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You make a wonderful point about the Vultee. Sadly, the USAF has been trying to get out of the CAS mission for decades. Their feet have been held to the fire by the Army and Congress. To any ground pounder, trying to do CAS with an F-16 or now an F-35 is simply ludicrous. Yes, smart munitions, particularly when guided by a guy on the ground make it "easier" and more accurate, but the key to CAS is presence, i.e. being there when needed. Neither the AF F-35s nor F-16s have decent loiter times. We had the perfect CAS airplane in Vietnam called the A-1, but MANPADS, and vehicle mounted, radar guided AAA made the CAS mission incredibly dangerous for any aircraft, particularly helicopters. The A-10 has proven to be the most survivable in this environment, but it is also vulnerable. I think the jury is still out on Su-25's ability to survive on the battlefield.

Great question. Fuses were set before take-off for either 1, 2, 3, 4 or even 5 second delays. Theoretically, the delay would begin when the bomb hit the ship. However, if one dropped them too slow or from too high, they would go into the water closer to vertical. There was a chance that the impact of hitting the water would start the fuse timer.

I dunno about that. Don't think I'd want to be riding backwards in an airplane plunging down at 12,000 ft/minute not knowing if the guy in the front was about to get target fixation..And, on the pull-out, the guy in the back pulled at least half a g more than the pilot.

Altitudes on level bombing varied due to wind the weather and the actual target. Some were as low as 8000 and some in the mid-teens. the preference was 8 - 12 so they didn't have to wear oxygen masks!

When the 34th BS/17 BG went to North Africa, they left from what is now Barksdale AFB. The 34th lead the way with each squadron following about a day behind. Next stop was what is now Homestead AFB, then Ramy AFB in Puerto Rico. From there, it was on to British Guyana then Natal, Brazil. Next leg was to Ascension Island, then to Dakar, Casablanca and then on to Telegram in Algeria. Took them about 10 days. that's probably more detail than you wanted, but they only lost one plane that slid off the runway in Brazil when they had a prop problem.

Actually, the D4Y or Judy was the replacement for the Val. My bad....

@@marcliebman3847 no big deal not trying to prove any point just wondering.

Many of the early planes designed in the 1late 1930s and 1940 were rushed into production without a thorough test program. The B-26 was just one of many. However, even today, where we test and test and simulate and simulate, we still produce airplanes like V-22.

❤❤❤❤❤ but not surprisingly they still some 'bugs'. The carb air inlet was not made of strong enough rubber so it collapsed at while they were at Tampa Bay. They would restart the engines instead of using the 'putput' so the internal battery's were drained . The props were electric unlike everyone else's Hamilton standard hydralics so no battery power the prop went into flat pitch. Not good! My uncle Joe Burton 320th 444th flew the short winged A model. They actually had 3 prototype '26s over in north Africa that were used to fly to gilbralter to get the booze. They would haul ass!!!!! The first pilots were the cream of the crop. Great video

@@user-ih1mo8vv7o In his tour in the 34 BS, 17thBG, he felt mostly A models and then later, as the A's were replaced, B's and C's. In the early days, the A's had to throttle back to so the B's and then C's could keep up. Also, the A's cruised fast enough so that the fishers, early on the P-40s, couldn't fly at their long range cruise power settings, reducing their range.

It's a great question. I wouldn't use the word inadequate. The word I would use was "uniformed." Understand, we were moving from bombers like the B-10, B-18, B-23 which were relatively easy, comparatively speaking, to fly on one engine compared to the B-25 and B-26.. Second, our knowledge of the flying characteristics of a high performance twin was in if not its infancy, we were just becoming toddlers. As I said in the video, go read the flight manuals of the A-20, B-25, B-26 that were first put out and go read the ones for a light twin such as a Piper Navajo or Seneca. There's no comparison in the instructions and information on flying single engine. The whole concept of V speeds hadn't been created. A lot of what was learned was through trial and error. Next, the ME trainers of the day - the AT-11 and the UC-78 - gave you the basics but were relatively easy, comparatively speaking, to fly. Again, the lack of info on how to fly ME airplanes and handle emergencies was a huge problem. Much of what was known was through trial and error. While there were procedures, the details and nuances were just being learned. The USAAF was sending recently graduated pilots right from flight school to bomber squadrons without any ME training. That was dumb, but they needed pilots, particularly in Europe where B-17s were being shot down at alarming rates. That's a whole different issue. Last point. Every military pilot who earns his wings makes a significant jump when he gets to his first squadron. This has been true ever since the beginning. This is one of the two reasons why the Navy and the USAAF went to the Replacement Air Group (RAG in the Navy) and Operational Training Unit (OTU) concept early in the war. This helped pilots go from the T-6 to the F4F, F6F, F4U, P-47, P-51, even the P-38. We still do this today. In the Navy, you earn your wings in a T-45 and then jump to the F/A-18 or the F-35. In the AF, its the T-38 and then the F-15, F-16, F-35. Huge jump in performance. We can do it because we now have cockpit procedures trainers, simulators, software training programs, etc.

