The story of the Portuguese Airacobras, told here, we think, for the first time with correct facts (due to the recent discovery by one of us, of Portuguese records concerning these aircraft), starts when two USAAC Fighter Groups equipped with Airacobras were dispatched to North Africa between December 1942 and February 1943, within the aircraft reinforcement plans for "Operation Torch":
These groups were composed of the following units :
81st Fighter Group : 91, 92 and 93 Squadrons
350th Fighter Group : 345, 346 and 347 Squadrons
Due to several problems some of the aircraft had to land at Lisbon Airport
and others in Spain. Those that landed in Lisbon were interned, and the
landing details stated in the historical records of the mentioned Groups
, point to the following dates:
27 December 1942 - Five aircraft (81st Group) 
15 January 1943 - Two aircraft (81st Group)
15 January 1943 - Nine aircraft (350th Group)
8 February 1943 - One aircraft (350th Group)
Through Ref.16 the following details are known concerning P-39
/ P-400 landed in Spain:
27 December 1942 - Serial BX339
27 April 1943 - Serial 41-6921
2 May 1943 - Serial BX219
None of these aircraft were used in Spain or transferred to Portugal,
and they finished as scrap
There are also some conflicting references from published literature
concerning the number, origin and dates of P-39 arrivals in Portugal. See
Note 1 below.
Concerning the fate of the landed Airacobras, in Ref.8, the following can be found : "...the Public Record Office has an entry dated 18 March 1943 : " The Portuguese want to buy 11 American Airacobras that landed there. This has the support of the American military authorities and a fair offer has been made."...On 26 April 1943 it was noted, "Today we received authority to sell to Portugal , at $20,000 each , 16 Airacobras and one Lightning which are intact, and to make a gift of four crates of aircraft, two of which are not badly damaged. The Americans declined to supply spares. The offer was conditional on release of interned U.S.airmen" "
This is the data available from foreign documents known to us.
The situation of the Airacobras, stated in Portuguese official records, refers that since June 23, 1943, nineteen (19) Airacobras were assigned to a Fighter Squadron (see Table I below ).
These aircraft were of different models : fifteen (15) of the Model
14 and four (4) of the P-39L model. As can be seen the designations
were not consistent : the first ones used the Bell designation (Model 14)
and the remaining four the USAAC designation (P-39L), corresponding to
the Bell Model 26B.
Apart from this detail these aircraft were the only ones ever registered
in the "Arma de Aeronáutica", receiving the appropriate serial.
Although Lieutenant Solano de Almeida, commander of Squadron OK (the
Airacobra and Lightning squadron) in 1943, stated in an interview given
to one of the authors, that twenty four aircraft had been received, some
of them damaged in accidents still at Lisbon Airport, nothing was found
in Portuguese records, to confirm or not this number.
As armament it had 4 Colt-Browning .30" machine-guns on the wings, and an Hispano Suiza 20mm cannon with 60 rounds. This cannon, again according to the documents found, was not the same in all aircraft : from aircraft 300 to 310 it had an hydraulic system, and from 311 to 314 the system was a mechanical one.
It had also an oxygen system described as Mk.VIII-D.
As armament it had the same four Colt-Browning .30" on the wings, two .50" machine guns in the nose , and one 37 mm M-4 cannon.
It was also equipped with a more advanced oxygen
system : the A.9A
Operation of the Airacobras in Portugal
The service life of these aircraft in Portugal was not very long, having been retired in 1950. Those that remained ( 308, 310, 311, 313, 314, 316 and 318) were broken up and sold for scrap.
The way in which they were received, never allowed a correct transition to the pilots coming from another aircraft, as no flight or maintenance manuals were available.
Severe difficulties were felt in the adaptation
to the aircraft : it seems there was a check-list in the cockpit, but it
was incomplete and in some items not completely correct, which induced
to many mistakes.
The arrival of some American mechanics eased
somewhat the maintenance problems but the technical publications never
arrived !
