Warbird Information Exchange

Few more interesting things on the P-61 I didn't know.
Flew first sortie in Britain July 3, 44. Was wanted there to intercept V-1s.
It did have some limited success at this.

First combat kill (Betty Bomber) was in the Pacific July 6, 44.

Number of Black Widows produced? Only about 700.
Here I ran into different numbers from different sources.
The below numbers are close to the Joe Baugher list.
2 XP-61 Flat Black
13 YP-61 Flat Black
200 P-61 A (My best guess is only the first 74 were Olive Drab) after the P-61A-10 all were Shiny Black
450 P-61 B Shiny Black
40 P-61 C Shiny Black
Other variants (D,E, etc.) were convereted from earlier models.
And yes the Marines did get 12 P-61Bs which were designated F2T-1s.
They were reported only used as Night Fighter Trainers.

Gary,
"So what was it called before it was the "Black Widow?"
Best my research shows is that they were always known as Black Widows
except for a group of P-61s converted to unarmed Photo Recon A/C
known as F-15 Reporters

Bill

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Bill


Website

There's a really, really sad photo in, IIRC, one of the softcover 'Osprey' photo books produced in the 1980s of a firebomber P-61 or F-15 bellied in somwhere. The captions says that it was later broken up for scrap.

If only.................

Mike,
In regards to your question about the olive drab.

Presumably over Neutral Gray undersurfaces?

I am surrounded by books right now and just found you are correct
per The USAAF Handbook 1939-1945. Olive Drab and Neutral Grey.

Bill

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Bill


Website

Thanks for the info Bill.

I think the pic may have been of the last flying F-15A at Hollister, CA., crashed on takeoff.

Regards,
Mike

Thanks guys for all your help with the P-61 colors.
JP

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George Preddy was....Just the greatest fighter pilot who ever squinted through a gunsight,He was a complete fighter pilot.
General John C. Meyer

I posted these a couple of months ago in a different thread but they seems relevent here.

P-61A 422nd NFS ETO OD/gray with overpainted invasion stripes

Same as above but black.

P-61A 6th NFS Saipan 1944 Od/gray. Lts Dale Haberman & Ray Mooney 4 night kills

422nd NFS VE-Day black

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Don't touch my junk!!