COBI Bell P-39Q Airacobra Set 5747

COBI's Bell P-39Q Airacobra is a 1:32 model built from 380 blocks, 28 cm long with a 31.5 cm wingspan. The propeller and ailerons move, the wheels fold on rubber tires, and the cockpit opens for the pilot figure. A display stand with a nameplate is included.

The Americans did not want it. The Soviets did.

More than half of every P-39 built went to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease — nearly 5,000 aircraft — and the Soviet air force liked it more than any other Western type it received.

The reason is altitude. The Airacobra had no turbocharger and lost performance above about 4,500 metres, which made it poor at the job Western air forces needed — escorting bombers into the stratosphere. The air war on the Eastern Front was fought low, over the battlefield, where the P-39 was fast, rolled well, and carried a 37 mm cannon in the nose that would take a fighter apart with one hit.

Soviet pilots also appreciated things the aircraft had that Soviet fighters did not: a proper radio in every machine, a heated and enclosed cockpit, and a car-type door instead of a sliding canopy.

Pokryshkin

Alexander Pokryshkin ended the war with 59 victories, second only to Kozhedub among Allied pilots, and 48 of them were scored in a P-39. He kept flying Airacobras when his unit was re-equipped with Soviet-built fighters, and he was instrumental in rewriting Soviet fighter tactics — height, speed, manoeuvre, fire — in a force that had been fighting in rigid three-aircraft formations.

In the COBI range

Set 5746 is the earlier P-39D in American markings.

Specifications

Pieces: 380 · Figures: 1 pilot · Scale: 1:32
Model dimensions: 28 × 31.5 × 10.5 cm (11.0 × 12.4 × 4.1 in)