Hi, I see your point, however, I pulled this chart from p.499 of William Wolfe's very comprehensive book called The Martin B-26 Marauder published by Schiffer Publishing in 2014. Given the amount of research and detail in his book, I'll go with Wolfe's chart. However, I am planning another video called The Death of the B-26 and I'll bring this up. Look for it this fall.

@@marcliebman3847 Thank you for replying my question. I understand the reason of not changing the table now. However, in this case, the data in the table appears to show that B26 consistently had more crashes than B25. That was what had confused me. Again, I would like to thank you for making these wonderful videos. I learned a lot from them.

It wasn't avgas or cost. One was the trainers themselves. The AT-11 and the UC-78 didn't. have near the performance of the B-26. And, comparatively speaking they were not as much of a handful single-engine as the B-26.

Sorry, I was thinking about a different question. So, your question is difficult to answer becasue it depends on power setting, altitude, weight of the airplane, etc. However, here's a rule of thumb. The Corsair burned around 40 gallons per hour at cruise. Multiply that by 150 and you get about 6,000 gallons. In training pilots, he IJN faced many problems besides fuel, from 1943 on. One, its training syllabus was, in many ways barbaric and it took much longer than needed to turn a novice into a designated pilot. Two, it had a problem with materials. Japan had to import everything needed to build an airplane. Once the U.S. submarine campaign began to take effect, it affected Japan's ability to build airplanes. POL was one of the most critical because it restricted flight time. Three, once the pilot was designated, he was sent to the front. There was little or not transition training from the trainer aircraft to the model he would fly in combat. Nor were pilots brought back from the front to share their experience. In the IJN, you went to a unit and stayed there until you were killed or incapacitated. All these are why the skill level of the IJN pilots declined from after Guadalcanal to the end of the war. Fuel certainly had a major impact, but there were other causal factors.

The 34th BS, 17th BG's Coughin' Coffin was the first U.S. bomber to survive 100 missions. It was flown back to the U.S. in late 1943 and was destroyed in 1944 in a landing accident. Flak Bait is another B-26 that via luck, good design and crew skills managed to survive as many missions as it did.

And the tail surfaces were as well.

That's why it was called the Baltimore Whore because it had no visible means of support. 😂

The nicknames referring to the world's oldest profession came from the shape of its fuselage. there are others that are not fit for public consumption, all referring to the shape of the fuselage and the wings.

Yes. When the RN's larger carriers joined the war in the Pacific, they all had Corsairs.

@@marcliebman3847: What about when they were in the med or the Atlantic? What did they have for fighter planes?

@@jameshanlon5689 Initially, the RN had Wildcats. Then, they re-equipped with Hellcats up through 1944 and the invasion of Southern France.As the RN carriers shifted to the Pacific, they switched to Corsairs.

True. to some degree. This is why we - at least the U.S. Navy - looks at accident rates per 100,000 flying hours. It makes comparisons like this easier. There is no doubt that the B-26 was a "hot" airplane and in some parts of the flight envelope, the margin for error was very slim. I can give you a long list of airplanes that had that description starting with the F7U Cutlass the navy flew in the 50s. It was dangerous around the boat. Or the P-39 which would spin flat and one couldn't get out because the slipstream kept the door closed. And the list goes on. .

This is so cool. there was a folk singer whose name escapes me who recorded all these songs. I used to have a 33LP on which to play them but it, along with all my others and my stereo system that I built from a kit went in the trash many moons ago.

PBM and P5M are two different airplanes. The P5M was developed from the PBM. They look alike, but are different airplanes.

@@marcliebman3847 Concur. My point is that it was the PBM that was in development in the late 30s, not the P5M which was a post war aircraft. I have a couple of flights in the P5M before I went to flight training.

