Northrop P-61 Black Widow

The Northrop P-61 Black Widow was a twin-engined United States Army Air Forces fighter of World War II and the first US aircraft conceived from the outset, and deployed operationally, as a night fighter, with radar built into the original airframe. Named for the North American black widow spider, it was an all-metal twin-boom design armed with four 20 mm Hispano M2 autocannons in the lower fuselage and four .50 in M2 Browning machine guns in a dorsal turret, powered by Pratt and Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radials. The first test flight was on 26 May 1942 and the first production aircraft left the line in October 1943. It served in the European, Pacific, China Burma India and Mediterranean theaters, was redesignated F-61 after the war and was retired in 1954. The F-15 Reporter was developed from it.