By Robert F. Dorr
The planning was done behind closed doors. The work was done at secret facilities. The result was the first operational American jet fighter—a plane that might have seen combat in World War II if things had gone differently.
In an important and secret meeting at the Ministry of Aircraft Production in London, British officials briefed U.S. Army Colonel A.J. Lyon and General Electric engineer D.R. Shoults on a new type of gas turbine powerplant for aircraft that did not use a propeller. Lyon, who represented Army Air Forces (AAF) commander Maj. Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold on technical matters talked a few days later to the brilliant British engineer Frank Whittle. Lyon also visited the British aircraft factory operated by Gloster where a new plane called the E.28/39 was taking shape. The Americans were learning about something that few people in the world knew about—the jet engine.
American air boss Arnold chose the Bell Aircraft Corporation of Buffalo, New York, to undertake a secret project known as MX 397. Only a handful of people around company president Larry Bell knew that the term referred to the first American jet fighter, which was soon renamed the XP-59A. Germany, Italy, and Britain were ahead of the United States in developing jet aircraft, but Americans were making faster progress than they are usually given credit for; they possessed considerable scientific know-how and they were good at keeping secrets.
Almost everything about the project was given labels that were designed to disguise the project’s real purpose and to fool German or Japanese agents. General Electric routinely referred to the engine it was developing with help from Britain’s Whittle as “our spare part.” The P-59 designation in the Army’s “pursuit” series of warplanes had previously been assigned to an aircraft that was never built; the number was reused to discourage attention.
Two of the world’s great scientific pioneers, Germany’s Hans von Obain and Whittle, were exploring gas turbine jet engines in parallel but separate efforts. Whittle secured a patent on a jet engine in 1930 but waited almost a decade for the British government to notice.
Germany’s tiny Heinkel He-178, under 25 feet in length and weighing just 3,565 pounds, made its first flight on August 27, 1939, using an S-3b turbojet designed by von Obain and his engineering team. It was the first jet aircraft in the world to fly.
Italy flew its Caproni-Campini CC.2, resembling a long cigar with wings, on August 17, 1940. The Italian aircraft had no propeller, relying on a piston-powered ducted fan to push it through the air. It was a “jet” in a sense but different in design from the gas turbine-powered planes being developed in Germany and Britain. The ducted fan concept never led anywhere, and no air force in the world ever fielded a warplane with this form of power.
Britain’s Gloster E.29/38 using Whittle’s W.1 turbojet engine finally took to the air on May 15, 1941. Later in life, Whittle would argue that if anyone had listened to him it could have happened a decade sooner. The serial number of the Gloster was W 4041/G, with the “G” indicating that an armed guard was required at all times for the aircraft.
The Heinkel, the Caproni, and the Gloster were all flying test beds, laboratories for technology. None was ever expected to fulfill a military role. On the other hand, Bell Aircraft, which was in the process of manufacturing 9,529 of its P-39 Airacobra and 3,303 P-63 Kingcobra prop-driven fighters, many for the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease, had no intention of being satisfied with a test bed. From the start, Larry Bell’s company intended to create a jet fighter capable of combat.
As 1941 and 1942 unfolded, the size, shape, and inner workings of the turbojet engine were being altered and revised as Bell, General Electric engineers, and Whittle collaborated. Two British samples of Whittle’s turbojet engine were secretly whisked to the General Electric laboratory in Lynn, Massachusetts, in the bomb bay of a Consolidated B-24 Liberator.
Why Bell Labs?
Much of the technical work was done in a building belonging to General Electric in Lynn, chosen because it looked bland and plain and was marked with a sign on the door reading “MISCELLANEOUS.” General Electric later boasted that its engine, largely copied with permission from Whittle’s work, had but two moving parts, a pair of impellers, and that its compact shape, dictated by the centrifugal flow of air passing through the engine, made it practical for many applications on aircraft.
It has never been completely clear why Bell was chosen. Its P-39 and P-63, after all, were mediocre. Brig. Gen. Benjamin W. Chidlaw, who was overseeing Anglo-American cooperation on jet engine development on Arnold’s staff, wrote in a document, “Bell [has] certain isolated facilities which could be made readily available to start this project under the strict conditions of the ‘SECRET’ classification as imposed by General Arnold.” Chidlaw also liked the fact that Bell’s Buffalo plant was relatively close to General Electric’s Schenectady and Lynn facilities.
In fact, it was the existence of the XP-59A that was classified “secret” and also required the equivalent of what today would be called a compartmentalized security clearance. Many details of the engineering work on the General Electric engine and the XP-59A were officially top secret. That would change over time, but in 1941 and 1942 when the XP-59A was being built the project was so hush-hush that not even the Army Air Forces plant residen
A Then-Remote Development Location
Larry Bell was an aviation executive who hated to fly. He chose as XP-59A project manager his chief test pilot, Robert M. Stanley, who loved to fly but hated executive duties. In June 1942, Stanley took over the project for the company and began making arrangements to ship the first XP-59A to a remote test site he had never heard of before.
The location was Muroc Army Air Field located between the San Bernardino and Shadow Mountains and named in reverse for the Corum brothers who had settled the area. Chidlaw called it “way to hell and gone” away from Los Angeles. The site offered remoteness and the hard surface of Rodgers Dry Lake. In mid-1942, engineers and technicians began arriving there, many of them unaware of the purpose for their transfer to the California high desert. Today, Muroc is known as Edwards Air Force Base and no longer feels nearly as remote as it did then.
