1:72 Bell XP-68A „Airagator“ (a.k.a.

“Barrelcobra”), second prototype; USAAF s/n 42-

228878; Muroc Dry Lake during flight test and evaluation, April 1944
(Whif/kitbashing)

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background
story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Bell XP-68A owed its existence to the manufacturer’s rather disappointing outcome of
its first jet fighter design, the XP-59A Airacomet. The Airacomet was a twin jet-engined
fighter aircraft, designed and built during World War II after Major General Henry H.
"Hap" Arnold became aware of the United Kingdom's jet program when he attended a
demonstration of the Gloster E.28/39 in April 1941. He requested, and was given, the plans
for the aircraft's powerplant, the Power Jets W.1, which he took back to the U.S. He also
arranged for an example of the engine, the Whittle W.1X turbojet, to be flown to the U.S.,
along with drawings for the more powerful W.2B/23 engine and a small team of Power
Jets engineers. On 4 September 1941, he offered the U.S. company General Electric a
contract to produce an American version of the engine, which subsequently became the
General Electric I-A. On the following day, he approached Lawrence Dale Bell, head of
Bell Aircraft Corporation, to build a fighter to utilize it. As a disinformation tactic, the
USAAF gave the project the designation "P-59A", to suggest it was a development of the
unrelated, canceled Bell XP-59 fighter project. The P-59A was the first design fighter to
have its turbojet engine and air inlet nacelles integrated within the main fuselage. The jet
aircraft’s design was finalized on 9 January 1942 and the first prototype flew in October of
the same year.

The following 13 service test YP-59As had a more powerful engine than their predecessor,
the General Electric J31, but the improvement in performance was negligible, with top
speed increased by only 5 mph and a slight reduction in the time they could be used before
an overhaul was needed. One of these aircraft, the third YP-59A, was supplied to the Royal
Air Force, in exchange for the first production Gloster Meteor I for evaluation and flight-
offs with domestic alternatives.

British pilots found that the YP-59A compared very unfavorably with the jets that they
were already flying. The United States Army Air Forces were not impressed by its
performance either and cancelled the contract when fewer than half of the originally
ordered aircraft had been produced. No P-59s entered combat, but the type paved the way
for the next design generation of U.S. turbojet-powered aircraft and helped to develop
appropriate maintenance structures and procedures.
In the meantime, a new, more powerful jet engine had been developed in Great Britain, the
Halford H-1, which became later better known as the De Havilland Goblin. It was another
centrifugal compressor design, but it produced almost twice as much thrust as the XP-
59A’s J31 engines. Impressed by the British Gloster Meteor during the USAAF tests at
Muroc Dry Lake - performance-wise as well as by the aircraft’s simplicity and ruggedness
- Bell reacted promptly and proposed an alternative fighter with wing-mounted engine
nacelles, since the XP-59A’s layout had proven to be aerodynamically sub-optimal and
unsuited for the installation of H-1 engines. In order to save development time and because
the aircraft was rather regarded as a proof-of-concept demonstrator instead of a true
fighter prototype, the new aircraft was structurally based on Bell’s current piston-engine
P-63 “Kingcobra”. The proposal was accepted and, in order to maintain secrecy, the new
jet aircraft inherited once more a designation of a recently cancelled project, this time from
the Vultee XP-68 “Tornado” fighter. Similar to the Airacomet two years before, just a
simple “A” suffix was added.

Bell’s development contract covered only three XP-68A aircraft. The H-1 units were
directly imported from Great Britain in secrecy, suspended in the bomb bays of B-24
Liberator bombers. A pair of these engines was mounted in mid-wing nacelles, very similar
to the Gloster Meteor’s arrangement. The tailplane was given a 5° dihedral to move it out
of the engine exhaust. In order to bear the new engines and their power, the wing main
spars were strengthened and the main landing gear wells were moved towards the
aircraft’s centerline, effectively narrowing track width. The landing gear wells now
occupied the space of the former radiator ducts for the P-63’s omitted Allison V-1710
liquid-cooled V12 engine. Its former compartment behind the cockpit was used for a new
fuel tank and test equipment. Having lost the propeller and its long drive shaft, the nose
section was also redesigned: the front fuselage became deeper and the additional space
there was used for another fuel tank in front of the cockpit and a bigger weapon bay.
Different armament arrangements were envisioned, one of each was to be tested on the
three prototypes: one machine would be armed with six 0.5” machine guns, another with
four 20mm Hispano M2 cannon, and the third with two 37mm M10 cannon and two 0.5”
machine guns. Provisions for a ventral hardpoint for a single drop tank or a 1.000 lb (550
kg) bomb were made, but this was never fitted on any of the prototypes. Additional
hardpoints under the outer wings for smaller bombs or unguided missiles followed the
same fate.

