Bailing out of a P-39

[Devil 505]

What is the procedure? There must be some way to quickly jettison the door. Explosive bolts perhaps?

[Reaper90]

Bailing out of the '39 was extremely risky due to the high likelihood of hitting the horizontal stab. I don't know about US pilots, but I've read numerous places that Russian pilots would do anything they could to fly the plane to the ground if at all possible, even on fire, to avoid bailing out.

[Ack-Ack]

Emergency exit procedure for the P-39.

Pilot should have as much altitude as possible.  Reduce airspeed below cruising speed.  Then proceed as follows.
1. Trim nose heavy and switch OFF.
2. Put aircraft in shallow right turn.
3. Free shoulder harness and belt.
4. Release right top door pin.
5. Pull right door emergency release
6. Push right door out.
7. Go out right side head low.

P-39 Flight Manual

ack-ack

[Karnak]

Emergency exit procedure for the P-39.

Pilot should have as much altitude as possible.  Reduce airspeed below cruising speed.  Then proceed as follows.
1. Trim nose heavy and switch OFF.
2. Put aircraft in shallow right turn.
3. Free shoulder harness and belt.
4. Release right top door pin.
5. Pull right door emergency release
6. Push right door out.
7. Go out right side head low.

P-39 Flight Manual

ack-ack

Have fun doing all that when an A6M just blew your entire tail off (Sakai described doing thus to a P-39) or a Bf109 just took your left wing off...

[Soulyss]

What is the procedure? There must be some way to quickly jettison the door. Explosive bolts perhaps?

There was a quick release mechanism, not sure if both doors could be jettisoned or just the right one.  The right side of the cockpit was a little easier to enter/exit from  ease the throttle was located on the side.

http://youtu.be/JwksKXoDALI

Hope the links works, trying to do this from the phone.  The quick release
Is shown a little after the 10:30 mark.

[colmbo]

Most doors like that are rigged so that you pull the emergency release which pulls the door hinge pins out -- a little push to get he leading edge into the slipstream and bye bye door.

I could see hitting the tail if you stood up as you got out, or jumped hard.  If you just slid off the back of the wing not likely you would hit the tail.

[Ack-Ack]

Have fun doing all that when an A6M just blew your entire tail off (Sakai described doing thus to a P-39) or a Bf109 just took your left wing off...

Yeah, that's what I thought but that's the procedure that it outlined in all the P-39 flight manuals.

ack-ack

[Reaper90]

Remembered this, took me a while to find it...

it can be said that the debut of the Airacobra in the Soviet VVS was singularly successful. In skilled hands it was a powerful weapon, fully on a par with the enemy equipment. There was no "special" operational environment for the Airacobras-they were employed as normal multi-purpose fighters that fulfilled the same roles as Lavochkins and Yakovlevs: they contested with fighters, escorted bombers, flew on reconnaissance, and protected our ground forces. They differed from Soviet-produced fighters in having a more powerful armament, survivability, and a good radio, and fell behind our fighters in vertical maneuverability, capability to withstand excessive G-forces, and to execute acute maneuvers. The pilots loved their Airacobras for comfort and good protection. As one P-39 pilot expressed it, he felt like he was "flying in a safe". Airacobra pilots did not burn because the aircraft was metal and the fuel cells were positioned far away in the wing. They were not subject to jets of steam or streams of oil because the engine was behind them. Their faces were not beat up on protrusions of the gunsight. If the airplane should happen to flip over on landing, they were not turned into lump of flesh, as happened to twice HSU A. F. Klubov after transitioning from a P-39 to an La-7. There was a kind of mystical belief that a pilot attempting to preserve a damaged Cobra by belly landing it would almost always emerge not only alive, but also undamaged. But if he bailed out of the same airplane he often was seriously injured or killed by the stabilizer, which was on the same level as the door.

from http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/english/articles/romanenko/p-39/part2.htm

[Devil 505]

Excellent stuff guys. Thanks.