Brewster Buffalo - WW2's "Worst" Aircraft Wasn't All Bad | Aircraft History #7 

The Finnish Air Force produced 36 Buffalo aces. The top three were Capt. Hans Wind, with 39 Buffalo air victories. WO Eino Ilmari Juutilainen, with 34 and Capt. Jorma Karhunen, with 25.5.

Wow, this plane is a very good example of being the right plane in the wrong place

When talking about Finnish Brewsters, you have to put them in the context of the time. In 1940 Finland had Fokker DXXI and Morane 406's, and couple Fiats. Soviets had I-16 Rata and Hurricane I's. In this context Brewster was not bad at all. Pilots considered it better than Hurricane I, and good against the I-16 Rata. Morane 406 had only 840hp or so, and Fokker DXXI was outclassed. First aircraft Finns received that was equal to Brewster, was Curtiss 75 Hawk. It was not better than Brewster, but as good. Only in 1943 when we got Bf-109's, Brewster was clearly blown away.

There is a book. "Wings Over Burma" that tells the story of the Buffalo in the east. Written by an RAF mechanic it is a fascinating read.

The Smithsonian Air an Space Museum has a copy of the Brewster Pilot Operating Handbook which was issued to my father in 1941.

Amazing how many of the "Worst aircraft" of WW2 were actually quite successful in different combat zones or different roles. I mean, even the Bolton-Paul Defiant was pretty successful as a night fighter!

The Buffalo's landing gear was a clever yet inadequate design that seems to have been unique to that aircraft and influenced no subsequent designs except as a negative example. The primary element was an aluminum monocoque outboard strut actuated by an inner strut composed of a mild steel tube attached to a hydraulic piston which extended and retracted the gear. That same hydraulic system also acted as the shock absorber, a job it did very poorly for carrier landings. As Brewster's design intent was to reduce the weight and complexity of the landing gear, the outer strut was also engineered toward that end. The monocoque strut was designed to retract neatly into its recess in the lower surface of the wing, creating an aerodynamically clean installation without landing gear doors of any kind. Unfortunately due to the inadequate suspension, less than perfect landing tended to distort the shape of the monocoque to the point that the gear could not retract.

Thanks for another great post. I've always been impressed by the Finnish forces holding out against the Russians in an almost mythical David vs Goliath type struggle which likely brings home the comment that the buffalo in the hands of properly trained pilots was a lot more potent weapon.

Best fighter plane in respect of the kill ratio in WWII is and was the Brewster 239 in finnish hands. Kill ratio over the whole war ... 33 : 1, .... kill ratio in 1941 (fighting the planes it was designed to fight with) 62 : 1. The F2A "Buffalo" was a complete different airplane. The Brewster 239 was the plane Brewster designed and had excellent handling characteristics. In fact so well, that the Finns called them "Taivaan Helmi" ("Sky Pearls" in english). The american Brewster F2A was an airplane that was buildt, after a "comitee of experts" insistet of several "improvements" which made it a sluggish pig.

I'm actually quite fond of this tubby little guy - especially the export version the Finns got (the B.239) that they liked so much, they built their own version of it.

9:35 is a Wildcat,which in fact was a very capable aircraft..!

Brewster making the leap from parts manufacturer to producing a full plane for the military kinda reminds of the story of Accuracy International and the 3 guys in a shed incident.

Nice to hear about the Finnish use of the Buffalo.

I watched a video about the Fairy Battle yesterday , and my opinion is that the " battle" was far worse , as was the Douglas TBD-1 Devastator

A major takeaway is don't mess with Finland.

10:19 what a fascinating camo, looks like the dazzle ship camo update for those similarly curious: apparently McClelland Barclay was given license to go wild on a few buffalos for camo testing before retiring the idea McClelland Barclay's No. 1 Dazzle Paint scheme is what is pictured

Another excellent video. Note, to be fair, nearly every Allied fighter that ran up against the Zero in the early days of the war suffered for the experience, until our pilots learned how to combat it's agility and amazing climb rate. Also, the Marine pilots at Midway (or the Dutch or Commonwealth flyers) were not only flying inferior planes, they were swamped by sheer numbers of Japanese aircraft.