It seems that the year of 1944 saw the peak of activity for the Airacobras in Portugal, participating in the combined armed forces exercises at Ota, when 14 Airacobras flew divided in two flights of seven aircraft each. The OK squadron (as it was known due to the identifying letters OK used in the British way) was commanded by Captain João Faustino Albuquerque de Freitas, with Lieut. Astem Godman Solano de Almeida and Alferes Feliciano Gomes as Flight Commanders.
The start of operations for these aircraft was
marked with some accidents due mainly to deficient handling of the engine.
The following accidents are known:
Airacobra 304 - Accident in August 16,1943, near Ota causing the death of pilot, 1st Sergeant Augusto Alves Ferreira.
Airacobra 309 - August 26, 1943
Airacobra 301 - September 15, 1943.
Airacobra 312 - Accident in February 8, 1944 during a training flight.
Airacobra 317 - April 25, 1946.
Other accidents are known in which the aircraft were not repairable,
as for instance one in which the pilot in his first flight lost control
when rolling too fast and crashed against two others, and two forced landings
due to engine failure : one at Póvoa do Varzim and another at Costa
da Caparica (both were well known Portuguese beaches) .
Another took place when the engine seized at take-off with a tremendous
noise, which lead to an immediate landing outside the runway...
According to interviews with former pilots (Ref. 5 and 6) the aircraft flew a lot, taking into account the circumstances in which they were acquired, and although they were agreable to pilot, there were problems in the conversion of pilots, as mentioned above, due also to the fact of the Airacobra having been the first Portuguese military aircraft with retractable tricycle landing gear.
Once understood, the aircraft had an easy take off and landing, with an high speed stall marked by severe fuselage vibrations. The handling allowed the execution of formation flying. However to reduce the speed in flight was somewhat difficult, due to the absence of any type of air brakes.
The take-offs and landings in formation were not very easy, due to the difficulty of maintaining the control of the trajectory when the plane skidded to one side.
The aircraft was very efficient at low altitude, not attaining however a good performance at high altitude. In reality it was inferior to the Spitfire or to the Hurricane in climbing rate and service ceiling, as well as in the length of the take-off roll (690 meters), which prevented its operation from many landing strips.
Compared with the Spitfire V , the Airacobra was faster in level flight until 15,000 ft, but in terms of climbing and turning rate was overtaken. At the same level and below that altitude the Airacobra had to resort to its higher horizontal and diving speed, as well as to its capacity of supporting negative G's without engine stoppages. This fact created many situations in which the Airacobra pilots were anxious to leave behind the Spitfires at sea level resorting to their higher speed ...
Also concerning the engineering solutions, there were many innovations
: the Allison engine was installed behind the pilot, and connected
to a reduction gear in the nose , by the means of a shaft with 2,4 meters,
which passed below the pilot's seat...
The vibrations of the shaft at low rpm were very pronounced, which
forced the pilot to maintain the engine at higher RPM than usual,
transforming the take-off roll in a phase that required a careful handling
with the brakes.
On the other hand it seemed that the pilot's confort was not a worry in the design of the cockpit: the noise and vibration were difficult to support, as well as the heating in the pilot's back, coming from the engine and due to the deficient thermal insulation.
The contamination of the cockpit with carbon monoxide was a recurring
problem, when the machine guns were fired, provoking a dangerous situation.
These weapons had a difficult access for maintenance, and had many malfunctions,
leading to their low or non-existent utilization.
The Lightning serial 335 received the serial 300
The Airacobra serial 300 received the serial 301
This shows another case of serial changes taking place in this epoch
during which great numbers of aircraft were received, and again demands
attention when handling information from several sources, trying to trace
the career of each individual aircraft. We think consequently there is
still work to do concerning these histories.
