Do you think the radar directed fire control systems on the majority of US navy ships gave them a definitive edge versus they're axis/allied counterparts? It seems, especially in the battleship videos, that a lot of people gloss over or completely forget the radar fire control on the large US ships.
Was the royal navy and US navy doctrine in convoy escort to chase and sink Uboats in the atlantic or to stay close to the convoys they were escorting? Did this change in the pacific for japanese convoy raiders?
What is a collapsing bulkhead, I hear it all the time in movies, I can kinda guess what that would be in terms of a submarine but I hear it in films to describe surface vessels usually to describe a ship after it's been hit by a torpedo.
“The Cutlass could be made into a pretty good flying machine with a few modifications,” wrote F7U-3 pilot John Moore in The Wrong Stuff, about his Navy flying days. “Like a conventional tail, tripling the thrust, cutting the nosewheel strut in half, completely redoing the flight control system, and getting someone else to fly it.”
Neil Wilson of the 380 cutlasses built 78 were lost to accidents of some type or another. The prototype was so bad, that the third model was the one deployed. The primary issue was, as stated, the engines of which nothing good may be said. Everything else could maybe have been forgiven, including the front gear coming up through the cockpit.
I have the set of artwork made Vought to present to members of Congress involved in procurement and selection, six highly fanciful drawings of the proposed Cutlass doing all sorts of wonderful things. Beautiful artwork... totally fanciful. False advertising at its best.
I talked with three different Korean War era F9F pilots and they all said the Panther was under powered, especially when overloaded with ordinance as often happened. They also all said that "you never did anything that reduced airspeed." As regards the F7U, I have happy days memories of the one on display in Colorado Springs' Monument Park by the Bijou bridge where I25 would run later. It was left open and kids could sit in the cockpit on the sun baked and split seat cushions and screw with the controls. Those were the days. Colorado Springs is about as far from the ocean as it is possible to get in America. You wouldn't believe how many retired Navy guys live here. I asked one what's the deal and he said quote; "I can't speak for those other guys but when I got out of the Navy I threw an oar over my shoulder and started walking. And when folks started asking me what the heck was I carrying, I decided to settle down."
that's actually reference to a sea shanty... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2klfR0R42eQ.html The lyric goes "i'm marching inland from the shore, over my shoulder i'm carryin an oar, when someone asks me "what, is that funny thing you've got?, then I know i'll never go to sea no more no more."
Vought produced two world beating fighters and two dogs. You mentioned one dog, the Cutlass, that actually made it to squadron service. At least one could argue the Cutlass failed because it used too many new features at once with and underdeveloped engine, but it did have potential. The other Vought dog was the F6U Pirate. It used a thoroughly conventional layout of straight wings and various aerodynamic bits and pieces in an attempt to wring out maximum performance from the largest turbojet available at the time, the Westinghouse J34 with an afterburner, a first for carrier aircraft. Unfortunately, US engine designers were still working out how to make powerful turbojets that would fit in small naval fighters, and the J34 wasn't the engine designers hoped for. It was seriously underpowered for sea level use, although the Pirate did have a top speed of nearly 600 mph at 20,000 feet. At sea level, however, it could be outrun by the speedy F8F Bearcat prop fighter, leading to the nickname "Groundhog". Given the straight wind design, it had no real development potential, so only 33 were built. On the plus side, it was a docile aircraft to fly and never killed any pilots, something that couldn't be said for the Cutlass, with 320 produced, in which 25 pilots died and 28% of the airframes were destroyed in accidents. Amazingly, in an attempt to win public favor for an aircraft already being being denigrated as a widowmaker, the Cutlass was ordered into use by the Blue Angels. I've never been able to find out what admiral made that decision, which is probably just as well for him. While trying to make full power take offs, the aircrafts experienced multiple serious flameouts, total hydraulic failures, engine fires on the ground and in the air, and a landing gear door falling off into a crowd of spectators, miraculously not killing or injuring anyone. The last straw was Lt. Lewis "Whitey" Feightner experiencing a total hydraulic failure in the first Cutlass Blue Angels flight while attempting to make a full afterburner takeoff. After clipping some trees at the end of the runway and losing one of the two engines, Feightner contemplated ejecting but was afraid of the risks to the people on the ground. He stayed with the plane long enough to get the backup hydraulic system on line so he could make a hard left turn, get the gear down, and safely get back on the runway, all the while a huge blue flame of hydraulic fluid trailed behind him. The crowd cheered, assuming it was part of the show. During a straight and level flight on the way to an airshow in Chicago,, the other Cutlass in use also experienced a flameout, forcing Feightner's wingman, Lt Harding MacKnight, to make an emergency landing at Naval Air Station Glenview. Being short on fuel, Feightner had to make an emergency landing at what was then Orchard Airpark, plowing through rows of peach baskets place on the new runway to keep vehicles off, thereby landing on what became the first runway of what we now know as Chicago O'Hare Airport. The Blue Angels brass, deciding discretion was the better part of valor, had the two aircraft dismantled and trucked to NAS Memphis, where they served for many years a maintenance instructional airframes. Ironically, both were eventually destroyed while being used for firefighting training.
