.  At the end of 
1964, the plane was purchased by Cal-Nat, which operated the plane as 
a forest-fire fighter.  In March of 1968, the plane was bought by TBM, 
Inc., an aerial firefighting company located in California (the name 
of the company standing for the TBM Avenger, which was the company's 
primary equipment).  It was destroyed in a takeoff accident on 
September 16, 1968.  

A few other Black Widows also ended up in the civilian market.  
P-61B-1-NO serial number 42-39419 had been bailed to Northrop during 
most of its military career.  Northrop bought the plane from the 
government at the end of the war, and the civilian registration number 
NX30020 was assigned to it.  It was used as an executive transport, as 
a flight-test chase plane, and for tests with advanced navigational 
equipment.  Later it was purchased by the Jack Ammann Photogrammetric 
Engineers, a photo-mapping company based in Texas.  In 1963, it was 
sold to an aerial tanker company and used for fighting forest fires.  
However, it crashed while fighting a fire on August 23, 1963, killing 
its pilot.  

YP-61 serial number 41-18888 was purchased by Pratt & Whitney in 1946.  
The civilian serial number was N60358, and it was used as a flying 
testbed for advanced propellers.  However, it was damaged during a 
taxiing accident in 1956, and was deemed unsuitable for repair.  It 
was subsequently scrapped.  

Northrop Aeronautical Institute (an aviation educational institution, 
a part of Northrop Aircraft Co.) purchased a surplus P-61C-1-NO 
(serial number 43-8349) in late 1947.  It was operated in the airframe 
and engine maintenance training program of the school.  In 1963, 
Northrop sold the school, and many of its planes were offered for 
sale.  The Bob Bean Aircraft company thought that they could make the 
P-61C airworthy, and obtained the civilian registration number N4905V 
for the craft.  However, upon closer examination they found that the 
Black Widow was so full of corrosion that it was not worth fixing.  
N4905V was scrapped in 1955.  

I am aware of only three surviving P-61 Black Widows, all of them in 
museums.  

P-61C-1-NO serial number 43-8352 is currently on display at the 
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Museum in Dayton, Ohio.  It is marked 
as P-61B-1-NO serial number 42-39468.  

The Smithsonian Institution's P-61C (43-8330) is reportedly in storage 
at the Silver Hill facility in Suitland, Maryland, awaiting 
much-needed restoration work.  I was at Silver Hill in November of 
1992, and I didn't see it there at at that time.  However, there were 
only a couple of buildings that I was allowed to enter, and there are 
a lot of really intriguing buildings that I did not get a chance to 
see.  Perhaps the Smithsonian's Black Widow is in one of them.  

There is a P-61A on display at the Beijing Institute of Aeronautical 
Engineering in Beijing, China.  I am unaware of its serial number.  
The story of how it got there is sort of interesting.  It seems that 
the 427th Night Fighter Squadron based in China during the war was in 
preparation for the return home after the end of hostilities.  Just as 
they were were about to leave, some Communist troops came onto the 
field and ordered the Americans to get out immediately, but to leave 
their aircraft behind.  The Beijing Institute Black Widow may be one 
of the three P-61Cs seized at that time.  There may be other Black 
Widows in other locations in China.  

Sources:

  Northrop P-61 Black Widow--The Complete History and Combat Record,
  Garry R. Pape, John M. Campbell and Donna Campbell, Motorbooks 
  International, 1991.

  The American Fighter, Enzo Angelucci and Peter Bowers, Orion, 1987.

  Warplanes of the Second World War, Fighters, Volume 4, William 
  Green, 1964.

  American Combat Planes, Ray Wagner, Third Enlarged Edition, Doubleday, 
  1982.
 
  United States Military Aircraft since 1909, Gordon Swanborough and 
  Peter M. Bowers, Smithsonian, 1989.

Joe Baugher		AT&T Bell Laboratories   	
2000 North Naperville Road      Naperville, Illinois 60566-7033