The Most Chilling Plane of WW2
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- čas přidán 28. 08. 2024
- Piloting a P-61 Black Widow was both an electrifying and daunting mission. As the first American aircraft built specifically for night fighting, its futuristic design and cutting-edge technology seemed light years ahead. Unlike the conventional single-engine fighters, this beauty showcased raw power and ingenuity with her sleek twin-boom design and central fuselage pod. Yet, the thought of dogfighting as an interceptor in the night sky's darkness was enough to chill any pilot to the bone.
Clocking in at over 350 miles per hour, the Black Widow could tear through the night sky, powered by her twin Pratt & Whitney R-2800-10 Double Wasp engines, each unleashing 2,000 horsepower. This was a technical marvel never before seen in World War 2 combat aviation.
Armed to the teeth, she boasted four 20-millimeter Hispano M2 cannons and four .50 caliber machine guns in a dorsal turret, making her a flying fortress. If that wasn’t enough, the top-secret SCR-720 microwave radar tucked under her nose made her a predator in the darkness.
Every curve and detail of the P-61 Black Widow screamed defiance. Her black-painted form vanished into the night, visible only to those unfortunate enough to fall into her radar’s grasp.
New pilots felt a cold shiver down their spines at the thought of braving the perilous night skies over Europe and the Pacific. But once they took the controls, it became clear: with her advanced radar technology and pitch-black paint job, the Black Widow reigned supreme. She quickly earned her reputation as one of the safest planes to fly and one of the most lethal foes in night combat, even being able to shoot down enemy planes without ever making visual contact…
When I was a kid, I put together the Revell Model of the Black Widow. Two months later, the wings had been broken off and it spent the next three months as a submarine, complete with gun turret, in the bathtub.
I had a Revell Model of a P-61 as well. She was a beauty to look at and put together!
I made a Model of the Black Widow when I was a Boy and I really like the Aircraft.
I was thinking nearly the same thing myself. 1/48 scale from Monogram, right? I still have that model, almost 45 years later.
That takes me back to the 60's, I built many aircraft models back then.
I had that model also. I think it got blown up,with firecrackers
@@rodshop5897 YUP! With the diorama instructions by Shepperd Paine?
@@MikeS-um1nm I don't remember that part, but it was and is a cool model.
This airplane is seared into my mind at an early age! My family lived in Long Beach in 1944 and my mother would fix a picnic lunch on my Dad's day off from welding at Shell Oil and drive to the airplane factories in LA. We were parked near one building next to a large runway covered with high netting when a factory door opened and this scary, shiny black bomber came out with props turning., it looked like a giant P-38!! I never forgot the feeling I had that the enemies were going to be in for it for sure!!
Same here- when I was a little kid I remember our teacher telling us her husband flew one in the war
The P-61 was not a bomber, it was a night fighter.
@@johnwillis4706Yeah, but it's built similar to a bomber. Twin engines, lot's of glasswork, multiple crew members.
Thanks for this! My Dad flew the P-61 during WWII. His "birds" name was Moon Light Sonata, his name Lester Vohs. The picture of his plane is hung on the wall beside me which also includes The Distinguished Flying Cross & Thunderstorm Project patch. I hope someone who knows him, or his crew might enjoy reading this. I will save this video to refer to occasionally.
The P-61 was an all-weather interceptor, not a dog fighter. Night fighting was stalking then a quick kill, not prolonged manoeuvring. It had to be big to accommodate the valve technology radar, and needed a long development period. However, you can’t help wondering whether a nightfighter conversion of the Martin B-26 (which used the same R-2800 engines) might not have reached the same goal quicker. The early planning for the Douglas A-26 included a nightfighter option.
The lateral control was interesting using spoilers with the small ailerons there mainly to provide pilot feel. The P-61C was among the first fighters to use airbrakes (rather than dive brakes)
But the P-61 had such an interesting shape.
It's all run by politics (means moron politicians), with zero emphasis on any sort of logic or clear thinking
And it never had the performance of the Mosquito
When I worked at the National Air and Space museum Udvar Hazy Center. They have a Black Widow on display. #1 a former pilot of the Black Widow came there. The aircraft is very unique and larger than what I imagined it to be. But it always got ALOT of attention from visitors and it was a favorite of the museum. 😊😊😊
Just visited the girl!!