One of the Buffalo's designers was David Thurston, who went on to design the Lake Amphibian, as well as the Thurston Teal amphibian, which I had some experience servicing and restoring. Even had the honour of speaking with him on a couple of occasions before he passed away.

I saw somewhere that one of the Finnish Brewsters might have the most kills of any aircraft in history. That individual aircraft was used by several of the Finnish aces when scoring their kills, and the combined total was impressive. Must have been the best plane in that squadron if all the best pilots there wanted it as their ride.

The Buffalo was ahead of its time when it was introduced in 1937. But it was one of (maybe) a dozen fighters from several countries whose time was up by the time the US entered the war four years later. Counting those, like the Boulton Paul Defiant, the Fairey Battle, and several from France and the Netherlands, it was hardly the "Worst fighter of World War II." They were all just too old.

Good work, I made a two part video covering all the specifics earlier this year on all the Buffalo variants. Before working on the video I always thought the Buffalo was a terrible plane, but finding out about it’s history for Finland surprised me.

The Brewster Buccaneer, OTOH was a giant piece of crap in every aspect. My grandmother worked for Brewster in 1943/44. She was subpoenaed by Congress to testify when Brewster was under investigation, though was never called.

The worst US built production aircraft of WWII is a toss up between the Brewster Buccaneer or the Curtis Seamew. The Buffalo suffered as noted here by the overloading of the airframe.

The Buffalo had 31:1 kill ration in ww2. I would say it definitely exceeded expectations

Yet another in the "The Worst Aircraft Were Not So Bad After All" series. Most reviewers do not give the Finnish experience justice. Your short but fair and comprehensive reviews are excellent.

I would give that title to Bolton Paul Defiant. The Buffalo really never had margin for growth and performance suffered being overloaded from added equipment. Greg Boyington said about the Buffalo if kept lightly loaded it was more maneuverable then the Zero.

That's not an F2A3 @ 6:06, that's a Grumman Wildcat.

The BB just needed the right job to do. In the Finnish air force they found it. It was much better for cold weather conditions.

Main problem with aircraft like the Brewster Buffalo and Curtiss Hawk 75 was that the pilots were not well prepared and not trained in air combat. Dutch pilots had to learn the hard way how to combat Hayabusa 'Oscars' and Navy Zeros. And the time to learn was extremely short... Finnish pilots had much more time to adapt to Russian 'tactics'.

There were two RAAF squadrons (25 & 85) of Buffalos stationed at Perth WA until late ‘43 for local air defence. As the fighting moved away north the 25th got Vultee Vengeance dive bombers and then B-24s, and the 85th Boomerangs then Spitfires MkVs.

Excellent coverage of a vintage and not well known aircraft. Thanks so much.

The Buffalo performed well in Finland where conditions were cool and poorly in the Pacific area, where temperatures were higher

Excellent production... best military aviation channel on RU-vid... 👍

Thank you for making this video - I love the buffalos and it's good to see someone shining this good light on them.

Great video! You've got a new subscriber, and I'm looking forward to binge-watching!

It was a lovely little plane that just needed a bit of sensible re-engineering and TLC.

Very informative and well-researched. You make a good case.

"Brewster Buffalo, you are without doubt the worst WWII fighter plane I've ever heard of!" "But... you have heard of me!"

