Bell XFL Airabonita

The Bell XFL Airabonita, Bell Model 5, was an experimental carrier-based interceptor that Bell Aircraft of Buffalo, New York built for the United States Navy. It was a parallel development of the Army P-39 Airacobra, with an Allison V-1710 engine mounted behind the pilot driving the propeller through an extension shaft, but with a conventional tailwheel undercarriage and wing-mounted radiator fairings. The Navy signed for one prototype in November 1938, and it first flew on 13 May 1940. Engine and landing gear problems and weak altitude performance kept it from carrier certification, and the Navy chose not to order production. The single prototype ended as an armament test aircraft at Patuxent River.