Beautiful restoration
In early WW2, Britian had the Bristol Beaufighter in the night fighter role. Equipped with radar, four 20mm Hispano cannon & six .303 machine guns, it did good service along with the later DeHavilland Mosquito.
Thank you for not misusing the word "caliber" like this schmuck!
Due to the logistics of a night intercept, They could not get more than 1 kill a night. And most missions resulted in a no joy, or they did not see a target. And the enemy did not fly that many night missions anyway. And the effectiveness of night missions was quite low as well.
So we did not even have to intercept them. In a lot of ways this plane was a proof of concept more than an effective deterrent. But it looked cool. Most German aircraft in late WW2 were as fast or faster than the P61. So as the P61 is supposed to get behind and track its enemy by radar and creep up behind the target, well you can see how that would be a bust. So they went to the pacific to be used against Japan which had slower aircraft. But again Japan's night bombings were mostly nuisance raids. They did not warrant and entire plane designed just to stop them. It was designed to stop German night raids but was too slow for its intended role.
Late war Black Widows were faster too.
The last series built were capable of 430 mph with the originals at 366 level flying.
My grandpa flew the P-61 in the Pacific! He only had the greatest things to say about the Black Widow.
🫡🇺🇸
the Allies owe a debt that cannot be repaid to the brave men who crewed the Black Widow
Dad was crew chief on a 61 with the 427th in the CBI. They too loved the 61.
The greatest mission of all for all Black Widows, was 'Hard To Get' she flew over Cabanabutuan prison camp as a distraction to allow Bull Simon and Rangers to sneak up to the camp. The surviving Japanese described the P61 as a frightening, unwordly insect
Wrong war. Bull Simon led the raid on the deserted POW camp of Son Tay in Vietnam.
I read about that. I forget the book title. Didn't the plane fly around the "other" side of the prison camp, as a distraction, while the Rangers belly crawled up close? I wanted to finish that book but I was house sitting for someone, found it on their bookshelf, read some of it while I babysat their pets. I always meant to pick the book up, but forgot the title.
@@MikeS-um1nm i think it is ghost soldiers, 👻
@@GunstockBayA90 Thanks!
@MrTopgun624 Bull started somewhere, and WW2 was it. They pulled him out of retirement for SonTay, which turns out to be a raid on foreign mercs. We were told it was a ' rescue attempt ' read up a little more. I did
I was in the 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron in the late 80s and early 90s. This plane is their namesake, the Black Widows.
P-38 Lightning on steroids! Definitely would not want to be on the receiving end of that airframe!
During the day you'd probably be fine. Sure this beast can't out turn standard fighters. During the night? No thanks.
The video makes no note of the fact that the four dorsal .50s were in a turret intended to be operated by the radar operator for defensive purposes, but this was found to be impractical, so the turret was either locked firing forward under control of the pilot or removed completely.
.40 calibre.
@@CZcamsr-k2p Lol. NO! 🤣
unacceptable buffeting in the air-stream during rotation of the turret has also been sighted as a reason for removal... the "reporter" reconnaissance aircraft models i think were built without them...
The problem with the turret was that it interfered with airflow over the tail if the turret moved around
One of the P-61's downsides was that it couldn't be carrier based. The Navy had to develop the F6F Hellcat into a night fighter by mounting a radar on one wing.
Not to mention the radiation the pilot and co-pilot were subjected to from the rotating magnetron radar…..kind of like flying inside a microwave….
The BlackWidow II the YF-23 unfortunately never made it to production in the 90's , it would have been the best fighter ever made.
The p61 did alot of dark ops! That to this day are classified! My Dad did not come home untill 1947. What he knew he took to the grave with him in 2008!
Same here Doug, my Dad did not talk about his activities during WWII. Decades later after he died I found out he became involved in dangerous undercover work during the Cold War post WWII.
I built this model back in the early 70s,wish I could have seen one up close.
Check out the Mid Atlantic Air Museum in Radin, Pa. They're restoring one. When it's done it'll be the only one flying. She's beautiful
Oops! Reading, Pa.