Each F2A variant was better than its F4F counterpart, so if the Wildcat turned out to be a worthy opponent for the Zero, the Buffalo would do as well or even better. The problem was the pilots' poor training and lack of experience. Pappy Boyington liked this machine. He praised the good turning and maneuvering abilities of the aircraft: "the early models, ... were pretty sweet little ships. Not real fast, but could turn and roll in a phone booth". This might reasonably have been expected with the low wing loading in earlier variants, which was comparable with the Mitsubishi A6M Zero's lb/sq ft” The Finnish Air Force produced 36 Buffalo aces. The top three were Capt. Hans Wind, with 39 Buffalo air victories (out of 75), WO Eino Ilmari Juutilainen, with 34 (out of 94) and Capt. Jorma Karhunen, with 25.5 (out of 31.5). First Lt Lauri Nissinen also had victories in the type (22.5 out of 32.5). The Brewster Buffalo earned a reputation in Finnish Air Force service as one of its more successful fighter aircraft which scored an unprecedented kill-loss ratio of 33-1. The non-Finnish Buffalo aces were: Geoff Fisken (RNZAF), with six air victories, and Doug Vanderfield (RAAF) with five individual kills, plus one shared. Alf Clare (RAAF) and Maurice Holder (RAF) had five victories each.

A major problem was all the labor problems Brewster Company had, they contributed significantly to souring the US Navy on the design. This was combined with bad management decisions and lawsuits for misusing government funding and there you have it. With less Navy support, design development suffered and the aircraft always employed inferior engines when compared to the Grumman F4F Wildcat-who got preferential consideration. Buffalo was not a bad aircraft, but airplane technology was changing rapidly at that time and a company without deep pockets to fund continued development were at a disadvantage. Brewster were not up to the task of producing cutting-edge aircraft designs anymore and quickly faded away-the bad design Brewster Buccaneer bomber/scout was the final nail in their coffin. Though they did make some Corsairs under license during the War.

Wonderful variety you are tapping into, Rex, press on! The Finnish history was great -- another facet of the Soviets getting a shocker of a shove back by such a smaller fella on their border (Stalin likely having previously executed most of his promising combat pilots, along with his entire veteran officer corps, before the Nazis turned on him). And, a solemn nod to the character and soul of the last Buffalo pilot to take off from Wake Island, giving his last lash at an enraged Japanese task force. That was like the vanguard note of what awaited almost all of the doomed crews of the Devastators, even then enroute to the grim opening rounds of those carrier air losses. Inclusion of the notes on Brewster's in-house turmoil, and the industry's collective chaos with predatory shysters, is great balance to your content... pile it on as you find it! If I may offer an excellent, further reference to the opening WWII engineering growing pains: Ian Toll's "War In The Pacific" trilogy does a fascinating, deep dive into several similar aircraft development stories -- most notably the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver (my uncle had been a tail-gunner on one); a host of no-go performance problems & generally despised by crew, the desperation of 'using what you got' during those opening years rammed that airframe down the fleets' complement anyway. Inclusion of all of the anecdotal and rest-of-the-background stuff adds to the sheer scope of what it took to get an airplane finally up and into the fight.

Surprised to learn this. Years ago when I played War Thunder I had a Brewster Buffalo, and it was one of my favorite planes. Excellent turn rate and armament for its tier in Arcade. I wouldn't consider myself a fantastic pilot in that game but I found its performance good enough to bring it to uptiers.

One of my favorite aircraft. Thanks for uploading.

Great vid Rex! I like the Buffalo's design.

I think if Brewster had simply been a more experienced & slightly larger company it would've developed into a far superior aircraft

Great channel! Nice to see that "Finnish-part". That Lapland victories from "Stukas" are disputed. German's had no recorded losses in that day and there's also other uncertain issues. Case is interesting. Hannu Valtonen is reseached lots of the case. Buy the way: Merlin engined Fokker DXXI's climbing rate was better than Brewster. Actually only Messerschmitts beat that. I'm seen calculated table from this and interviewed some veterans.

Always learning more about WW II aircraft. Thanks!

Cleverly done. Top quality.