The 1950's was a case of too much tech, too fast. Companies used to piston engine design found a steep learning curve in jets. Trying every bit of German ideas without testing did not help either.
@@WALTERBROADDUS Yes, it was really a more difficult time than we realize at this late date. We went from 350 mph fighters to 600 mph almost overnight, and over 700 mph by 1950. The really good German data and German engineers were seized by the Soviets when they occupied east Germany. The expertise in swept wings and the area ruled fuselage combined with the communist traitors in Britain literally selling the Soviets the Rolls-Royce RB.41 Nene, the premier jet engine of 1947, allowed the MiG-15 to be produced in time for the Korean War. In what can only be described as horrific. the MiG-15, using a reverse engineered Nene, was killing British pilots and troops in Korea when the British and Americans had no answer for the MiG for almost two years.
@@WALTERBROADDUS No, not at all. Rolls Royce designed the best engines of the first ten years of jet flight. My objection was the Soviet sympathizing Labour government of the time just passing on the family jewels to the Soviets for a pittance.
You really show just how fast technology developed during and after WW2. It was so rapid that a new fighter was barely introduced into service that it's replacement was just around the corner, which must have made this very "Popular" with the crew designated to service aircraft. I can hear them sighing "Not another new type" It also show the strength of the Essex class and how well they were designed that they were able to adapt to aircraft never dreamed of when they were on the board.
Very informative! My dad served on the Essex in the Korean war. Since he has passed a number of years ago this made me for a moment remember him and his stories.
The Bearcat is actually still in use a racing and aerobatics aircraft, a role which it happens to be very well suited for. Another fun fact is that the F8F was initially designed to have breakaway wingtips, the design was made so that if the aircraft needed to make a high g turn the wingtips would snap off to shorten the wings and reduce stress on the airframe. It was found that the breakaway tips were unreliable and had a tendency to come off at the wrong moment or one would come off while the other wouldn't or there would be a delay between the tips going off leading to aerodynamic issues that the craft was not designed for. The initial solution for this was to add explosive charges to the wings but not long after this addition a technician was killed after a charge went off during routine maintenance. Later models omitted this feature in favor of reinforced wings and a 7.5g limit.
That's quite cool that they found a second life in civilian use. something I'm curious about though, that mean that the ones being used for this role are 70ish years old or are there still places making new ones/replacement parts for them?
@@themadhammer3305 Combination of Originals, Homebuilds, Reproductions and Restored. As far as I know Northrop-Grumman does not produce them anymore. However I believe that most if not all of the specifications and production information is available by request.
@@themadhammer3305 Nearly all of them are "original" in that at one time the Grumman plant made a Bearcat that matches serial numbers with the current-day racer; most have had nearly every part retooled, reproduced, or otherwise replaced over the years of modifying them. Most of them don't even have the same engine as the production Bearcat used, or a heavily modified version of it at the least. The other main "warbird" air racer, the Mustang, is in many cases in the same situation, though I think a couple companies were still building Mustangs here and there (Cavalier is the most prominent) up until the late 1960s-early 1970s timeframe and a lot of the racers are those instead (most WW2 era Mustangs are with museums or collectors who want to keep them as "original" as possible).
@@Wallyworld30 A modified version yes, the Pilots who flew and fly them often describe the aircraft as a seat strapped to an oversized engine. if memory serves that particular aircraft was an F8F-2 which had its Double Wasp (already one of the most powerful engines ever made) modified. The pilot was Daryl Greenamyer I think and the aircraft, Conquest I, is on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center outside Dulles.
I served aboard the USS Hancock (CV-19) during her last deployment in 1975. She was one of the carriers involved with the evacuations during the fall of Saigon that year. I was a hole-snipe in #2 engine room. When I was off watch during the evacuations I went up in the island and watched the landings and the helicopters being pushed over the side. Seems an ignominious way to end her career.
In defense of the “machine gun v. cannon” issue ... it must be admitted that the machine gun in question was the browning .50, which was kind of a “cannon-lite” and carried lots of ammo.
@@ThatSlowTypingGuy I look at it as the US not finding a need for cannon until after WW2. Rifle-caliber machineguns were not terribly useful to the RAF against German bombers, and were replaced by cannon, but the .50 caliber machinegun was extremely effective against tinderbox Japanese bombers and entirely adequate against fighters of all opponents.
The IJN aircraft were notoriously unarmored and lacked self sealing fuel tanks. That made them easily shot down if you could hit them. With many more 50 caliber (12.7 mm) rounds carried than 20mm cannon rounds it made sense to focus on the heavy machine gun rather than cannon with fewer rounds. So yes, the Browning heavy machine gun was sufficient for intercepting IJN aircraft.
@@lutherpolaris8230 Military Aviation History has a video looking at the issue of unarmored Japanese aircraft. Basically, almost all aircraft of the war had some small amount of armor, mostly in the form of an armored seat back for the pilot. Contemporary versions of the Zero actually had more armor ki.e., a slightly thicker armored seat back for the pilot) than the F6F (as in, maybe 10 mm for the Zero and 8 mm for the Hellcat). Only the Il-2 Shturmovik had noticable amounts of armor. Other issues of rugged construction are a completely different matter, and it is absolutely correct to note that the early Japanese aircraft that set the tone for the rest of the war did not have self-dealing fuel tanks. US Wildcat pilots in the south Pacific area found that one of the best ways to go after the G4M Betty was from ahead and above (out of the arc of the 20 km tail gun) aiming for the wing roots where the fuel tanks were. A burst there could easily justify the Betty crew's nickname for their ride, the "Type I Lighter".
