Boeing P-26 Peashooter


The Boeing P-26 "Peashooter" was the first American all-metal production fighter aircraft and the first pursuit monoplane to enter squadron service with the United States Army Air Corps. Designed and built by Boeing, the prototype first flew in 1932, and the type was still in use with the U.S. Army Air Corps as late as 1941 in the Philippines. There are only two surviving Peashooters, but there are three reproductions on exhibit with two more under construction.

Design and development

The project, funded by Boeing, to produce the Boeing Model 248 began in September 1931, with the US Army Air Corps supplying the engines and the instruments. The design, which included an open cockpit, fixed landing gear and externally braced wings, was the last such design procured by the USAAC as a fighter aircraft. The Model 248 had a high landing speed, which caused a number of accidents. To remedy this, flaps were fitted to reduce the landing speed. The Army Air Corps ordered three prototypes, designated XP-936, with the first flight on 20 March 1932.
The Boeing XP-936 was still tricky to land and could roll onto its back while landing, injuring the pilot. The prototype's headrest offered little protection in such instances. As a result, production Model 266s had a taller headrest installed to provide some protection.
Two fighters were completed as P-26Bs with fuel-injected Pratt & Whitney R-1340-33 engines. These were followed by twenty-three P-26Cs, with carburated R-1340-33s and modified fuel systems. Both the Spanish Air Force and the Republic of China Air Force ordered examples of the Boeing Model 281, an export version of the P-26 comparable to the P-26C, in 1936.
The diminutive "Peashooter", as it was known by service pilots, was faster than previous American combat aircraft. Nonetheless, rapid progress in aviation led to it quickly becoming an anachronism, with wire-braced wings, fixed landing gear and an open cockpit. The stressed-skin cantilever-wing Dewoitine D.500 flew the same year as the P-26 and two years afterwards the Soviet I-16 was flying with retractable landing gear. By 1935, just three years after the P-26, the Curtiss P-36, Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Hawker Hurricane were all flying with enclosed cockpits, retractable landing gear and cantilever wings. However, the P-26 remained in service until after the United States entered World War II in December 1941.

Operational history

U.S. Army Air Corps

Deliveries to USAAC pursuit squadrons began in December 1933 with the last production P-26C aircraft coming off the assembly line in 1936. Ultimately, 22 squadrons flew the Peashooter, with peak service being six squadrons, in 1936. P-26s were the frontline fighters of the USAAC until 1938, when Seversky P-35s and Curtiss P-36s began to replace the P-26. A total of twenty P-26s were lost in accidents between 1934 and America's entry into World War II on 7 December 1941, but only five before 1940.
Air Corps units using the P-26 were the:
Between 1938 and 1940, P-26s were assigned overseas to supplement Seversky P-35s in two defense units based at Wheeler Field, Territory of Hawaii:
The 17th PG became the 17th Attack Group in 1935, and its P-26s were transferred in 1938 to the 16th Pursuit Group at Albrook Field in the Panama Canal Zone. These P-26s were transferred in 1940 to the 37th Pursuit Group which flew them until they were replaced by P-40s in May 1941. Some continued service with the 32d Pursuit Group, but only nine P-26s remained operational in Central America at the start of World War II.
P-26As were also flown by the 3d PS of the 4th Composite Group, based in the Philippines. Between 1937 and 1941, 31 were sold to the fledgling Philippine Army Air Corps.

Combat service

The first Boeing P-26 to experience major combat operation was the Chinese Model 281. On 15 August 1937, eight P-26/281s from the Chinese Nationalist Air Force 3rd Pursuit Group, 17th Squadron, based at Chuyung airfield, engaged eight out of twenty Mitsubishi G3M Nell medium bombers from the Kisarazu Air Group sent to attack Nanking. The Chinese Boeing fighters helped shoot down two of the four Japanese bombers destroyed that day without suffering any losses. Subsequent engagements between the Chinese Peashooter pilots and pilots of the Imperial Japanese Navy flying the Mitsubishi A5M were the first aerial dogfights and kills between all-metal monoplane fighter aircraft. A single P-26 was in service with the Spanish Republican Air Force during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, but no aerial kills were recorded with it before it was shot down in 1936.
By December 1941, U.S. fighter strength in the Philippines included 28 P-26s, 12 of which were operational with the 6th Pursuit Squadron of the Philippine Army Air Corps. In the skies above Zablan and Batangas Fields, Captain Jesus A. Villamor flew against Japanese Zeros, his squadron of Boeing P-26 Peashooter fighters engaged the enemy. Despite the disadvantage, Villamor and his squadron was credited with four kills – one Mitsubishi G3M bomber and three Mitsubishi A6M Zeros. Two of them by Villamor himself. For leading his squadron and for his two confirmed kills, Villamor was twice cited by the United States Army for bravery, receiving the Distinguished Service Cross for actions on December 10, 1941 and an Oak Leaf Cluster in lieu of a second award of the Distinguished Service Cross for actions on December 12, 1941.
The P-26s were burned by their crews to prevent capture by advancing Imperial Japanese Army forces on 24 December 1941.
Only nine P-26s remained airworthy, serving with the United States Army Air Forces in the Panama Canal Zone. In 1942–1943, the Guatemalan Air Force acquired seven P-26s, which the United States Government delivered to Guatemala as "Boeing PT-26A" trainers to get around restrictions on sales to Latin American countries. The last two P-26s in service in the world were still flying with the Guatemalan Air Force in 1956, when they were replaced with P-51 Mustangs. The P-26's last combat operation was with the Guatemalan Air Force during a coup d'état in 1954.
Although Boeing produced the prototype XF8B in 1944 and the X-32 entry in the Joint Strike Fighter contest in 2000, the P-26 was the last Boeing Company fighter aircraft to enter service until Boeing acquired McDonnell-Douglas and took over its production and continuing support contracts for the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet in 2002.

Variants

;XP-936
;P-26A
;P-26B
;P-26C
;Model 281

Operators

; Spain

Citations