The three XP-68As were built at Bell’s Atlanta plant in the course of early 1944 and semi-
officially christened “Airagator”. After their clandestine transfer to Muroc Dry Lake for
flight tests and evaluations, the machines were quickly nicknamed “Barrelcobra” by the
test staff – not only because of the characteristic shape of the engine nacelles, but also due
to the sheer weight of the machines and their resulting sluggish handling on the ground
and in the air. “Cadillac” was another nickname, due to the very soft acceleration through
the new jet engines and the lack of vibrations that were typical for piston-engine- and
propeller-driven aircraft.
Due to the structural reinforcements and modifications, the XP-68A had become a heavy
aircraft with an empty weight of 4 tons and a MTOW of almost 8 tons – the same as the big
P-47 Thunderbolt piston fighter, while the P-63 had an MTOW of only 10,700 lb (4,900
kg). The result was, among other flaws, a very long take-off distance, especially in the hot
desert climate of the Mojave Desert (which precluded any external ordnance) and an
inherent unwillingness to change direction, its turning radius was immense. More than
once the brakes overheated during landing, so that extra water cooling for the main
landing gear was retrofitted.

Once in the air, the aircraft proved to be quite fast – as long as it was flying in a straight
line, though. Only the roll characteristics were acceptable, but flying the XP-68A remained
hazardous, esp. after the loss of one of the H-1s engines: This resulted in heavily
asymmetrical propulsion, making the XP-68A hard to control at all and prone to spin in
level flight.

After trials and direct comparison, the XP-68A turned out not to be as fast and, even worse,
much less agile than the Meteor Mk III (the RAF’s then current, operational fighter
version), which even had weaker Derwent engines. The operational range was insufficient,
too, esp. in regard of the planned Pacific theatre of operations, and the high overall weight
precluded any considerable external load like drop tanks.

However, compared with the XP-59A, the XP-68A was a considerable step forward, but it
had become quickly clear that the XP-68A and its outfit-a-propeller-design-with jet-
engines approach did not bear the potential for any service fighter development: it was
already outdated when the prototypes were starting their test program. No further XP-68A
was ordered or built, and the three prototypes fulfilled their test and evaluation program
until May 1945. During these tests, the first prototype was lost on the ground due to an
engine fire. After the program’s completion, the two remaining machines were handed
over to the US Navy and used for research at the NATC Patuxent River Test Centre, where
they were operated until 1949 and finally scrapped.

General characteristics.

Crew: 1

Length: 33 ft 9 in (10.36 m)

Wingspan: 38 ft 4 in (11.7 m)

Height: 13 ft (3.96 m)

Wing area: 248 sq ft (23 m²)

Empty weight: 8,799 lb (3,995 kg)

Loaded weight: 15,138 lb (6,873 kg)

Max. take-off weight: 17,246 lb (7,830 kg)

Powerplant:

2× Halford H-1 (De Havilland Goblin) turbojets, rated at 3,500 lbf (15.6 kN) each

Performance:

Maximum speed: 559 mph (900 km/h)

Range: 500 mi (444 nmi, 805 km)

Service ceiling: 37,565 ft (11,450 m)

Rate of climb: 3.930 ft/min (20 m/s)

Wing loading: 44.9 lb/ft² (218.97 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.45

Time to altitude: 5.0 min to 30,000 ft (9,145 m)

Armament:

4× Hispano M2 20 mm cannon with 150 rounds

One ventral hardpoint for a single drop tank or a 1.000 lb (550 kg) bomb

6× 60 lb (30 kg) rockets or 2× 500 lb (227 kg) bombs under the outer wings

The kit and its assembly:

This whiffy Kingcobra conversion was spawned by a post by fellow user nighthunter in
January 2019 at whatifmodelers.com about a potential jet-powered variant. In found
the idea charming, since the XP-59 had turned out to be a dud and the Gloster Meteor
had been tested by the USAAF. Why not combine both into a fictional, late WWII Bell
prototype?

The basic idea was simple: take a P-63 and add a Meteor’s engine nacelles, while
keeping the Kingcobra’s original proportions. This sounds pretty easy but was more
challenging than the first look at the outcome might suggest.