The F6F actually grew out of design studies by Grumman to put a 2,000 horse power engine in the F4F and this happened before the war. Exactly what a A6M could do was not known till one was found upside down after the attacks in Aleutians islands during the Midway campaign.
I get so tired of the myth: Midwar US fighters were designed specifically to address the weaknesses of the zero. Those fighters were well along in their design before Pearl Harbor. I don't know how that story for started. It's like that pinging Garand clip myth.
@@khaccanhle1930 How is it that people think 'the us had no idea what the zero could do till they found one' when there are hundreds of reports in the arcives estimating the mobility firepower and speed of the opposing aircfraft while in active combat, All of them reported exceptional manuverabilty but when you did hole them: they went down. The hard part they faced was getting their guns on them, leading to pilots developing tactics to split their wing of fighters in half, and if fighters got on your six, you turn 90 and let the other half of your wing blew them out of the sky. The Japanese pilots were exceptionally experienced and had an absurdly maneuverable aircraft: but outside of choosing to disengage every time you meet a fighter group, you would always get dragged into a killing zone, and the zero wasn't even that fast: the Americans noted they could easily outdive the zero due to superior structural integrity, and they could easily outrun them if they pushed their engines. Honestly the Zero was a solid aircraft and focused on what the designers believed was most important in an aircraft: Dogfighting. They sacrificed almost EVERYTHING for this capacity, and they got everything they could out of their engine designs to make it happen. With such light build for maximum range (as long ranged carrier fighters) Dive performance and maximum speeds suffered. Landing characteristics were decent but not fantastic, so poorly trained rookie pilots could be a hazard to themselves, and technology like self sealing fuel tanks added weight that could impact dogfighting performance. The japanese knew of the technology (apparently) but didn't use it outside of bombers. The notion no one knew how to fight a tiger till they captured one, or how to fight a Zero till it got stuck in a tree, all of it is nonsense. Certainly the British anti-tank guns could not reliably pent rate the frontal armor of a Tiger: that is why they shot for sides or pulled off trick shots bouncing shells off the african desert into the underbelly of the beast. The bit i don't get is why the american armed forces ignored requests from the front for bigger anti-tank guns fit for purpose on the assumption that what they had was working... Rocky desert is hard and bouncy, soft farmland is not so much. As for the idea the mid war aircraft 'countered' anything? Sorry the americans had been designing those aircraft for at least 5 years usually. Typically the day the current airframes roll out the door you've started working on improvements or a replacement already, thankfully you can use your testing airframes to try out new wing and engine design tweaks to see how they interact. The FxF series were not counters to anything, they were progressive steps in fighter design each improving on the last... As for the Corsair and other designs? IIRC they were drawn up hoping to attract British contracts, but the British were a bit busy pushing the 'build more Spitfire' button.
@@glenmcgillivray4707 Very well said on the aircraft front, but I have an answer for the American armor bit. In actuality, there were plenty of tanks armed with better anti tank guns by the time we landed in Normandy. The thing is... No one on the front wanted them. The tanks they had, usually the M4 Sherman armed with the M3 75mm gun, were doing the job just fine. Yes, they might struggle against the front of a Tiger 1 or a Panther, but how often did they really run into those? Not often at all. In fact, Tigers were extremely rare, despite what the tank crews might say. The reason they were so often "sighted" was that other tanks like Pz 4s armed with the long 75mm gun with the muzzle break looked like a Tiger at a distance. And thats not mentioning the psychological factor that propaganda about the Tiger would have on Allied tank crews, making them so afraid of seeing them that they would "see" them everywhere. Another factor in not wanting these new tanks is that their tank crews, who are already very well familiarized with their current 75mm M4 Shermans, would have to then be trained to use their new tanks. Their gunners would have to be familiarized with entirely new guns with very difficult ballistics properties. And that's not to mention that the older M3 75mm gun had better high explosive performance with its slower moving rounds than the 76mm guns designed for AT purposes and those HE rounds would be a lot more useful since tank fights were usually rare compared to fights against infantry and enemy strong points like machine gun nests.
@@imapopo2924 reports state that command in Italy was asking for everything armed with the 76. Command in Britain felt the improved firepower was unnecessary as the 75s were what they had in Italy. It was the opinion that complicating their supply chain would be detrimental (certainly a valid concern) the result was that the 76 didn't ever get shipped to France units till after the tiger panic had a major impact, despite the fact that numerical superiority would reliably allow Shermans to outflank and overcome the threat and that tigers are just as vulnerable to mines as any other tank. Meanwhile in Italy they kept asking for 76s now, but most got routed to the northern force, well I suppose that is logistics for you.
@@khaccanhle1930 the design of the F6F was started before the war, but the experience of the F4F against the A6M did cause some design changes to the type before it entered squadron service.
