Model Subject: Bell XP-77  

Kit Used: Czech Model, kit no. 4803

History of the aircraft modeled:  

Prior to America's entry into World War II, the Douglas Aircraft Company and Tucker Aviation Company  offered designs for lightweight fighter aircraft built mainly of wood. Neither design got past the developmental contract stage, as the Army deigned Douglas's proposal, the XP-48, as not feasible in performance and Tucker's design, the XP-57, was unable to proceed due to financial problems within the company. At the outbreak of World War II, the U.S. Army Air Force found itself with the possibility of shortages of light metal alloys used in aircraft construction and again approached aircraft manufacturers for proposals of a lightweight interceptor fighter to be built primarily out of wood.  

In May 1942, the Bell Aircraft Corporation proposed building their Tri-4, a wooden fighter with an estimated top speed of 410 mph at 27,000 feet, carrying two 20 mm cannons and two .50 caliber machine guns, yet weighing only 3,700 pounds (only two .50 caliber machine guns were fitted to the prototypes). The Army Air Force was optimistic, but ordered twenty-five of the little Tri-4 fighters  to be designated P-77s. When the supercharger proposed for the Ranger XV-770-9 inverted vee 12-cylinder engine proved unavailable, the Army reduced the order to six aircraft. The first of these was ready for flight testing in April 1944, by which time the contract had been canceled because the need for such a fighter no longer existed. Nevertheless, Bell was requested to complete the second XP-77 for flight trials.  

The 520 hp unsupercharged Ranger XV-770-6 engine did not deliver the estimated performance and the XP-77 had a top speed of only 330 mph at 4,000 feet. Further evaluation showed that the little wooden fighter offered little advancement over existing production fighters. Although the speed of the XP-77 was disappointing, the designers did manage to keep the actual weight within the estimated figure; empty weight was 2,760 pounds, gross weight 3,583 pounds, and overload weight 4,028 pounds. The XP-77's wing spanned 27 feet 6 inches, it was 22 feet 10 ½ inches in length, and stood 10 feet 11 inches in height. With a fuel capacity of 56 gallons, the XP-77 had a range of 550 miles at a cruising speed of 270 mph; service ceiling was 30,100 feet.  

The model represents the second example of the XP-77, which differed from the first only in the heat displacement gills, the first example having two gills instead of one. The second example was destroyed in October 1944 when the pilot attempted an Immelmann turn and the plane went into an inverted spin with the pilot parachuting to safety. The first prototype was tested until December 1944 before the contract was canceled. The first XP-77 went on to serve as gate guard at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio for several years until it deteriorated so badly that it had to be written off.  

Additions, modifications, etc:  

Interior:  

The interior pieces, except the rudder pedals and control stick, were cast in resin by True Details. I did not like the injection molded joy stick, so I scratch-built one from styrene rod and tube. I used the injected rudder pedals, but added True Details photoetched pedals to the injected piece. The cockpit was painted interior green with the instrument panel painted flat black. Instrument gauges were done with white paint and Reheat Models instrument decals. A little sanding was required to properly seat the completed interior to the fuselage halves.  

Engine: 

The kit contains a resin nose weight with the front of the engine and the nose gear bay molded onto and within it. By trial fitting I found that the engine front was too far to the rear if the nose gear bay was aligned properly, so I cut the engine front from the weighted piece and shimmed it to correctly fit. The engine front was painted engine gray and certain areas brushed flat black and silver as per reference.  

Exterior:

I drilled three holes on each side of the nose gear bay for the exhausts, which were constructed from short sections of styrene tube. The pitot tube was cut from small gauge wire and the tail navigation light cut from styrene rod. I also cut out the wing navigation lights and used Kristal Klear in the cuts after final assembly. The kit did not include the retraction rods, so these were scratch-built from styrene rod and tube. The kit included inner doors for the main gear wells, but in all of my references, these doors were not shown, so I deleted them and filled in the area that was to be covered by them, with exception of the wheel openings of course. I had to add the nose gear strut scissors from styrene strip, but they were properly molded on the main gear struts. Machine gun ports were drilled out and the vacuform canopy cut with an X-acto #11 blade. I positioned the open canopy piece in back of the cockpit, but in actuality it opened  by sliding back under the dorsal hump, which was impossible to duplicate due to the thickness of the plastic. The test pilot came from my spare figure stock and was primed in medium gray and brush painted with acrylics before receiving ink washes.    

Painting and decaling:

After masking the landing gear bays, engine opening, and cockpit I primed the assembly with flat white. Once dried, sanded, and reprimed where necessary, I gave the model two light coats of Polly-Scale Bright Silver. I let the silver dry for two days and gave the model a coat of clear gloss to protect the silver and prepare the finish for decals.  

I used the kit decals for the I.D. numbers on the tail and below the windshield. Although the kit's National Insignias were the proper size, I substituted them with insignia from a SuperScale sheet as the blue on the kit's insignia appeared almost black and I knew the white in the SuperScale sheet would be opaque. The various stencils came from several different decal sheets and are quite generic. I used them because they matched the stencils that appeared on my reference pictures.  

Caz