Placing the Bell P39 Aircobra.

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by mayfair35

Mr Franek,
I am not sure what you mean by "disregard the above??"

I mean just only to disregard the post of user 'Empiricist' as it makes no sense and I cannot support it with Soviet documents.

Concerning field modifications, I am well awared of them, and quite recently I have read about field modifications to move P-39's CoG forward. This included partial removal of armour and moving of radio sets to another position behind the pilot. Perhaps this was observed by your friends at Piryatin?
That said I am not awared of any attempts to remove radio or full armour from Soviet Airacobras, but I cannot exclude some aircraft did.
Such modifications were made to British Spitfire Vs defending Alexandria from German high-altitude Ju 86 recce aircraft. In this case the intercepting aircraft was led to target by a radio equipped one flying below.

Concerning modifications, it always bothered me, that as there were always more pilots than aircraft, so if a one pilot modified his mount to personal taste, what would be a reaction of another pilot flying his plane.