The real need for these aircraft was years before they were available.
Well, isn't that pretty much every next-gen weapon or weapon system?
@@slingshotjohnny1 certainly, and especially during wartime.
My dad was a radar technician in the 415th
The Lockheed P-61 "Black Widow" night fighter was the aircraft used by the U.S. Army Rangers in their raid on the Japanese Prisoner of War Camp in Cabanatuan, Philippine Islands. This raid was memorialized in the 2005 film "The Great Raid". During the actual raid , a P-61 overflew the camp to distract the Japanese guards from the Rangers low-crawling up to the edge of the camp to begin their attack. Though the producers wanted a P-61 to accurately recreate that part of the raid, there were no flying examples available for the filming. A Lockheed A-29 Hudson was substituted for the correct P-61.
You've got to feed all those horses. This was a large aircraft & has a mean vicious bite. Love these My #4 favorite of WWII. Hope to see one fly before I leave. Outstanding aircraft.
The UK used a variety of nightfighters from 1940 from the Boulton Paul Defiant, Bristol Beaufighter and of course the De Havilland Mosquito, as usual P61 too little too late
The Mosquitos that saw wartime service were both faster and more manoeuvrable than the p61 too...
Black Widow was an awesome night fighter cool looking aircraft too
no thank you, I'll have a Mossie: DeHavilland Mosquito.
Or even a night-fighter version of the Bristol Beaufighter, which operated until 1942, & whose record shows it was anything but 'clumsy'. This is an extended advert for another 'wonderful' American aircraft that was built to bring down 'heavy bombers' - of which the Germans & Japanese had none. IFF requires the target aircraft to be squawking its identity, otherwise, - its pot luck.
@@tonykerrison1983I liked your comment for your Bristol Beaufighter commentary. It was a well designed airframe and adapted well in a "right place, right time" era. It's my favorite "unsung" hero aircraft of the war. It was an outstanding design given its adaptability.
The rest of your comments are bollocks. Many designs entered the war late and were marginally effective due to the fact that the mission they were designed for lost relevance or had ceased to exist. That came across pretty clearly in this video concerning the P-61.
You're comment about this being another pro-american video is silly and your father smells of elderberries.
@@shannonterry4863 You're entitled to your opinion, - as am I. That's democracy & free speech.😶
@@tonykerrison1983 It's all good, mate. The "clumsy" comment about the Beaufighter was definitely uncalled for in the vid. The USAAF continued to operate Beaufighters as night fighters in Europe even after the P-61 became available. That was a clear indication of confidence in the effectiveness of the aircraft on hand in carrying forward with operations.
366 mph is not quick enough to catch a V1 flying bomb. The only planes fast enough in 1944 were the Hawker Tempest and the De Havilland Mosquito. Later Griffon engined spitfires, P47 Thunderbolts and the P-51 were also capable. Not forgetting the world's first jet fighter the Gloster Meteor which caught them with ease.
Also ironic that the P61 was replaced by the Mosquito which predated the P61 by 3 years.
Little known fact : The helical radar was found to be an effective pie warmer and was much appreciated by the crews on extended loiter missions
Not really....
So they had a few spare pies, climbed outside the plane and took the cowling off, placed the pies down, the radar operator then kept reporting steak and mushroom kamikazes.
My dad flew B-17's over Europe during WWII. As the war in Europe wound down he was re-assigned to a fighter training in Dec.1944. He trained to fly the P-61 and after training he flew them in the European theater for the 414th until the war ended. After the war he returned to his profession as an electrician. In 1961 he got wind that the air Force were surplusing the P-61-A, B and a few S models. He went to Richards/Gabouer air base where they were being sold, basically as scrape, and found his old plane there a P-61 S, her name was "Mysterious Mary", and he bought her for the princely sum at that time, of $5500. Stripped of her guns and other "secret" equipment. Dad worked on her for years and years getting her ready to fly again. Dad passed away twelve years ago without getting her ready. I've been working on her since and I'm getting close. I have to get all the Lexan glazing made. I'm shooting for July 4th, 2025 for her first flight.
The first Model I ever made when I was about 10 years old. I made it because a Pilot who was stationed at the Townsville Garbutt Aerodrome North Queensland Australia, told me that a Black Widow had crashed on Mount Spec. It has never been found.
Plane crashes can leave very little evidence in some cases.
I made the same model when I was about that same age. Thought it was such a grand aircraft for my age. It reminded me of the P-38 so much. 😎
Always will admire the P-61.
It was a good night fighter, formidable weapons up front.
John Cunningham, piloting a Mosquito..said, as he injected Nitrous oxide into his twin merlins while approaching .( They will never catch me at this speed)... FW 190 nuisance raider from behind.... Hit by a hail of canon shells and bullets it crashed into the channel... Thats how good a 'Mossie' was...Fast, very fast and well armed..The Black Widow wasn't in the same league...
It was mission spec’d for ‘loitering’.
Different tasking.
Met John Cunningham a number of times. Quite chap.
The Mosquito Night fighter was unbeatable even without it's nose gun's it still had it's belly cannons my father was always impressed 😉👍!
Was privileged to have an older friend and fellow ham operator who had been a radar operator in these in the CBI theater. Wish I could have visited with him more. He was my dad's generation. I thoroughly enjoyed the many men I got to know who served in WW2. I got a couple stories out of him, but he never got very specific about particular missions other than mentioning having to fly through the Himalayas as I recall.
How can the DeHavilland Mosquito be referred to as clumsy 😮😂!!!!!
Exceptionalism.
All those chills - you'd think it would have a heater.
My kind of aircraft.....Thank you.....
Old F-4 II Pilot Shoe🇺🇸
One is being restored.😊
Well done. Too bad it came so late in the war. My dad was one of the first Navy night fighters flying Grumman F6FN 's off the Yorktown in VFN-76 in 1944. He worked closely with the MIT Radiation lab boys developing the radar in Quonset Point Naval Air Station RI.. He never scored a night kill. His only CAP night intercept turned out to be an Australian PBY.200 miles from the fleet He slid under the bogey and identified it blotting out the stars he backed off the throttle very slowly to avoid a backfire from his R2800 engine so he would not get hosed by the PBY blister gunners. He flew mostly with the day fighters doing strikes on Japanese held islands. However one of his night missions to Chi Chi Jima was featured in an episode of "Night Fighters " on the History Channel. It was there where he caught a bullet to the shoulder that put him out of the war. He made it safely back to the carrier. Its a shame there is almost no information on Axis night fighters.
Dogfights: Deadly Nighttime Duels (S2, E9)
Of the 706 produced, there are only 4 Black Widows left in the world:
P-61B 42-39715: captured during the Korean War, on static display at the Beijing Air and Space Museum in Beijing, China.
P-61C 43-8330: on static display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia.
P-61C 43-8353: on static display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio.
And last but certainly not least, P-61B 42-39445: currently under restoration to complete flying status by the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania. In a few more years, we’ll see a Black Widow slip the surely bonds of Earth once more…
Mattie Black? Wasn’t she one of the Rockettes?
🤣
So in the beginning it was described as sleek and fast but at the end of the video, the narrator admits it was sluggish and out-dated, left in the dust by an Me 410, a plane that itself was plagued by design problems. Replaced in Europe by the Mosquito and relegated to the Pacific where it had almost nothing to do. Sounds like a bit of a dud really.
Yes, but as its American it's the world's best.... if you ignore the wooden wonder Mosquito
@@gt6hudsonIt wasn't as good as the Mosquito NF and I don't think it was much better than the Beaufighter NF which the USAAC operated in the ETO.
So many mistakes, inaccuracies and empty ramblings. What a pity.
Tech advanced so much during the war that, as with almost everything in WWII, what was state of the art at the beginning was almost obsolete at the end. War has a way of doing that, specially with military tech.
@@ralphscholz9533The P61 came out 3 years after the Mosquito and still got replaced by it!
By far the most important planes of WW2 ..... were the ground support planes.
Great, informative, and interesting video on one of World War 2's most iconic night fighters! Thanks for posting.
