Despite not having seen combat during World War II, the Bell P-59 Airacomet was the USA's first jet fighter and the third such aircraft after the Me 262 and the Meteor. The P-59 was ordered even before the US entered the conflict as an aircraft to be powered by the Whittle turbojets then being developed in Britain. Ultimately, though, the Airacomet was a highly conventional straight wing design, owing far more to its piston engined counterparts than the new generation of jets yet that did not prevent the project to be shrowded in complete secrecy. Yet the P-59 was far from superb: it was outflown by piston engined P-47s and P-51s during trials. Only one unit was eventually equipped with the Airacoment and merely for training purposes before the introduction of the superior P-80 while one example was exchanged for a Meteor for mutual testing purposes.

The XP-59A prototype was first flown on 1 October 1942, its designation shared (for secrecy purposes) with a completely unrelated twin-boom XP-59 with pusher propellers. Trials continued with the YP-59A while production examples began with the P-59A and followed by the P-59B with minor changes. A few USN units were known as the XF2L-1.