The Northrop P-61 Black Widow was the most bizarre and sophisticated aircraft to soar above World War II skies. America’s first night fighter, its radar gear cutting-edge, it paired with massive firepower and an open-mouthed, radical appearance. To pilots and airmen and all of us, the Black Widow represented night air warfare revolution, an airplane that seemed to repel night itself.
Black Widow legend itself did not die with the cessation of hostilities. Squadrons such as the 547th Night Fighter Squadron, now the 547th Intelligence Squadron, carried on its tradition of innovation, evolving its capabilities to meet the demands of today’s air threats. A World War II memorial plaque was dedicated in 2023 at Bakersfield’s Meadows Field Airport to honor the war service of the squadron and to allow members today to look back in pride on their grand heritage. Today’s work of the squadron is highly technical, such as surveillance and countermeasures against advanced threats, but the tradition endures. Fridays continue to wear the original Black Widow patch as a reminder of that airplane that symbolized an era.
The Black Widow experienced its initial combat trial in the Navy over the summer of 1944. The very first victory was attributed to a 6th Night Fighter Squadron P-61, which shot down a Japanese Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” bomber on July 6. In the Pacific War, the aircraft’s combination of firepower and radar was the enemy’s worst nightmare in night raids.
In Europe, it replaced earlier British night fighters that could effectively intercept German bombers and fighters at night. Its most famous achievement was on August 14, 1945, when a P-61B, Lady in the Dark, shot down what is likely to have been the final Allied win of the war.
Its influence lasted long, long after WWII; the P-61, now redesignated F-61, stayed in service until 1954, and its design even found its way onto the F-15 Reporter spyplane. Aviation historian Isaac Seitz wasn’t joking when he called the Black Widow “one of the most distinctive and visually unusual aircraft to fly in the Second World War.”
Black Widow was as lethal as it was accurate. With four 20mm Hispano M2 and four .50-cal Browning machine guns in a rear turret, three men—a pilot, a gunner, and a radar man—had to communicate amongst each other to detect and destroy the target. Stepped and bubble canopies gave all the crewmen excellent visibility, and the twin-boom design gave it stability.
Two Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radial engines of about 2,000 horsepower each propelled the P-61 to 366 miles per hour and to an altitude many times greater than 33,000 feet, considering its size. It was handled in a very smooth way for an airplane of its size, with tricycle gear and spoilers rather than ailerons.
Even the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum called it “an old man’s airplane,” a testament to how smooth and gentle it was to fly. But the P-61’s biggest strong point was its radar.
It was designed to be used with the Western Electric SCR-720A set, which was capable of detecting enemy aircraft five miles away, even in the dead of night or weather. The radar pilot directed the pilot to the target, and Black Widow was a night-flying killer.
The Britishers had played with radar, but the P-61 amplified it and paired advanced detection equipment with an airplane that fought best by night. Its arrival was a resounding innovation of air war tactics. Finally, the P-61 Black Widow was a gun, but a work of genius and diversity.
It combined stamina, radar capacity, speed, and deadliness in a single aircraft and set a standard being felt today by all-weather fighters. Its past is in museums and war memorials, but in airplane DNA that permeates the skies of the present so that the specter of the Black Widow continues to intimidate even in daylight.