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The P-61 radar operator occupied a separate compartment in the rear of the fuselage accessed from a hatch below. In August 1940, sixteen months before the United States entered the war, the U.S. Air Officer in London, Lieutenant General Delos C. Emmons, was briefed on British research in radar ("Radio Detection And Ranging" as it was then known), which had been underway since 1935, and had ...
The Northrop F-15 Reporter (later RF-61) was an American unarmed photographic reconnaissance aircraft.Based on the Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter, it was the last piston-powered photo-reconnaissance aircraft designed and produced for the United States Air Force. [1]
It was there that the P-61 Black Widow night fighter, the B-35 and YB-49 experimental flying wing bombers, the F-89 Scorpion interceptor, the SM-62 Snark intercontinental cruise missile, and the F-5 Freedom Fighter economical jet fighter (and its derivative, the successful T-38 Talon trainer) were developed and built. [1]
The 6th received its first Northrop P-61 Black Widows in early June 1944. The aircraft were quickly assembled and underwent flight testing as the pilots transitioned from the squadron's aging P-70s. The first operational P-61 mission occurred on 25 June.
The Northrop P-61 Black Widow's radar and particular flight characteristics enabled it to find and penetrate the most turbulent regions of a storm, and return crew and instruments intact for detailed study.
425th Squadron P-61 [note 3] The squadron was established on 23 November 1943, as the 425th Night Fighter Squadron at Orlando AAB, Florida and activated on 1 December. It initially trained with the Douglas P-70 Havoc night fighter at Orlando, although it also trained with the Northrop YP-61 Black Widow.
2d Fighter Squadron P-61B Black Widow at Mitchel AFB [note 2] It was reactivated on 9 November 1946 and was assigned to the 52d Fighter Group under which it served tours in Schweinfurt Air Base and Bad Kissingen, Germany. Returning to Mitchell Field, New York, the squadron was designated the 2d Fighter Squadron and flew the Northrop P-61 Black ...
In September, the first American-built dedicated night fighters began to arrive, the Northrup YP-61 Black Widow and a few production P-61As. In January 1944 the entire program moved to Hammer Field , California and was placed under IV Fighter Command .