The earliest models, (F2A1/A2), were actually quite decent fighters compared to most of their opponents in the early-war period. Especially in Finnish hands against earlier-gen Soviet aircraft such as the Tupolev SB series bombers, and fighters like the Polikarpov I-15 biplane and I-16 monoplane...

Excellent video. Thanks for all the research.

Great video, but it looks like a wildcat snuck in at 6:05. As if the poor buffalo wasn't going through enough already!

Very interesting thanks for your excellent content!

Years ago I read a book called "Most Secret" about the RAF testing establishment at Boscombe Down. Boscombe Down's report on the Buffalo was heavily negative. Test pilots found that the Buffalo was tiring to fly because it was difficult to trim in level flight. The engine tended to overheat readily and carbon monoxide leaked into the cockpit.

"Victim of circumstance?" Try early obsolescence and poor design. The clip describes how they had to add all sorts of weight to the aircraft just to keep it current. Worst airplane: I doubt it, but it _was_ a dog. Trying to dogfight Zeros was suicidal; even Hurricanes had trouble while using European tactics. The Norwegian example shows the design had robust cold weather characteristics, and could be effective in those conditions with experienced pilots. On the whole, it was severely obsolete by 1940.

Either the war came three years too early or the Buffalo three years too late.

For a very good book on the Finnish use of the Brewster, get a copy of Fighter Over Finland by Eino Luukkanen. He flew the Fokker D21, the Brewster, and the Me-109G.

I feel like Brewster has a horrible track record. They couldn’t even outsource the Corsair properly

I always liked the Brewster Buffalo... thanks for the overview!

Another excellent video!

Honestly, for its time it was a good plane. Technology just was advancing so fast in those days

Boyington said he liked this plane and he could turn it in a barrel, it needed a little more power , he also said the engineers got thier hands on it and ruined it , he preferred it to the P40 that he called an absolute dog . Not saying he was right, but it was his opinion, I talked to him at an aces reunion in the late 70s ...

The Finnish-flown Brewsters had a 33 to 1 kill ratio. Compare that to the USN Grumman F6F Hellcat, which managed to achieve a 19 to 1 ration, and the yanks never shut up about it. In fact the Finns lost more Brewsters to Accidents and maintenance issues than they did in combat.

Very interesting and informative video.

Finnish pilots also used a lot the boom-and-zoom tactics, where they did diving attacks to the Soviet formations below, shoot down their selected target and then climb up again taking advance of their momentum. If the enemy fighters tried to climb up they were shot down.

Major Henderson flew one at the battle of Midway. The only thing he got out of it was having the airstrip on Guadalcanal named after him posthumously.😠

6:05 a/c pictured is not a Buffalo, but an F4F-4 with Fighting 41 from USS _Ranger._ That unit was one of the first to fly the Wildcat beginning in late 1940.

Another very interesting video

The Buffalo was really a 1930's aircraft. For an honest evaluation, it should be evaluated against the P-36, the Russian I-16, the Macchi 200 (early one with the radial engine), and perhaps the Japanese "Claude."

It is interesting that because of the fact that the Finn's liked the aircraft so much, they built a wooden copy of it with an M62 engine from shot down Soviet I16's being a copy of the Cyclone in the original.

great video

It was certainly not the worst fighter. You can trust the British to take that title with the Blackburn Roc.

Very interesting !!

Excellent!!!

Two minor notes: 06:07 Discussion of Buffalo with improved 2 speed supercharger over a pic of a Wildcat. 09:37 Discussion of Buffaloes in the Battle of Midway over a pic of a Wildcat. Good documentary on the Buffalo, which I had generally assumed was a total failure, although I expected that was just due to bad design. I guess the Finns would disagree. Thanks Rex.

The problem with the Buffalo was that it had to fly against the Japanese Zero using bad USN tactics. Once the Zero was understood, the USN started to do much better.

Nice video...funny how many pictures were Wildcats.

Wow at 13:30 it actually looked pretty damn good in that camo paint scheme with the yellow nose / tail stripe.

