Warbird Information Exchange

What did the rear seat crewman do on a P-61?

From the P-61 Wiki page. . . "The P-61 featured a crew of three: pilot, gunner, and radar operator." It goes on to say that the radar op was also the radioman.

Cheers!

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Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

...and luckiest to be the farthest from the radar transmitting dish....
I'm sure the early equipment put out all sorts of nasty rays, the early C and X band radars used on 707/DC-8/727's had a shielding blanket on the front bulkhead to keep the crew from getting that 'warm all over 'feeling, ask anyone who's stood in front of a B-52 with the low light system turned on how toasty they got in a couple of minutes........

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Elwyn,
Not to kick a dying horse, but the Radar/Radio op sat behind the pilot in an elevated cockpit. The gunner, on those equipped, sat in the far aft cabin. Besides the XP-61, only the first 37 of 200 produced, P-61As had the top turret and gunner. The first 200 of 450 produced of the B models did not have the turret. This was because of buffeting problems caused by the turret. The last 250 Bs had the turret as did the 41 produced C models. Hope I didn't tell you how a chonometer was made when all you wanted was the current time.
Regards,
Hugh

I think you have that backwards. The gunner sat directly behind the pilot and the radar-radio operater/gunner sat in the far aft compartment. All radio equipment was in the aft compartment.
Both fwd & aft crew members had the ability to control the turret.

Item 8, Gunners sighting station
Item 17, Radio Operators sighting station

Thanks for the correction. My source, The American Fighter, obviously is in error. I guess that the RO rode backwards. That must have made him giving the pilot vectors to the target rather interesting. To further clarify, did both the pilot and gunner have control of the turret or RO and gunner?
Thanks again,
Hugh

The radar-radio operator's chair could swivel. While using the radar he would be facing forward.
With the turret facing forward the pilot could fire the weapons, but he did not have any control for the movement of the turret.

Thats an interesting picture of the gunner's station. I can't read entirely what the print in the lower corner says, but I think this is an early mock up. The canopy is completely different in the b's and c's, as well as every other picture I've ever seen. A lot of the equipment is different as well. The lower picture of the radar operator's position is correct and looks very similar to ours.

A quick update, both booms are finished and in the hangar, the first rudder is in the fixture and pieces are being made. We set up the horizontal fixture today and it should be loaded within the week. Russ was running around with the camera today so hopefully pics will be up at MAAM.org soon.

This may be the XP-61. I think the reason it may look odd is because the fwd curved part of the aft canopy is removed. The armour plate says "Dummy Plate".

Thanks for all the replies. I have admired the P-61 for years but never thought about much about which of the rear crew members did what until just the other day.