"john smith" wrote:
I ran into quite a few guys who flew P-39's. The all said the same
thing. It had dangerous flat spin characteristics. .

Somewhere in my library I have a book which mentions that Bob
Hoover was sent to North Africa to disprove this.

My father served with the 111th Observation Group(?) in N. Africa. He told
me all the pilots believed that the P-39 could unpredictably tumble
nose-over-tail and was unrecoverable if it did. No amount of demonstrations
by Bell factory pilots could convince them otherwise, and their distrust of
the aircraft was so profound that its combat effectiveness in that theater
was nil. It was quickly replaced by the P-40 which the pilots also disliked
because they perceived it to be inferior to the BF-109. The arrival of
P-51Bs, my father said, was an occasion for great rejoicing.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM