The U.S. had done relatively little work on jet-powered aircraft by 1941. As part of a technology exchange program with England, the U.S. received a Whittle turbojet. General Electric was given the job of improving it and Bell, located nearer the GE facilities than other aircraft makers, was given the job of creating the aircraft. The result was a mid-wing plane of fairly conventional appearance. It mounted two engines, one per side, blended into the fuselage and lower wing. Tricycle landing gear was used. To maintain secrecy, the plane was given the designation XP-59, which had originally been allocated for a different plane (never built). Also, a fake propeller was attached to the nose whenever the plane was moved around outside.
The plane first flew in late 1942. Early on, it became apparent that the performance of the aircraft left a bit to be desired. It was not faster than other new designs and it had a tendency to pitch and yaw, which made it completely useless as a fighter. In the end, this problem could not be solved and production ended with only 66 planes being built (30 of the -B model). The existing planes were used as trainers for the new generation of jet fighters. Bell was unable to take up the suggestion of modifying the airframe to use just one turbojet; Lockheed took over the project that eventually resulted in the P-80 Shooting Star.
With its large wing area and relatively low weight, the XP-59A made a good glider. This was appreciated by the test pilots, as they had to glide back to base on several occasions after running out of fuel.
The P-59B uses 180 gallons of jet fuel per hour at routine usage.
Subassemblies: Medium Fighter chassis +3, Light FB WIngs with
STOL option +3, three retractable wheels +1.
P&P: 2¥2,000-lb thrust turbojets and 290-gallon self-sealing
fuel tank [Body].
Occ: 1 CS Cargo: 0.5 Body
| Armor | F | R/L | B | T | U |
| All | 2/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 | 2/3 |
| Cockpit | 0/+30 | 0/0 | 0/+30 | 0/0 | 0/0 |
Weaponry
37mm Medium Aircraft AC /M-4 [Body:F] (45)*
3¥Very Long Aircraft HMGs /M-2 [Body:F] (200 each)*
*link fires all four guns
Equipment
Body: Medium radio receiver and transmitter, navigation instruments,
autopilot.
Statistics
| Size: 39'x46'x12' | Payload: 1.98 tons | Lwt: 5.52 tons |
| Volume: 200 vsp | Maint.: 42 hours | Price: $22,800 |
HT: 9
HP: 240 [body], 160 [each wing], 24 [each wheel]
| aSpeed: 413 | aAccel: 7 | aDecel: 21 | aMR: 5 | aSR: 2 | |
| Stall: 63 mph |
Design Notes
Design speed was 406 mph. The historical speed has been used, as well
as the actual wing area (386 square feet). Body and wing HPs, weight and
cost were doubled, but loaded weight still had to be increased by 17%.
Variants
The three X-P59A’s used 1,400-lb thrust engines.
Some of the 13 YP-59A’s used 1,650-lb thrust engines.
The 20 P-59A’s were generally similar to the -B model.
The original, cancelled XP-59 was a twin-boom plane in pusher configuration with counter-rotating propellers, a larger version of the also-cancelled XP-52. It is somewhat ironic that the projected performance of the defunct XP-59 was better than the actual performance of the P-59 …