Planes Worth Modeling: Northrop P-61 Black Widow

Radar-equipped night fighter

Radar-equipped night fighter

Developed during World War II, the Northrop P-61 Black Widow was the first operational U.S. warplane designed as a night fighter and was also the first aircraft designed to use radar. The P-61 was manned with a crew of three: pilot, gunner, and radar operator. It was armed with four 20mm Hispano M2 forward-firing cannon mounted in the lower fuselage, and four .50-caliber M2 Browning machine guns mounted in a remotely controlled dorsal gun turret.

The all-metal, twin-engine, twin-boom design’s first test flight was made on May 26, 1942, and the first production models started rolling off the assembly lines in October 1943. The last P-61 variants were retired from military service in 1954.

Although not produced in the same large numbers as its contemporaries, the Black Widow was effectively operated as a night fighter by U.S. Army Air Forces

(USAAF) squadrons in the European Theater, Pacific Theater, China Burma India Theater, and Mediterranean Theater during WW II. It replaced earlier Britishdesigned night-fighter aircraft that had been updated to incorporate radar when it became available. After the war, the P-61—redesignated the F-61—served in the U.S. Air Force (USAF) as a long-range, all-weather, day/night interceptor for Air Defense Command until 1948 and for the Fifth Air Force until 1950.

The P-61 was also modified to create the F-15 Reporter photo-reconnaissance aircraft for the USAAF and subsequently used by the USAF.