Thanks for that. The Essex had quiet a long service history which says much for its design. I know about the F11F Tigar shooting itself down. A French pilot did something similar doing a missile test. He fired his missile then dived down before levelling out. At this point he had overtaken his missile which locked onto his aircraft and shot it down. As far as I remember he did eject safely.
Then there is that one time an F-14 did it. Though that was down to the missile release system malfunctioning. The AIM-7 Sparrow that was supposed to be kicked out of the tunnel between the engines before igniting, went hot off the rack instead. Scraped along the underside of the aircraft, tearing open fuel tanks in the process, fodded out an engine, and then tumbled off to parts unknown.
Good video. A couple of things: 1) The IJN didn't lose many pilots at Midway (outside of HIRYU's strike squadrons, anyway). They *did* lose a lot of aircraft, mostly due to being landed aboard CVs which were then sunk out from under them; but the crews were rescued, and later returned to the fight. The really nasty, unsustainable losses of *pilots* came later, in the Solomons campaign. It is still correct, though, to credit the Wildcat and its pilots (along with Army & Allied P-40s) with inflicting that attrition upon the Japanese. 2) Per Tom Blackburn, the initial decision to give the F4U Corsair to the USMC and operate F6Fs from the CVs was based more on logistical concerns (it was considered simpler to operate one type of fighter on all the Fleet CVs) than on the F4U's admitted technical shortcomings. For perspective, Blackburn was the CO of VF-17, a USN fighter squadron which was operational with F4Us aboard CV-17 BUNKER HILL in mid-1943 (once they arrived in theater, though, VF-17 and its F4Us were deployed to shore bases in the Solomons while the CV got a new, F6F-equipped fighter squadron).
Excellent point - the Guadalcanal campaign really sapped the strength of the IJN and it was the closest they would come. Oddly they didn't get a closer airfield operational.
I read Blackburn's book about ten years ago. From what I can remember, they could land the whole squadron on the deck, but with almost no margin for error. It seemed like the terrible landing characteristics of the early corsairs was a factor in the decision to land base them.
It wouldn't surprise me a bit if the logistical problems of operating two different aircraft in the same combat role from aircraft carriers might have been considered a problem and an argument against the practice but in addition to that I've also learned about how the US pilots had problems with landing F4U's on aircraft carriers because the cockpit was set somewhat farther back than was usual on a carrier-based plane and it was hard for the pilots to see the piece the of the deck they were trying to land on because the view was obscured by the forward fuselage from the cowling back to the cockpit not to mention the width of those big dihedral wings, as well. They also had problems seeing the Landing Signals Office (LSO) for the same reasons. The Brits solved the visibility problems by developing a new landing procedure which called for the pilot to approach the carrier starting from behind and perpendicular the carrier's path through the water on the port side instead of coming in from directly behind it, then gradually turning in to align with the carrier just before setting down on the deck. This allowed the pilot to be able to see the landing area on the deck and also the LSO until just before landing. I've actually seen film of this type of landing on a TV WWII documentary (on History Channel... I think). Eventually, the US picked up the practice and also began operating F4U's from American aircraft carriers.
The tiger shot itself down by shooting faulty ammunition at supersonic speeds. The cannon rounds tumbled after leaving the barrel. The F11F caught up to it's own rounds and shot itself down. You also missed the Ryan FR1 fireball. It used mixed power. A radial engine in the nose and a jet engine in it's back. Thanks, great work.
You can't shoot yourself down by catching up to your own rounds. Bullets need high relative velocity to penetrate. If you ran into them, the relative velocity would be very small. At best they would dent the skin.
@@MakeMeThinkAgain if it was a jet engine, especially an early jet engine, sucking a round in might just wreck the compressor and destroy the engine If your luck isn't good. On the other hand a propeller engine wouldn't even notice.
John White no john the cannon rounds would have still been quite a bit faster than the jet! when you add the airspeed to their volocity they'd be out to far to catch up with at the same altitude!! even if they did tumble he dived into them!!
My dad,Capt Phillip Jax Smith sr USNA 1956 was a RF-8 driver in VFP-62 in the late 50's early 60's. Later he went to work for Vought in test and accrued even more hours in the Crusader and at the same time was flying F-8's in a reserve squadron at NAS Dallas ( VF-703 and VFA-201) .Most of his carrier time was on the USS FDR CVA -42. He loved that plane so much.
I recall receiving the scale model of the F7U-3 Cutlass for Christmas when I was a child. I was enthralled with it and after building it couldn’t understand (as a child) how the Navy could drop it’s use as a fleet fighter so quickly. As a child I thought it looked so wickedly warlike. Back then a kid only had two or three library books to learn about all these planes, no internet.
Many of The Essex classes also underwent major role overhauls such as conversions too ASW operations with a mentionable array of varied hunter killer aircraft. My Father was a LSO on The USS Kearsarge from 58-62. He was on hand when she was in Dry dock going through extensive ASW conversion. He said it was an insanely capable craft and that their fleet was highly awarded in Naval competitions and Exercises.
