The Bell YFM-1 Airacuda remains one of the more unusual aircraft ever built. About a dozen of these planes were built in the late 1930’s to fill the role of “bomber destroyer,” a concept similar to that employed by the German Messerschmit Bf 110: a flying armaments platform meant to blast enemy bombers out of the sky. To that end it had aimable 37mm cannon in the noses of each of the two engine nacelles, which were mounted over the wings and featured pusher props. As well as the cannon, each nacelle also held a crewman whose main role was to load the cannon and hope that he didn’t have to bail out (what with the pusher prop right behind him).

The idea was interesting and the design certainly looked seriously impressive, but just about everything that could go wrong did. It was underpowered so that it was actually slower than enemy bombers.  It was heavy and sluggish, so it couldn’t dogfight regular fighters. The Allison engines tended to overheat, especially on the ground. When the cannon fired, the nacelles would fill with smoke. It had bomb bays in the wings, but the bomb payload was too small to make it of much use. The auxiliary power unit provided electrical power to essentially everything, so if the APU failed, so would the fuel pumps, avionics, hydraulics… basically everything. If the pilots needed to bail out, chances were good they’d smack into the empennage (which happened to one co-pilot as he bailed out, breaking his legs).

Photo via Mark Nankivil.