The first operational fighter, not a test bed, to take to the air was Germany’s Messerschmitt Me-262 on March 25, 1942. The XP-59A was not far behind. Stanley took the aircraft on its maiden flight at Muroc on October 1, 1942. Britain’s two operational wartime jets, the Gloster Meteor and De Havilland Vampire, made their baptismal flights on March 5, 1943, and September 20, 1943, respectively.
The United States was also developing the Lockheed P-80, later called the F-80 Shooting Star, which first flew on January 8, 1944. Like Whittle, the Lockheed Skunk Works’ brilliant engineer, Clarence L. “Kelly” Johnson, had urged development of a jet years earlier and had been rebuffed to the extent that the P-80 was now far behind the XP-59A in its development. Of all of these pioneering jet designs, only the Me-262 and the Meteor saw combat in World War II and only in limited numbers.
Stanley reported that the XP-59A had enormous potential. But even at the time of its initial flight, he and others were questioning whether it would ever see combat. Yes, the XP-59A had been conceived as a fighter and not just as a flying guinea pig, but despite its advantages the Airacomet, as it was nicknamed, was not much faster or much more maneuverable than prop-driven fighters like the North American P-51 Mustang and the Vought F4U Corsair.
Upgrading the Guns
Not having a propeller up front meant that the Airacomet’s armament of three Browning M2 .50-caliber machine guns and one M-10 37mm cannon could be placed in the nose and positioned to fire straight ahead rather than placed in the wing and positioned to converge. This made the XP-59A a better gunfighter than any prop-driven warplane, but early tests also showed that it was an unstable gun platform. Stanley reported that the entire aircraft shook when he pulled the trigger.
By mid-1943, five XP-59A Airacomets were in the test program at Muroc and at Wright Field, Ohio. The Army Air Forces had placed orders for 300, or enough planes for about nine combat squadrons. The first aircraft was modified with an open cockpit in front of the pilot, to enable an observer to monitor and record test flights. In November 1943, there were 13 pre-production XP-59As in inventory, some with improved versions of the General Electric engine. The Army turned three of them over to the Navy. They went to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, to introduce Navy pilots to the unique characteristics of jet-powered aircraft.
When it became apparent that the XP-59A would not be tangling with Messerschmitts or Mitsubishis, the number of aircraft built was reduced to 66, including three XP-59As, 13 YP-59As, 20 P-59As, and 30 P-59Bs, all with only minor differences and with progressively improved versions of the General Electric engine.
No photograph of an XP-59A had yet appeared in public, and officials in the newly constructed Pentagon building had released no details about the project or about the P-80 that Lockheed was developing separately and had yet to fly.
A 1940s “Black Program”
Both the XP-59A and the P-80 were part of what would be called a “black program” in today’s parlance, not outlined in traditional budgeting documents, revealed to only a select few on Capitol Hill, and unknown to the public until late 1944. In the book Flame Powered, historian David M. Carpenter wrote: “All of the jet propulsion projects were originally placed in a ‘SPECIAL SECRET’ category and this classification remained in effect until May 1943 when the project was reduced to ‘SECRET.’ In November 1943, the security classification was reduced to ‘COINFIDENTIAL,’ with the actual airplane performance remaining ‘SECRET,’ and, finally, in August 1944 this classification was further reduced to ‘Restricted.’”
On several occasions when an Airacomet was moved by ground transportation, a fake propeller covered by a tarpaulin was placed on the nose of the aircraft to deceive any observer about the source of its power.
In 1944, in exchange for a Gloster Meteor, the Pentagon sent a YP-59A (the “Y” suffix meant “service test”) to Britain’s test center at Farnborough, England. The aircraft was given Royal Air Force serial number RJ 362/G, with the “G” once again signaling a need for an armed guard. Britain was making good progress with its Meteor, which saw limited combat, mostly against German V-1 pulse-jet buzz bombs, and its Vampire, which did not see action during the war, so Royal Air Force officers exhibited only a little interest in the Airacomet and evaluated it only briefly. They shared the view that while it was an epoch-making advance in aviation it was not suitable for combat. By then, ultra long-range P-51 Mustangs were escorting bombers over Berlin and flying at least as fast as the Airacomet could fly.
Nevertheless, the Airacomet became operational. In June 1945, the Army Air Forces stood up the 412th Fighter Group at Muroc. The war ended weeks later, and the group was transferred to March Field near Riverside, California. By then, everyone knew the Airacomet would not live up to the initial expectation that it could serve as an operational, combat-ready fighter. The P-80 had begun flying and was demonstrating superior performance. Moreover, a dozen other jet designs were in the postwar pipeline, including the immortal North American F-86 Saber of Korean War fame. Once top secret, the XP-59A, YP-59A, P-59A, and P-59B Airacomets were now handy “hacks” to teach pilots the basics of single-seat jet flying.
Captain Eugene A. Wink of the 412th was one of the first line military pilots to fly the Airacomet. He had flown the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt in combat in Europe and had been impressed with its ruggedness. In contrast, “the Airacomet seemed a little flimsy, a little fragile,” Wink recalled. He said, however, that it “could turn on a dime” and “I always wondered what it would be like to get into a dogfight with it.”
In 1949, the Air Force finally retired the last example of its first operational jet fighter, which was developed with high hopes, blazed new trails, but ultimately proved to be something of a disappointment.
Robert F. Dorr is a U.S. Air Force veteran, a retired diplomat, and author of the book Air Force One, a look at presidential aircraft and air travel.
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