[Berkut76]

Originally Posted by no4mkit

That's the right answer, but in practice it wasn't always that easy. The 357th operated P-39's while Stateside and there is one account of the pilot having to turn his whole body sideways in the cockpit and kick the door free, barely having his chute open before hitting the ground. Makes you wonder how many went in while struggling with the door.

Quite a few Soviet pilots bought a farm because of that. Most of the P-39 accounts that I've read mention that the Soviet pilots preferred to crash land P-39 rather than bailing out of one. P-39 was known as a flying safe in the Soviet service and given the Luftwaffe pilots to shot up parachutists, the VVS pilots preferred crash landing to bailing out in general. However, the Soviet sources mention that bailing out was dangerous because the location of horizontal stabilizer.

Regards,

Sergey

[Celtic]

Originally Posted by Berkut76

Quite a few Soviet pilots bought a farm because of that. Most of the P-39 accounts that I've read mention that the Soviet pilots preferred to crash land P-39 rather than bailing out of one. P-39 was known as a flying safe in the Soviet service and given the Luftwaffe pilots to shot up parachutists, the VVS pilots preferred crash landing to bailing out in general. However, the Soviet sources mention that bailing out was dangerous because the location of horizontal stabilizer.

Regards,

Sergey

On the other side of the coin, at least in USAAF service, the door was also known to depart the plane unexpectedly and of its own accord. You can imagine the draft!