I love the image at 3 minutes 55 seconds talking of the surplus aircraft going to Finland. Notice the prominent swastika on the fuselage.

A channel called Mark Seven has a long series on the Finnish Brewsters .

Most Excellent!

Really interesting info from Finland

Good presentation, but far too many Grumman Wildcat photos inserted while discussing Buffaloes.

I read that the Buffalo had one of if the highest kill ratio during ww2 (although I may have misconstrued the info at the time )

Interesting! Thanks

I've read that the Finnish Buffalos had the lower powered engines, and 30 cal instead of 50 cal guns. So they did well with with a lower spec plane.

I think fighter aircraft in world war 2 performed much like racing cars in modern times. Their useful life as cutting edge weapons was sometimes just a couple of months before the opposition gained a lethal advantage. Even successful designs were frantically modified and up-engined until the later models were far removed from early marks. I remember reading in Alex Henshawe’s (Spitfire test pilot) book that the last Spitfire was so much heavier than the first, it was like a mk1 with an additional 37 passengers and all their luggage. The Spitfire for all its romance, was badly outperformed by the FW190 for a long time, and had to be continuously up-engined. The P38, a brilliant and innovative design by Kelly Johnson, was removed from the European theatre as a liability, yet went on to great success in the East, but struggled for years with lethal compressibility troubles in the dive.

Claimed kills and confirmed kills can be two very different things..

The Buffalo was a 30's aircraft along with the P-26. They were like the Wildcat & the P-40. All obsolete at the outset of WW2. But, they still provided effective fighting platforms. However brief. I've never read about any accounts where the Peashooter was used in operations. Very few Buffalo accounts also.

With a lot of these designs the "original" version sucks. But it goes back to the drawing board, after a few repetitions you wind up with a good plane. It seems like the Buffalo never got that chance. The Navy seems to have said, "That's junk, buy the Grumman, we know them".

The BREDA Ba 88 Lince is by far a worse combat aircraft than the Brewster, Defiant, or Devastator probably only the Blackburn Roc coming as close to useless

Interesting view of a revetment at 9:15. Sandbags covered in cement render?

One Finish fighter group destroyed 459 aircraft, the Commonwealth forces 80 and all told only 509 Brewster Buffaloes were made. So they destroyed 30 more enemy aircraft than their total production. My bet for worst goes with the Me 163 rocket plane, which sometimes exploded while unmanned on still calm days, sitting on the grass. It also ate the flesh off pilots with acidic fuel leaks.

Air Progress, an American aviation magazine in one 1965 issue had an article on the soviet Polikarpov I-16 fighter which fought in Spain, China & Mongolia against the nazis & Japanese, proving itself a true & tried combat plane, even against the best the Germans had in Spain, & even later in 1941. But I was astonished to read that, against the Finnish-manned American-made Buffalos, the I-16s were shot out of the sky whenever & wherever they appeared !

Reminds me a lot of the SB2U.

@6:08 This is a Wildcat, not a Buffalo, @9:30 again....WRONG PLANE

I think the Bolton- Paul Defiant takes the cake for a useless warplane . Having no forward firing armament it was no match whatsoever for a ME 109 , and the good part is that it ate up supply's of desperately needed Merlin engines . This alone was more damaging to the RAF for its meager combat success , it was a throwback to WW 1 where it may have had some success hunting Zeppelins .

that plane was really fun in the early tiers of War Thunder, very good turner. Pretty sure they gave you the Finnish version basically.

One Of my faves

Just a heads up, the plane featured at 6:07 - 6:21 is not a Buffalo, that looks like an early Grumman Wildcat. I really like the tubby little Buffalo, its definitely an underdog aircraft story and it has always appealed to me. I built one as a model kit as a kiddo. I still have it somewhere!

The Buffalo wasn't alone in being a pre-war aircraft that saw itself outmatched at the onset of the war. The cutting edge of aeronautical design slashed quickly in those days.