1/48 P-61C Black Widow

Since the Air Force of each country started paying their attention to the night bombing, the bombing became more effective than ever. To fight against the night bombing, a series of night fighters were put into use. The Americans started their night fighter program on 1940. The Army used the P-70 Havoc and Beaufighter to fight with the Japanese until the first 45 P-61 Black Widow were in active service in October, 1943.

But both the P-61A and P-61B were felt to have a deficiency in top speed and operational service ceiling. To improve the performance, two new more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2800C engines were applied. With this increase in power, the top speed and altitude were increased to 430mph and 30,000 feet.

Other changes on the P-61C were the wide chord propellers and special "fighter brakes" which allowed the P-61C to turn much tighter and avoid overshooting targets.

The Northrop P-61 was a three-seat, twin-engine night fighter, two-bar medium wing aircraft with retractable landing gear, adapted to operate from land bases. The prototype's flight took place in May 1942. The plane was made entirely of metal, initially of magnesium alloys, later of duralumin. The half-shell beam hulls were stiffened with metal frames. The crew cabin, located in the middle fuselage, housed a crew of three. The pilot sat in the front section, followed by the deck gunner, and finally the radar operator. In the turretless versions, the radar operator was moved to the gunner's cockpit, and there was an extra seat at the rear. The entire cabin was armored. The P-61 received an SCR-720 airborne radar with a range of 10 km, was located in the nose part of the fuselage, and was coupled to an IFF device for self-alien identification. The radar indications were received in the cockpit of the radar operator who sat at the rear of the fuselage. The armament consisted of four 12.7 mm machine guns mounted in a remotely controlled turret, which was not available on all versions of the aircraft, and four 20 mm cannons mounted in the fuselage. Each crew member had a sight, the pilot used it in typical fighter attacks, when the enemy's flight direction coincided with the flight of his own plane. In other cases, the fire was fired by a deck gunner, who was also a shooting tower operator. If it was necessary to defend against an attack from the rear, the duties of the shooter and the operation of the shooting turret were taken over by the radar operator. In addition, some machines, mainly operating in Europe, performed assault actions using bombs, unguided rockets or napalm tanks. 

• 1/48 scale unpainted plastic assembly kit