I think the USS Boxer was the first LPH as well. I got to sail on a dependents' cruise on Boxer in 1966, out of Norfolk. That, the Armed Forces Day open house tours of the Norfolk Naval Base, and meeting some squids while living in Norfolk were the contributing factors that triggered my interest in joining the Navy. Then, my drawing a draft lottery number of #4 and the prospect of being pressed into the Army put the icing on the cake.
You left out the AD-1 Skyraider. Which was one of the best F/A designs. Though primarily a ground support aircraft and bomber, it did manage to shoot down MIGs as well. It was a tough bird and was loved by it's crews. It was a beefy, tough, and heavily armed beast that could outmaneuver at low altitude and slower speeds, a jet. Something that later an A-6 could do as well to fighters. Never underestimate a bird meant to pound near the ground.
The Corsair's bumpy road to carrier deployment is an interesting story. In addition to the landing visibility problem associated with its long nose, it had a very uneven stall characteristic that was even demonstrated in training films. Keeping the speed safely above stall until a safe landing flare was dialed in was feasible with airstrips but not carriers. Fleet Air Arm's big contribution was a modification to one of the wings to make the stall more even, increasing the leeway for the landing flare enough to make carrier operations feasible.
Another excellent concise and detailed video about naval history. The late 1940's and 1950's, the Golden Age of aircraft development really illustrates how one often has to fail before succeeding.
Nice video, but I must take stringent exception to your description of the F4U and why it didn't see service aboard US Carriers initially. Yes, the bounced landings had something to do with it, as did the stall characteristics, but *BOTH* items had been cured during the original operational trials by VF-17 in early 1942. The primary reason for the Corsair to be assigned to shore duty only was SUPPLY. By the time the Corsair was ready to enter service, the F6F was already in numbers. As such, a decision was made to not prioritize putting the Corsair onto carriers and instead divert its production to the US Marine Corps. Vought cured all of the carrier issues with the F4U-1A, which was in production in late 1942, but again, the Navy didn't want to spend resources gearing up all the carriers to take on a new aircraft type, so it wasn't until the F4U-1D model that the Navy had sufficient supply to begin equipping carrier wings. The Royal Navy received the F4U-1B (a variant of the F4U-1A) with the wingtips clipped to fit onto the hangar decks of their carriers. The wing modification had nothing to do with carrier suitability. Additionally, it was the US Navy who developed the curving approach with the F6F in 1941 and then perfected with the F4U Corsair trials in 1942, a year prior to the Royal Navy even receiving their first Corsair. The Royal Navy was simply the first to put it into widespread carrier service, although they were by far the last to take it into battle with the first combat operations with a Corsair not occurring until late 1943, almost a year and a half after the US introduced the Corsair to combat.
Neither did I, it amazes me that these ships managed a service life of around 50 years in various forms. Really shows just how solid a design these ships were
Excellent video, I agree that the perfect carrier would have been a mix of both but the ability of the the US to turn out ships in the number that we did in ww2 and we had to do it quick it was just quicker and easier to build than to design and even larger ship with an armored flightdeck that could hold the same airwing. I think at the time the US made the right decision. One thing we could have done was not build the IOWA's and convert them to carriers, considering the Midways had the same basic machinery as the Iowas, that would have given us 6 armored deck carriers earlier but hey thats hindsight. My dad served on the ESSEX, INTREPID, and the CORAL SEA. I know a little bit about them He is a retire Chiefs Gunners Mate 20 years. All that being said the facts speak for itself the fast carrier task forces devastated the IJN, and helped destroy the Japanese merchant fleet, although american sub fleet almost did that by themselves.
The wingtips of the F4U Corsair were clipped to allow the aircraft to fit into the lower height hangar deck overheads of British carriers. Even so, the clearance was very modest indeed. The Grumman designs flown by the Royal Navy had wings that folded alongside the aircraft and had no problem with the lower hangar decks they encountered.
Japanese naval pilot and air crew losses during the Battle of Midway are somewhat exaggerated. Obviously, with the loss of four aircraft carriers, all of the aircraft were lost, but the air crew survival rate was much higher than you might think. They lost a total of 110 air crew killed. Compare this to a loss of 145 aircrew during the Battle of Santa Cruz. Japanese naval pilot losses during the Solomons campaign, both in the carrier battles and the use of naval squadrons flying from island bases produced far more significant casulties for the Japanese and did far more lasting damage to the overall skill level of the remaining Japanese naval air units. During the early Solomons campaign it was primarily the Wildcat which did most of the killing for U.S Navy and Marine Corp pilots. Later in the Northern Solomons the Corsair made it's first appearance with the Marines, and the Army Air Force used P-40's, P-38's a few P-39's and the Australians also used the P-40. So yes, by the time the Hellcat made it's first appearance, Japanese naval air unit quality had been severely eroded, but the credit for doing so can be shared by a number of different units and aircraft.
@@wyominghorseman9172 - I was just talking about the early war timeline, not kill totals. However, now that I think about it, that makes the accomplishments of the Wildcat pilots (and other aircraft) who flew in the first year or so of the war even more impresssive, as they were flying against the very best pilots the Japanese could field, and do so in large numbers.
