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Bell XP 59 airacomet
Described as one of the best-kept secrets of World War II, the Airacomet was the first jet-propelled airplane in the United States. It was such a hush-hush project that hundreds of flights had been made in the radically new machine before it was announced to the public in 1943.
The P-59 had its inception on August 28, 1941, when Lawrence Bell, President of Bell Aircraft, was summoned to Washington, DC, for a conference. He had been called to the nation's capital by General Henry "Hap" Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Force, to discuss the possibility of designing a single-seat fighter around the jet engine that had been evolved by a Royal Canadian Air Force officer, Group Commander, Frank Whittle. Mr. Bell replied that he was definitely interested in the project and would put his design engineers to work on the plane without delay.
At that time the Bell company was working on a new twin-engined fighter for the Air Force, under the designation XP-59. In order to preserve the cloak of secrecy, the original project was canceled and the new twin jet fighter was given the same designation.
Bell Aircraft engineers immediately began design work on the new project, and by March 1942 they were ready to start construction on three XP-59As. The planes were to be powered by two 1,250 pounds-thrust turbojet engines built under license by General Electric.
The first XP-59A was shipped in secrecy to Edwards Air Force Base in California, where it was flown for the first time on October 1, 1942, by Robert Stanley, Bell's chief test pilot.