Table I - Aircraft assigned to Squadron OK in June 1943
| Serial | Code | Model | Serial number
of engine |
Cannon armament |
| 300*/301 | OK-A | P-400 | 7189 | 20 mm /Hydraulic |
| 301 | OK-B | P-400 | 7193 | 20 mm /Hydraulic |
| 302 | OK-C | P-400 | 8776 | 20 mm /Hydraulic |
| 303 | OK-D | P-400 | 8883 | 20 mm /Hydraulic |
| 304 | OK-E | P-400 | 8742 | 20 mm /Hydraulic |
| 305 | OK-F | P-400 | 8803 | 20 mm /Hydraulic |
| 306 | OK-G | P-400 | 8830 | 20 mm /Hydraulic |
| 307 | OK-H | P-400 | 4198 | 20 mm /Hydraulic |
| 308 | OK-I | P-400 | 8010 | 20 mm /Hydraulic |
| 309 | OK-J | P-400 | 4164 | 20 mm /Hydraulic |
| 310 | OK-K | P-400 | 8789 | 20 mm /Hydraulic |
| 311 | OK-L | P-400 | 8928 | 20 mm/Mechanical |
| 312 | OK-M | P-400 | 12162 | 20 mm/Mechanical |
| 313 | OK-N | P-400 | 12144 | 20 mm/Mechanical |
| 314 | OK-O | P-400 | 4220 | 20 mm/Mechanical |
| 315 | OK-P | P-39L | 304-A | 37 mm |
| 316 | OK-Q | P-39L | 13212 | 37 mm |
| 317 | OK-R | P-39L | 13216 | 37 mm |
| 318 | OK-S | P-39L | 13233 | 37 mm |
| 335** / 300 | OK-T | P-38G-1-LO | -- |
In addition (Ref.5) the spinners of the two flights in which was divided the Squadron were painted in two different colors: yellow and red.
Ref 13 states on pg.265 "... the 81st Fighter Group composed
of the 91st, 92nd and 93rd Squadrons went from 23 December 42 to 2 January
1943, in several groups of aircraft, from England to North Africa. Five
forced down in Portugal including the Group Commander.
Ref 15 says at Pag.206 "... on 30 December 1942,
a P-39D of either 68th Observation Group or 81st Fighter Group was shot
down by German fighters.17 Airacobras and a B-25 took off from Predannack
on this day, one Airacobra failed to arrive in Gibraltar.Also on February
5, 1943, one P-39 of 350th Fighter Group shot down by German fighter nera
Bordeaux, when in route to North Africa.
Ref. 14 remarks that 62 aircraft from 350th Fighter Group left early January from England to North Africa. (Port Lyautey). Of these, 49 arrived OK, 10 force landed in Portugal, 1 in Spain, and 2 were missing.
2 - Spitfires and Hurricanes in Portugal - Mário C.Lopes - Dinalivro - Lisboa 1994
3 - Ordem de Serviço (Base Order) nº 189 of July 8, 1943 of Air Base 2 Ota
4 - Brigadier José Martins Rosa Rodrigues interviewed by A. Mimoso e Carvalho in July 1, 1998.
5 - Commander Austem Godman Solano de Almeida interviewed by Luis Tavares in September 18, 1978.
6 - Lieutenant-Colonel Augusto Krug interviewed by Luis Tavares
in 1975.
7 - Us Army Air Force FIghters - Part 2 - William Green and Gordon
Swanborough - MacDonald and Janes London 1978
8 - "Wreckovery" in Aviation News 10-23 August 1984
9 - http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher
10 - Ordem de Serviço (Base Order) nr.247 of September 4, 1943 from B.A.2 - Ota
11 - Ordem de Serviço (Base Order) nr.279 of SOctober 6, 1943
from B.A.2 - Ota
12 - Wings of Fame - The Journal of Classics - Combat Aircraft - Volume
10 - Aerospace Publishing Company - London 1998
13 - The Mighty Eighth (A History of the US 8th Army Air Force)- Roger Freeman - Doubleday and Company, Inc. - New York 1970
14 - The 350th Fighter Group in the Mediterranean Campaign - 2 November 1942-2 May 1945 - Schiffer Publications -1977
15 - Bloody Biscay - The History of VGruppe/Kampfgeschwader 40 - Chris Goss - Crécy Publishing Ltd- 1997
16 - Correspondence with Javier Aranduy through Internet
17 - P-39 Airacobra in Action - Aircraft nr. 43 - Squadron Signal - 1980