America’s First Jet Aircraft

With America’s entry into the Second World War an almost bygone conclusion, Army Air Corps Major General Henry “Hap” Arnold—one of the bomber mafia development advocates during the interwar period—witnessed a taxiing demonstration of England’s first jet aircraft, the Gloster Whittle E28/39 in April of 1941.

The Future of Aviation

Realizing he was staring at the future of aviation warfare, in October of that same year, Arnold arranged for one Whittle W.1X turbojet engine to be flown to the United States in a B-24 Liberator, along with drawings for the more powerful W.2B/23 engine and a small team of British aeronautical engineers, awarding a contract to General Electric for the production of jet engines, while Bell Aircraft Corporation was chosen to design and build the nation’s first jet aircraft.

First Jet Aircrafts

The result was the P-59A, followed by design improvements in the XP-59A and the YP-59A, each model replete with an all-metal stressed skin semi-monocoque fuselage with a single pressurized cockpit, electrically-powered tricycle landing gear and a pair of two GE J31 turbojets mounted under the wing roots in aerodynamic nacelles. Known as the Airacomet, the American’s first jet aircraft carried 290 gallons of fuel in four self-sealing tanks in the inner wing panels, while all production models could be equipped with two 1,590-gallon drop tanks under the wings.

Problems at Speed

Flight tested at Muroc Army Air Field a year later—now known as Edwards Air Force Base near Lancaster California—Bell test pilots Robert Stanley and Laurence Craigie uncovered a myriad of problems over the next several months of testing, including poor engine response and reliability, poor lateral and directional stability at speeds above 290 mph and flight instability when firing the aircraft’s twin 37mm autocannons. The nation’s first combat jet proved to be a further disappointment in terms of airspeed and performance, with a maximum speed of 413 mph, compared to 440 mph for the prop-driven P-51 Mustang and 414 mph for the P-38 Lightning, relegating the 66 Airacomets that were built for use as flight trainers as fighter jet designs and speeds improved during the early years of the Cold War.

The Nazi’s Me 262

Beginning development in 1939 and deployed into combat in April of 1944, the Nazi’s Me 262 would prove to be the first dominate jet aircraft in history, with a maximum airspeed of 560 mph, although the aircraft became an choice target when it slowed during final approach for landing, making for easy prey when Allied fighter pilots dove down from altitude to decimate the vulnerable aircraft, making the P-59A, a disappointing yet promising development in aviation history.