P-63 question

The best I can come up with is a B&W photo in Jones' "U.S. Fighters" that seems to show a plain hole there. The aircraft in question is an XP-63A so that might mean little for production examples. I have only found two pics of the left side of any P-63 and the other is too murky to say what's there. Even the G.A. drawings I've checked show nothing there.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

I just got a FANA issue, is shows a P63 being restored in Siberia!!

Keith Walker

Kewl! Does it show the area just behind the cockpit on the left side?

Went through about 50 photos (out of several hundred P-63 photos) in the MAI Library and files.

Most showed a simple round hole, repeated on the right side. The angled slot shown on the Hi-Tech instructions also showed up in other photos, as did the shallow oval hole higher up and just below the main intake.

My guess is that the angled slot is a hand hold and the shallow oval hole replaced the simple round hole on later examples.

Whatever way you go, use photos wherever possible. Drawings, no matter how detailed, are the artist's or draughtsman's translation of what he sees.

Let me know which aircraft you are doing and I'll try to find it in the archives.

Good luck.

Tom

I was considering doing the kit boxart example, but now there's a possibility of doing a racer. Whichever one I do I want to give the vent/intake some depth with tube stock, thus the need to know which way it points.

Some of the P-63 air racers had completely different, more streamlined main intakes. Great color schemes!

I don't have immediate access to my H-T P-63. Is the box art French AF M-5L? If so I can probably find photo(s) of that specific aircraft.

Let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Tom

This is not the main dorsal intake; it's below it on the port side.

It's aircraft V, serial No. 311697. No Squadron is specified.