P-61B Black Widow AAF Tail No. 42-39445 by junge1

Photography • Aviation • posted on Jun 26, 2016

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Description

The Northrop P-61 Black Widow was the first operational U. S. warplane designed as a night fighter, and the first aircraft designed to use radar. The P-61 had a crew of three, a pilot, a gunner, and a radar operator. It was an all-metal, twin-engine, twin-boom design that became operational relatively late during the war. but it saw service in the European Theater, the Pacific Theater, the China Burma India Theater, and the Mediterranean Theater during World War II. It replaced earlier British-designed night-fighter aircraft that had been updated to incorporate radar when it became available. After the war, the P-61 - redesignated the F-61 - served in the United States Air Force as a long-range, all weather, day/night interceptor for the Air Defense Command until 1948, and the Fifth Air Force until 1950. Today there are four known aircraft, none of which are in flying condition. One P-61B, AAF tail no. 42-39715, is on static display inside the Beijing Air and Space Museum (BASM) in Beijing, China, another P-61C AAF tail no. 43-8330, is on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia, the third P-61C AAF tail no. 43-8353 is currently on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. The fourth P-61B AAF tail no. 42-39445, the above shown aircraft, is under restoration to flying status by the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania. This aircraft crashed on 10 January 1945 on Mount Victoria, Papua New Guinea and was recovered in 1989 by the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum. The aircraft is more than 80% restored and when finished it is expected to be over 70% new construction. This picture was taken on 3 June 2016, Sig...