@@Kwolfx The greatest generation, my Dads, had guts. The remaining IJN experienced pilots that made up the first strike wave were decimated at the Battle of the Philippine Sea by the Hellcats. The next wave were novice replacement pilots and didn't stand a chance. Superior tactics, aircraft and pilot training is a winning combination.
Wyoming Horseman Actually the Battle of the Philippine Sea was such a stomp because the IJN was already out of skilled pilots at that point. The pilot attrition reached its zenith in the Solomons campaign.
.50 cal Brownings against 20 mm canon. The change was made when it was found that at high altitude, like Mig-15 vs F-86 altitude, the 50s could not set the Migs on fire with incendiary rounds. So switch to canon. However it's not as if the canon did not have their own set of problems. Canons on the Crusaders were known to jam during high G turns, and could not be un-jammed by lightening up on the stick.
I once heard a story from a WWII vet that the F4U was not given a designation separate from the F4F so that it's radical design would go unnoticed. Also as regards the F4F/FM2/FM3 thank you for giving this benchmark aircraft the gentle handling it deserves. The F4F's folding wings and small footprint added to it's rugged performance made this highly capable aircraft a fleet mainstay throughout the entire war.
The designations that the US Navy used and still uses for aircraft were based both on primary use and manufacturer. In F4F, the first "F" denotes fighter, the "4" denotes the fourth design by the company to be accepted into service, and the last "F" is the designation given to all aircraft manufactured by Grumman. F4U is Fighter, 4th model, and "U" is the designation given to all Chance Vought aircraft. FM2 is fighter, General Motors, 2nd design. The full story of the F4F is fascinating. General Motors was able to modify the design (thus the designation change to FM2 etc) reducing the weight, and turn it into an outstanding point defense fighter that was capable of fast takeoff and climb times to defend against the kamikaze attacks.
Incorrect. It is due to the pre 1962 Naval designation system. " F" is for fighter. "4F" is for fourth model Grumman. And "6F" is the sixth model Grumman. In the case of the FM2; "M" stood for Eastern Aircraft Division of GM.
@@WALTERBROADDUS My bad.... You're right. Just wasn't thinking modern when I posted. As for the difference between GM and Eastern Aircraft Division, I'm not sure there's much of a difference since automobile production ceased during the war, and Eastern Aircraft went away with VJ day and the start of automobile production again. But you are correct, M was the designation for Eastern Aircraft.
@@WALTERBROADDUS The point I made was that F4U (Corsair) is a VERY different aircraft from the F4F. Your reply is correct and informative in and of itself, (and thank you for making it) but it does not address the statement effectively. You seem to have an excellent grasp of the subject, are you aware of any reason the Corsair ahared a designation with the Hellcat?
The US navy refused the F4U for the bouncy undercarriage and violent stall characteritics, along with the poor viz. The Brits cured the bounce, fitted a ''Malcom canopy'' and adopted a curved final approach. These were the deciding factors for the US Navy to re-appraise use of the Corsair (IIRC).
Hell, the PILOTS and CREWS refused the F4U. Many around the US Navy loved the Wildcat, Warhawk, Lightning, etc, and desperately advocated their return of the planes they were familiar with. It's like a dead-eye soldier falling in love with his rifle - if you're his commander, you don't force him to change to abandon the model in the middle of the war (with THAT little turn-around) and change to another one just because you intellectually THINK it works better. The Brits were under far less pressure and limitations to take chances with their day-to-day carrier operations, much like American industry was under less pressure and fewer limitations than the British in their day-to-day operations compared to the British.
At the end of the day, the the dastardly accusations that some "bureaucrat" was "forcing" the US Military to use "inferior" planes in favor of planes like the Wildcat, Warhawk, Lightning, etc, were just that...part of it was that they just didn't want to admit that the men in the field didn't want their equipment, which was kind of a PR disaster in the making (there have been arguments that the operators could have had a little more "tact", but, well...this isn't 2018)
Don't forget that the landing gear control was right next to the rudder pedals, and any manipulation of the rudder on the ground risked retracting the landing gear.
@@theunknownone5990 That was never a significant issue. It was moved in later versions (F4U-4 and later), but that was more about changes in the overall arrangement of the panel with the addition of more equipment and protection than any other issue. All of aircraft serving during WWII had the original position on the left side of the panel.
When Grumman was upgrading the F4F, the Army found an intact(except for the prop) Zero in the Aleutians. The Zero was brought to the States, fixed up, and racked out to find out all its flight parameters and flight quirks. Grumman dropped the Wildcat upgrade and designed the F6F to out-perform the Zero in every flight parameter except low-medium altitude dogfighting. When the first Hellcat rolled off the production line, the Zero was not obsolescent, but completely obsolete in every flight parameter. We should give a medal to that Zeke pilot who bellied it in on the tundra and did not destroy it.
The biggest reason the Corsair landing on Carriers was it hopping down the deck this was the reason relegated to shore bases until they had fixed the valving in the landing struts to dampen out the bouncing after landing and hook engagement.
The Essex-class carriers that remained configured for the attack-role (CVA) through the 60s until retired by the mid-70s never deployed with the Phantom / Intruder / Vigilante / Prowler / Hawkeye aircraft that came into service during that time. This was because these aircraft size and weight were considered too excessive for their storage and catapult power on these smaller carriers. The only new combat aircraft during that period that did serve on the Essex CVAs was the Corsair-II during the later period.
