You never know. They did a practical demonstration of what happens when a fighter crashes into a bomber a couple of years ago, although that was rather expensive in both machines and the men on board them....
It isn't really all that dangerous to dive bomb. The plane was designed to do it safely in such a way that both the aircraft and crew was never in any risk. Especially, as in a practice run you don't have to wait and pull up at 300 feet but can build in plenty of safety marginals. Instead the risk comes more from doing it with a more than 70 year old plane, as metal fatigue and micro fractures might have compromised the air-frame.
Right, beautiful and exciting this air plane bi places looking same AD5 during Vietnam war . Thanks for sharing buddy . ( ARVNAF south veterans squadron 514th Bien Hoa AFB) 🇺🇸🇫🇷🇨🇦🇮🇹🇩🇪🇬🇧🇦🇺🇹🇼
It effectively won the pacific war for the US single handedly, but it was actually extremely unpopular with both the leadership and its crews, and many wanted to take it out of service and replace it shortly before the war. (There are many wacky prototypes out there proposed to replace it). The war delayed this of course and it ended up serving in front line roles until it was largely replaced by the SB2C Helldiver in late 1944.
Bail out. The rear cockpit of the SBD was equipped with emergency flight controls, as well as a seat that could be pivoted to face forward or backward. But the gunners were not trained pilots. Many pilots encouraged their gunners to learn about flying, but no gunner is ever on record attempting a landing.
@@CAFMediaTV Okay. Being cramped back there wearing all that equipment and having to bail out as the plane’s going down I’m sure is much easier to say than do. Yikes
