Did you know this?

[Fernando Mendes]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mhF49AJrVg

[Dan Hiebert]

Yep. I'm a bit of an airplane nut. Bell aircraft were built right here in Wheatfield, NY. The factory is still here, still has "Bell Aerospace" on the side, although it's been long disused. Company moved to Texas, in the '70's or 80's I think. They make helicopters now.

[Fernando Mendes]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoMijlGRb04

Bell X-1 in 1947 Mach I.

[Dan Hiebert]

I think Bell Aerospace is still operating in western NY as "Calspan".  Our air branch is co-located at the Calspan hangar at the Niagara Falls International Airport (the airport where the old Bell aircraft factory is located).  Calspan has a lot of information displays about Bell experimental aircraft, and a full-size mock-up of the X-1 hanging in their lobby.  The P-59 from your first video, and the X-1 were built here, and shipped to Edwards AFB.  Pretty cool.  Thanks for posting the videos!

[TodFitch]

I think Bell Aerospace is still operating in western NY as "Calspan".  Our air branch is co-located at the Calspan hangar at the Niagara Falls International Airport (the airport where the old Bell aircraft factory is located).  Calspan has a lot of information displays about Bell experimental aircraft, and a full-size mock-up of the X-1 hanging in their lobby.  The P-59 from your first video, and the X-1 were built here, and shipped to Edwards AFB.  Pretty cool.  Thanks for posting the videos!

 

It appears that Calspan is unrelated to Bell Aerospace: http://www.calspan.com/our-company

[GlennCraven]

An amazing aircraft, especially for 1942!

 

The military wasn't impressed with the plane's performance. It cruised at 375 mph and had a top speed of 413 mph, which were roughly consistent with (or at the top end, actually slower than) the prop-driven P-51, which in its later form could hit 437 mph at altitude. Ultimately the U.S. Army Air Force (so-named at the time) would cancel its order with Bell after only about half of the 80 planes ordered were built. None saw combat.

 

Only about a year after the Bell P-59 took flight, Lockheed (in something like 143 days) designed and flew the P-80 Shooting Star. That plane, though not ready for combat before the end of hostilities in 1945, cruised at over 400 mph and could hit 600 mph in a pinch. If memory serves eventually more than 1,700 of these were built, with many seeing action in Korea as the F-80, after the Air Force switched its nomenclature on fighter planes from "P" for "pursuit" to "F" for "fighter."

[Dan Hiebert]

It appears that Calspan is unrelated to Bell Aerospace: http://www.calspan.com/our-company

That was just a hunch, I've never looked it up. I only knew they do a lot of transportation research. Perhaps they have the X-1 mock-up and the other experimental displays because of the flight research they do at that facility, and that they're on the same airfield as Bell used to be.

[Fernando Mendes]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK2DqtnJI5U

P-80 or F-80(monoplace) and T-33(biplace)