The
Bell P-39 Airacobra is one of the most instantly recognizable aircraft of W.W. II due to its unique mid-engine layout and powerful propeller hub cannon.
Utterly forgotten today is the license-built Curtiss version, the ignoble P-39CC Curtiss Cobra.
Right on the eve of W.W. II Curtiss P-40 production was halted due to catastrophic pilot relief tube failures which were drenching the U.S. Army Air Corps. Until the problem could be sorted out, Curtiss was ordered to produce Bell P-39 Airacobras under contract.
OF course, the innovative folks at Curtiss weren't about to crank out some cookie-cutter aircraft. They were bound & determined to put their own unique stamp on things.
They took aim at the overly complex and sometimes dangerous Bell canopy & car doors which made egress in emergency problematic.
They discovered that by welding the car doors shut a`la NASCAR and replacing the canopy with one from the now-stalled P-40E design they greatly improved not only streamlining but pilot vision and safety.
The Air Corps Board was glad that Curtiss was ready to produce pursuits that wouldn't make the men wet themselves on missions and gave the new P-39 the go-ahead for mass production.
Unfortunately, mass production wasn't in the cards due to problems at all levels, from supply chain to tooling and only a handful of the new fighters were ever built. Designated the P-39CC for either Curtiss Cobra (to the G.I.s) or Curtiss Canopy (to stuffy officialdom), the unique fighters began dribbling out into service six months before the Pearl Harbor attack.
One of the P-39CCs would be assigned to a Capt. Sam Jones.
Capt. Jones grew up in bucolic small-town America having been raised in the farming hamlet of Mayberry.
With war looming on the horizon, Jones joined the army and soon found himself in the cavalry.
However, due to his physical prowess and incredibly acute eyesight he was soon transferred to the Air Corps which is how he found himself flying one of the new Curtiss-built P-39CCs in early 1942.
Capt. Jones's P-39 Curtiss Cobra was unique not only for the new canopy but also because it featured the latest in direction finding equipment topped off by an unmistakable ADF "football" antenna mounted just forward of the fin and rudder.
Unfortunately, this wouldn't prevent Capt. Jones from getting lost. Trusting in his advanced navigation aids and a little luck, he took off on the morning of March 3, 1942 headed for Maelstrom Army Air Base in Nebraska.
Capt. Jones's journey began with good weather promising a nice, easy flight.
Unfortunately, he became disoriented somewhere over the Delaware river valley.
After many fruitless attempts to get his bearings by adjusting the cutting-edge ADF, he had to admit he was well and truly lost.
Finally, recalling his time in the Boy Scouts, he remembered the legend of the lost chief Wild Beagle.
As the details of the apocryphal tale of the wandering Hekawi tribe came back, Capt. Jones's confidence rose and he became more certain of his course. He nosed his P-39 Curtiss Cobra in a determined direction.
Unfortunately the direction he chose was over air space that wasn't expecting him. When he overflew his old home-town of Mayberry, he got a welcome he wasn't counting on.
Capt. Jones immediately grabbed as much sky as he could given the limited high-altitude performance of the P-39.
He was just able to make it above the range of the ack-ack.
While this saved him and his P-39CC, nothing would save him from the publicity.
Capt. Jones flew to nearby Otis Field. Rather than risk having him getting lost again, the Air Corps assigned him there permanently and he spent the rest of the war protecting the skies over the Mayberry metropolitan area.
After the war, Capt. Jones's activities are mostly anonymous but for one notable exception.
As for the P-39 Curtiss Cobra, it has sunk into complete ignominy just like Capt. Jones. Once Curtiss worked out the P-40 pilot relief tube issues, they dropped license production of the Airacobra like a hot potato.
No Curtiss Cobras survived the war. Ironically the resolution of the P-40 pilot relief tube failures is well known in MBA circles as
the case study in industrial production problem matrix metrics.
That the P-39CC is practically unknown today is a shame since the fact that no enemy ever attacked Mayberry by air is a glowing testament to the capabilities of the long-forgotten aircraft.
Brian da Basher