Brilliant! (I am also very much interested in aircraft). If you ever get the time an analysis of the pre-war and/or early US carrier aircraft would be extremely interesting and possibly often hilarious...
Actually, the IJN naval aviation cadre was mostly destroyed in the Soloman's campaign meat grinder, not in Midway. Surprisingly, the IJN lost less than 100 flight crew in that battle. Check out "Shattered Sword" by Parshall.
The Banshee was portrayed in The Bridges at Toko Ri , a 1954 movie with William Holden, in which one was shot down attacking a bridge. They were not nearly as fast and agile as the F-86.
somebody in naval procurement got a reach around over the Cutless there a video on the tube about the 1955 deck qualifications while most of the planes tested flew back to land under their own power the Cutless not only failed its quals and then failed to leave the carrier under its own power as it had shit itself.
Let me know when you post the one about U.S.S Bennington (CVS-20). You had it pictured in the lower left-hand corner (13:53). Thank you for posting this video.
Good summation of USN fighters. It's too bad the Fleet Air Arm waited until the F4 Phantom 2 to buy American designs again. While the Royal Navy made many advances in Carrier operations. The tools to work with were, less than stellar. Choosing domestic industry over outsourcing again. Well at least the French bought the Crusader.
Choosing a domestic plane and maintaining your own people's industrial knowledge is a laudable instinct by any nation. On this, the British should give themselves a break. I personally have no qualms when Euros and Asians want to negotiate tech transfers and domestication/localization of manufacturing expertise as a prerequisite for contracts. I personally wish my own country were as loyal to their own.
It's less so UK industry that was the problem but the FAA's stupid requirements -> the Supermarine Scimitar had to be able to take-off w/o a catapult, so it had stupidly thick wings and despite having loads of thrust wasn't supersonic
I know the Cutlass earned every one of its derogatory nicknames, and I know it was a badly flawed design. Still, like the British Sea Vixen, there are parts of it that I really like. If it had larger engines and a somewhat less grotesque-looking cockpit, I think it would’ve been one of the more attractive naval fighters of its age. Also, a bit of an interesting side-note: Apparently, the Cutlass’...”unconventional” appearance didn’t just materialize out of thin air. As far as I’ve been able to find out, it seems like the Cutlass owed a lot of its design to the works of a certain gentleman by the name of Alexander Lippisch. Yes, *that* Alexander Lippisch.
The problems with the Cutlass was with its Westinghouse jet engines. I have not read one thing bad about the wing except it needed a high angle of attack for a landing. The F8 Crusader got around this by having the wing pivot upwards on landing.
@@Easy-Eight it was a design that was 25-30 years ahead of technology. It sorely needed high-bypass turbofans and most importantly, fly-by-wire with high-authority computers, like the F-16.
The Colt Mk12 20mm cannon had several major issues mitigating against its use in aircraft. Standard German and British 20mm types enjoyed greater reliability. This is why service versions of the F86 (excluding the D) were armed, instead, with the .50cal M2 (HB). From everyone's favorite argument mill, Wikipedia: "The Mk 12 was an advanced derivative of the wartime Hispano HS 404 that had been used on British and some American fighter aircraft during World War II. It used a lighter projectile with a bigger charge for better muzzle velocity and higher rate of fire at the cost of hitting power. It entered U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps service in the mid-1950s, replacing the earlier M3 cannon. In service, the Mk 12 proved less than satisfactory. Although its muzzle velocity and rate of fire were acceptable, it was inaccurate and frequently unreliable. Pilots of the F-8 Crusader over North Vietnam, in particular, appreciated the presence of the cannon, but jams and stoppages were common, especially following hard dogfighting maneuvers." The earlier Mk 3 was even worse: "The British version was also licensed for use in the United States as the M1, with both the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) and U.S. Navy planning to switch to the 20 mm calibre as soon as the gun could be produced in sufficient numbers. In 1941 a very large building program was established, along with the production of ammunition. When delivered, the guns proved to be extremely unreliable and suffered a considerable number of misfires due to the round being lightly struck by the firing pin.[11] The British were interested in using this weapon to ease the demand on production in England, but after receiving the M1 they were disappointed. British wing-mounted fighter weapons by this period were cocked on the ground by the aircraft armourers before flight, the built-in pneumatic cocking mechanism used previously being regarded as unnecessary weight and detrimental to aircraft performance, so any stoppage in flight made the gun unusable until it could be cleared on the ground. The misfires also had the tendency to cause aircraft with wing-mounted guns to yaw away from the wing with the failed gun when the guns were fired, due to the unequal recoil, thus throwing off the pilot's aim."
And so the Brits save our asses again. I knew of the Corsair's difficulties with carrier operations and the ultimate solutions but I didn't know it was the British, once again, that solved them. Well done!
The issue with the Corsair was that the pilot sat so far back and low, the pilot would loose sight of the carrier behind the engine when lined up for landing. The Brits developed the Curved approach, where the pilot flew the final approach in a large arc that allowed the pilot to maintain visual contact with the carrier until just before touchdown. The real solution to the Corsair's problems came by way of another British invention, the angled flight deck. Because the pilots now flew the final at an angle, they were able to maintain visual contact with the carrier all the way to tuchdown.
