The Bell XP-52 was an unusual fighter aircraft design by the Bell Aircraft Corporation. It was submitted as part of a USAAC competition held in the winter of 1939.

The fuselage was round and barrel-shaped, with the pilot in the nose and the piston engine behind him, driving a pair of counter-rotating propellors at the rear of the fuselage. The wings were mid-fuselage and swept back at an angle of 20 degrees, and the horizontal stabilizer was connected at each end to booms from the wings, similar to the P-38 Lightning's layout.

The design was one of six chosen for further development, but was then cancelled 25 November 1941 in favor of a new design called the XP-59, which later evolved into the jet-powered P-59 Airacomet.

External link

• Page with artist's conception of XP-52