John Randall and Harry Boot, developed the Cavity Magnetron, at the University of Birmingham. Probably the greatest invention of WW2. Also the Bristol Beaufighter was fitted with radar in 1940.
The Radar was supposed to been put in a Mosquito but they were used in the war duties. All very strange but it did shoot down a 110 a 111 and a190 which was impressive but as used late in the war could not shoot down a 163 a 410 or a 262 as too fast and agile. It was built too late for the war so many were built and then scrapped.
One sick fighter, had a copy hanging from the ceiling when I was young
My grandpa was a tailgunner in a Black widow in the pacific during ww2. I’ve still got his bomber jacket and all of his books from the war.
I still have a model of the Black Widow. Made that as a kid, painting it matt black, ofcourse.
My foster father loved flying it.....
My favorite model. Beautiful.
My great uncle flew one of these. His squadron never left the US. None went to Europe because it was considered not capable enough to fight there. Even my uncle said so, but he also said that when they would get up on a target they could rip it apart.
Side note, the Mid Atlantic Air Museum in Reading, Pa has one they recovered years ago and have been rebuilding to flying status. Check them out.
she wasn't a stealth plane not even a fighter, but on that era, she is.
I got to get in one of these at an airshow when i was a kid, super awesome experience
Well made video, coherent, clear with coordinated audio. Great job with creating this video.
My Dad was the crew chief on a 61, with the 427th NFS in the CBI. He loved the Blackwidow....as did their pilots. In their unit, most chose to remove the top turret to give 10-15 mph more airspeed, plus there was really no need for the turret on a nightfighter.
It may not have a very high kill tally, but it had profound effects on the Axis pilots on a psychological and logistics level.
Night attack missions were already difficult enough. Now they have to deal with this night terror prowling their flight paths.
It was like their U-Boats got turned against them, but in the night skies against their aircraft.
Bf 110 designed in 1936 nailed one of those in 1944
No wrong ! It was of course the Mosquito- so fast the PR version carried no guns.
Lot of fun booming and zooming on War Thunder.
Tremendous firepower !
lol the "Black Widow" is the night version of the P38 lightning (was absolutely FEARED in the African Theater of WW2)
?
The proximity fuse pretty much won WWII in ways.. Developed by the BRITISH... NORTHROP has ALWAYS been my favorite aircraft company and aircraft impliments...Unfortunately the Black Widow was kinda to late to be a big advantage in the war..
Never realized how far advanced radars were back them.
Interestingly enough this plane was modeled after the P-38 Lightning
It was British tec. that made this plane possible. The radar could be small enough to fit in a aeroplane because of cathode ray tube gave to the Americans by the British
The first model plane that I built by myself was of a P-61
My mother, Pauline Freese, Kotchar, then worked on these.
New to me but what a great lesson in history. Jets soon phased out all those magnificent radials.
Pops worked on the engines and thought it was wonderful on biak
My dad was on Biak and said the first night after the P-61s arrived they shot down the Japanese bomber that had been harassing them every night that they called “washing machine Charlie”
Was the P-61 a good plane?
The Northrop P-61 Black Widow and its Deadly Web
Colonel Winston Kranz, director of USAAF night-fighter training, said: “The P-61 was not a superior night fighter. It was not a poor night fighter, it was a good night fighter, but it did not have enough speed.” In July 1944, just as the first P-61s were arriving in the ETO, Lt.
It would have been more accurate to point out that without the radar system, the Black Widow would have been no better or worse than any of the numerous other aircraft flying at the time.
An army-navy show? Les Miserables, the Music Man?
Football?
Excellent video....finally a doc. that has relative footage and nothing erroneous ...thank you !!....so what was the gunner's role ???
@@Kneon_Knight the pilot fired the guns as per the video and documentation....so one would be wrong to assume that....take your sarcasm elsewhere ...BTW I see your channel is about nothing....I"m not surprised ..bully much ???
@@Kneon_Knight Well"" one"" would be wrong...if you had read the documentation you would discover that the pilot did indeed fire the guns'......please take your sarcasm elsewhere...I see you have a channel entitled ''A Channel About Nothing''....that doesn't surprise me one bit...!!!
