Normandie Niemen P-39 (Airfix)

[kitbasher]

Congratulations for your Twin Kobra , and thanks from France for your NN Cobra...

Thanks Tophe. The Twin Kobra was built during a holiday in Brittany in 2006 and was inspired directly by the material in your "End of Forked Ghosts".  The back story was posted on this forum in early 2007 but that's a long time ago so, in case anyone's interested, here's a summary:

Viktor Belyaev, specialised in designs using twin fuselages and swept forward wings and designed the single seat, twin fuselage OI-2 fighter in 1941.

Occasionally referred to as the "Twin Kobra" because of its strong resemblance to a twinned Bell P-39, it seems to have been an entirely original design (the Soviet Union didn't get its first P-39s until December 1941)  although it used the P-39 concept of mid-fuselage engine location and car door type cockpit entry.

Unfortunately, although the OI-2 received the go-ahead in April 1941, the project was abandoned two months later when war broke out. Belyaev's OKB was disbanded and Belyaev spent the War at Factories 166 and 288 as head of the strength calculations bureau of Myasischev's OKB.

He took the loss of his OKB and the destruction of his unusual designs very hard and it isn't a big What If to suppose that he persisted with the concepts while working for Myasischev or that, given the vast quantities of P-39s and P-63s available in the USSR at the time, he could have begged, borrowed or stolen two war-weary Airacobras to convert into a proof-of-concept aircraft.

Unfortunately, by the time he got a prototype in the air the concept was thought to be obsolete and the sole example of this interesting aircraft eventually rotted away in a corner of Factory 288 as all energies were focussed on the development of jet aircraft - - - -

Illustration at http://img.wp.scn.ru/camms/ar/1870/pics/1_1.jpg, and you can test your French out for more at http://fandavion.free.fr/BljaevOI2.htm.
Never heard of the beast until now.