Also, I distinctly remember hearing that the name “Tomcat” was originally considered for a much earlier fighter than the F-14, but was dismissed at the time because “something, something, feline promiscuity, harrumph.” This coming from the same navy that went ahead and named a fighter the “Cougar” within roughly the same time period.
The name Tomcat is a nod to Admiral Tom Connally who ticked off Robert McNamara at a Congressional hearing by say "all the thrust in Christendom could not turn the F-111B into fighter."
A well done video, for the most part, but you do get a few things incorrect. The most glaring errors to me are about the F4U. First, it's often repeated that the British worked out the carrier landing issues for the Americans, but this is actually incorrect. Test flights had already begun in 1942 on Wolverine, Core and Charger and the pilots commented that the F4U was "...an excellent carrier type and very easy to land aboard. It is no different than any other airplane." One squadron, VF-12, had already completed deck landing qualification with the F4U by April 1943. The Corsair was assigned to the Marines primarily because of perceived logistics issues (giving all the F4Us to Marine squadrons and all the F6Fs to Carrier squadrons simplified the allotment of spare parts). Ease of landing was certainly an issue, but it wasn't the main issue. Also, you mentioned the shortened wings on the FAA Corsairs, but that had nothing to do with landing so much as making them fit in the smaller British carriers; the additional benefits to landing were just a fortunate side-effect, and the USN never adopted this modification. Second, and this is really a nitpick, but you called the FJ-2 designation misleading. It's not. It's very in line with USN aircraft designations of the time. "F" meant fighter, "J" meant the manufacturer (North American Aviation, in this case) and the number is the plane. So FJ-2 meant something along the lines of "Fighter from North American Aviation, second variant." Additionally, the F-86 Saber was derived from the design process of the FJ-1 Fury. The FJ-2 was then derived from the F-86. They are all part of the same "family tree," so to speak, much like, say, the Seafire FR 47 is related to the Spitfire I. A different aircraft that still grew out of the original design process.
The Brits "clipped" the wings on the F4U Corsair so that they could fit into the ships hangars with the wings folded. This modification did nothing to "improve" the Corsairs performance.
It's a myth that the Royal Navy figured out how to land the Corsair before the US Navy. The US Navy's VMF-17 was trained to deploy for carrier operations in late 1943, but as there were sufficient Hellcat squadrons for shipboard deployment, the Navy chose not to have logistical trains for two fighter types aboard ship, and gave the Corsairs to the Marines. The advent of the much-improved F4U4, with it's greater capability at intercepting kamikaze attacks, led to a reversal of the decision and the issuance of Corsairs for carrier deployment.
The book Corsair - The F4U in World War II and Korea specifically credits the initial certification of the Corsair as safe for carrier operations by the USN to work done by the Fleet Air Arm in terms of both modifications to the aircraft and the techniques used for landing.
Just looking at how far back the cockpit was it's not ideal for carriers. I wonder if the royal navy just made it work since the US had minimal use for it.
More damage yes, but I was referring to total number of successfully delivered payloads. A wave of torpedo bombers could drop a dozen torpedoes, successfully executing their attack, but still do no damage. The overall point being that fewer kamikazes physically got to the point of making their strikes compared to previously. Once they made their strikes, their success rates and effects were greater.
The F-3H Demon was designed to use the Westinghouse J-40 which was a total failure. The Douglas F-4D Skyray, AKA "Ford" was also meant to take this engine but Ed Heinemann Designed the airframe so that alternate engines could be used such as was the Pratt and Whitney J-57. The F-7U Cutlass AKA "Gutless" was also hampered by less than potent Westinghouse engines.
The FJ-1 used the wings and tail of the P-51 with a new fuselage with the realization that straight wings were obsolete the new fuselage was mated to swept wings and tail making the FJ-2 and the F-86. North America Aviation made a great deal of money selling incrementally improved version to both services alternating which had the better plane in service until both services receive aircraft capable of accelerating past the speed of sound in level flight at about the same time.
It should be noted that the F-8-F Bearcat was used by the Blue Angles. I thought it was the first, but reading the link I'm provided, it seems they used the Hellcats first, but moved to the Bearcats before their first season ended. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Angels
While the Wildcat was markedly inferior to the Zero in one on one combat having almost no chance of victory. But two Wildcats could take on nine Zeros with an 50/50 chance of victory.
Not sure if this means anything to non-French-speaking viewers, but this video lists almost all the aircrafts flown by Buck Danny, a cult comic book hero of the 60s and 70s, whose "life" started at Midway and... has not ended yet.
If I were you I would mention the name of the company that produced the planes. Since many of the Essex class ships ended their days as ASW carriers, I expect you will cover that aspect as well.
The reason why the US was so slow to adopt 20mm cannons was because there wasn't as big of a need for cannons. The US used .50 machine guns with a bullet mass of almost 4 times that of other countries machine guns and you could load that up with A decent amount of API (I think that was what they used). A aircraft with 4-8 .50 cals can make Swiss cheese of most targets plenty fast