The donor kits are a vintage Airfix 1:72 Gloster Meteor Mk.III, since it has the proper,
small nacelles, and an Eastern Express P-63 Kingcobra. The latter looked promising,
since this kit comes with very good surface and cockpit details (even with a clear
dashboard) as well as parts for several P-63 variants, including the A, C and even the
exotic “pinball” manned target version. However, anything comes at a price, and the
kit’s low price point is compensated by soft plastic (which turned out to be hard to
sand), some flash and mediocre fit of any of the major components like fuselage halves,
the wings or the clear parts. It feels a lot like a typical short-run kit. Nevertheless, I feel
inclined to build another one in a more conventional fashion some day.

Work started with the H-1 nacelles, which had to be cut out from the Meteor wings.
Since they come OOB only with a well-visible vertical plate and a main wing spar
dummy in the air intake, I added some fine mesh to the plate – normally, you can see
directly onto the engine behind the wing spar. Another issue was the fact that the
Meteor’s wings are much thicker and deeper than the P-63s, so that lots of PSR work
was necessary.

Simply cutting the P-63 OOB wings up and inserting the Meteor nacelles was also not
possible: the P-63 has a very wide main landing gear, due to the ventral radiators and
oil coolers, which were originally buried in the wing roots and under the piston engine.
The only solution: move the complete landing gear (including the wells) inward, so that
the nacelles could be placed as close as possible to the fuselage in a mid-span position.
Furthermore, the - now useless - radiator openings had to disappear, resulting in a
major redesign of the wing root sections. All of this became a major surgery task,
followed by similarly messy work on the outer wings during the integration of the
Meteor nacelles. LOTS of PSR, even though the outcome looks surprisingly plausible
and balanced.

Work on the fuselage started in parallel. It was built mainly OOB, using the optional
ventral fin for a P-63C. The exhaust stubs as well as the dorsal carburetor intake had to
disappear (the latter made easy thanks to suitable optional parts for the manned target
version). Since the P-63 had a conventional low stabilizer arrangement (unlike the
Meteor with its cruciform tail), I gave them a slight dihedral to move them out of the
engine efflux, a trick Sukhoi engineers did on the Su-11 prototype with afterburner
engines in 1947, too.
Furthermore, the whole nose ahead of the cockpit was heavily re-designed, because I
wanted the “new” aircraft to lose its propeller heritage and the P-63’s round and rather
pointed nose. Somewhat inspired by the P-59 and the P-80, I omitted the propeller parts
altogether and re-sculpted the nose with 2C putty, creating a deeper shape with a tall,
oval diameter, so that the lower fuselage line was horizontally extended forward. In a
profile view the aircraft now looks much more massive and P-80esque. The front
landing gear was retained, just its side walls were extended downwards with the help of
0.5mm styrene sheet material, so that the original stance could be kept. Lots of lead in
the nose ensured that the model would properly stand on its three wheels.

Once the rhinoplasty was done I drilled four holes into the nose and used hollow steel
needles as gun barrels, with a look reminiscent of the Douglas A-20G.

Adding the (perfectly) clear parts of the canopy as a final assembly step also turned out
to be a major fight against the elements.

Painting and markings:

With an USAAF WWII prototype in mind, there were only two options: either an NMF
machine, or a camouflage in Olive Drab and Neutral Grey. I went for the latter and
used Tamiya XF-62 for the upper surfaces and Humbrol 156 (Dark Camouflage Grey)
underneath. The kit received a light black ink wash and some post shading in order to
emphasize panels. A little dry-brushing with silver around the leading edges and the
cockpit was done, too.

The cockpit interior became chromate green (I used Humbrol 150, Forest Green) while
the landing gear wells were painted with zinc chromate yellow (Humbrol 81). The
landing gear itself was painted in aluminum (Humbrol 56).

Markings/decals became minimal, puzzled together from various sources – only some
“Stars and Bars” insignia and the serial number.

Somehow this conversion ended up looking a lot like the contemporary Soviet Sukhoi
Su-9 and -11 (Samolyet K and LK) jet fighter prototype – unintentionally, though. But I
am happy with the outcome – the P-63 ancestry is there, and the Meteor engines are
recognizable, too. But everything blends into each other well, the whole affair looks very
balanced and believable. This is IMHO furthermore emphasized by the simple paint
scheme. A jet-powered Kingcobra? Why not…?