I saw a Blackwidow covered in black berry brambles sitting in a field outside of Santa Rosa CA when i was a little kid in the mid 90s, all i really remember about that time was that princess Diana had just died and the blackwidow, ive looked hundreds of times for it to no avail, I really hope its being restored or was restored somewhere, but most likely it was scrapped for the metal by tweakers.
I was not aware that the U S had achieved such technological progress in World War II like that that airborne radar that the black widow carried in its nose .
Very interesting plane ; I've heard of the " Black Widow ⚫️🤔😳. " However, I'd always pictured it as souped - up version of a P-38 Lightning ? " I now understand more about this fearsome plane and how it got its terrifying moniker or name !
Fokker G1 ... to few, but still, we had them in 1940
Дякую зв цікаву історію. Дякуємо Збройним Силам України за захист від орків (бувших союзників нацистської Германії)!
Say what?
Then why does Ukraine worship and have monuments dedicated to Stepan Bandera, a Nazi ideologist? Why does Ukraine have the Azov, a neo-Nazi battalion? Who have murdered approx 15,000 ethnic Russian civilians who live in the Donbas region since 2014?
--------------------
Who were 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician)?
HINT formed from neo-Nazis in Western Ukraine (formerly part of Poland)
Who were Waffen Grenadier Regiment of the SS (1st Romanian)?
HINT formed from neo-Nazis in Western Ukraine.
--------------------
No country dislikes Nazis more than Russia dum*as*. Nazis killed more than 27 million Russians in WW2 between, 18 and 19 million were innocent civilians.
Dumb ignorance.
He calls them orks because it's dehumanizing. Kinda like sub-human
How many of these planes are still flightworthy? It's a beautiful plane and one of my favorites.
Lets not forget the wooden wonder the De Havilland Mosquito !
The Northrop P-61 Black Widow was a lot better than the Douglas P-70 (A-20 variant), the turret on top was introduced in the C model. The Northrop P-61 was built before fiberglass was available, the nose was plywood
Although the P61 had an earlier first fligh the Heinkel He 219 Uhu was apparently introduced earlier in the war.
I have to say though that I would prefer 1000% to be on the cockpit of a P61 than on a He 219!
Looks like a modified P-38 Lightening.
OOOH you liars the Mosquito was THE Night fighter the wooden wonder stealth before anybody knew what stealth was.
Was radar emission stopped while the dish was aimed back at the aircraft?
Or did they figure the radar helped to keep the crew warm?
Do a video on the He-219 Uhu, if you want to see a real night fighter!
Just 20 minutes ago I took one of these out with my BF-109K in War Thunder with an inside turn.
The Caity Magnetron was developed by the British.
Hell yeah, sign me up
Any comparisons between the 61 and the 38? Obvs bigger and with radar. More
And yet they never really deployed the F7F Tigercat.
One bad ass aircraft.
Did I hear correctly that they flew from bases on Wake island? I thought we didn’t re occupy wake until after the war.
Caught my attention, as well. Went back to confirm after I first heard it, and they did say Wake Island in July '44. Definitely a WTF moment.
In 1939 the U.S. Navy began construction of an air and submarine base; this was half completed when Wake was attacked and occupied by Japanese forces in December 1941. The Battle of Wake Island resulted in the capture of more than 1,600 U.S. troops by the Japanese.
Sweet I am gonna be a fighter pilot! Wait. What? I gotta fly which plane? In the dark? Uh… is it too late to sign up for the Marine Corps?
Would like to find more info about the deployment of the P-61 as part of the Air Defense. My dad was recalled in '48 and stationed in Ladd Air base, Fairbanks, Alaska, accompanied by my mom and oldest brother. I have a picture of him (navigator) and his pilot standing next to what some have identified as an F-94. Would like to get records of flights up there with crew rosters. He didn't talk much about his role as he considered it a matter of high security.
Not a patch on the night fighter variants of the Mosquito.
Still got the model 😂, “see yah “
I love how the narrator says.
This radar developed by mit.
No radar was a British and German technology, given to the USA.
Jeez
Radar came from Britain the U.S was years behind British in radar.
They cover this to a degree around 6:00 mark.
I didn’t realize good guy, bad guy radar was that old.