@@bobharrison7693 When I signed up on the dotted line to flying the Navy, there were two planes I wanted to fly the most. Once was the A-1 and the other was the P5M. Unfortunately, by 1968 when I entered flight training, the pipelines to those planes were closed....

@@marcliebman3847 I much enjoy your work and am going to check out your books. There was one cadet in my pre-flight class (01-64) who was in the last class to go through VT-30, the A-1 advanced squadron. I would have loved to fly the A-1 but wasn't sure I could get A-1s and didn't want to fly "Stoofs." In retrospect I would have loved to fly the P5M.

@@bobharrison7693 After I finished CQ, I had the grades to get into the jet pipeline but the navy sent 25 of us to Ellyson to fly helos. I had a choice, either fly heels or DOR. Quitting wasn't an option so I became a helicopter pilot.

FYI, Gen. Kenny did not like the B-26 and therefore there were only a few groups in the 5th AF. Most of the B-26s were in the ETO. The primary ME trainers for the AF were the UC-78 and the AT-10. these provided the basics of ME flying and yes, the B-25/B-26 were a step up in performance, but by the time the pilots got their wings, they had 250+ total hours including ME time. AF and USN students now go from the T38/T-45 to the F-16/F-15/F/A-18/F-35 which is a huge step forward so it was no different then as it is now. Back to V speeds and basic ME training/flying techniques. In WW2, the flight envelopes weren't well documented in the POHs. V speeds were unknown so in the manuals of the B-26 (I have copies of all of them), there is little guidance other than get to 140mph on takeoff and you need 160mph to fly the airplane single engine. The concept of dead foot = dead engine wasn't taught until much later. My point is the the accident rate was as much a failure of knowledge and technique, not of the airplane. The RAF was much more successful at dropping torpedos from the B-26 than the USAAF was. They flew mostly out of Egypt and North Africa and attacked German/Italian transports in Greece and the Adriatic. Besides Midway, the 34th Bomb squadron flew a couple of missions with U.S. Navy torpedos and stopped. Reason was that they had to be dropped below 120mph. No one in his right mind was going to get that low and slow in a B-26! Hope this helps.

@@marcliebman3847 Thanks for a really informative reply! B-25s and A-20s were indeed better suited for the primitive conditions of SWPAC, so it's understandable that they were withdrawn or simply not replaced. No, the Marauders were not at fault for the training crashes; thanks for describing the problems more succinctly than I could! I still remember how, as a student pilot, trying to 'feel' approaches in a Cessna 152. Recognizing that 'Pitch + Power=Performance' was a bit of a struggle.

Actually, I have two comparison tests. One by the Navy and one by the U.S.A.A.F. Both say that in the knife fight, the Corsair outperforms the Mustang. Having said that, tactics, how the fight begins and the pilot's experience play bigger roles that just the airfares themselves. Yes, the Corsair has the advantage, but can the pilot make most use of its attributes.

Winning a dogfight depends on a lot more than just the two airplanes engaged. The winner is often decided by how the fight starts and who has the advantage, e.g. if I were in a Spitfire I and snuck up below and behind you in an FW-190D and got off an accurate burst, fight's over. Second deciding factor is the experience level of the pilot. If I were fighting Richard Bong, I'd most likely lose. My point is that how the engagement starts, tactics, experience, the ability of the pilot to fly the airplane into the extreme ends of the fight envelope AND Still maintain control often decides who wins or who loses a dogfight. The last element is the plane itself. In this example, the Corsair is the better performer in almost every portion of the flight envelop. However, the performance edge doesn't guarantee than the Corsair pilot will prevail over the FW-190D pilot becasue it all comes back to how the fight starts, the Corsair pilot's experience vs. the FW-190D pilot's experience and the tactics they employ. What the better performing plane does is give its pilot an edge. If he or now she, can exploit those advantages, then the chances of becoming victorious increase dramatically.

You make a good point in that there are bias in all test pilot. Note that training and experience as a test pilot tends to force the bias out of the evaluator. Time pressures, number of flights in the airplane and other factors tend to color the eval. A lot depends on how the engagement starts, so if I sneak up behind you in a Brewster Buffalo and fire an accurate burst into the belly of your airplane, no matter what airplane you are flying, you may be going down. Also the model number means a lot. Overall perfjoamcne of Spitfire IX or a later mark vs. a Me-109E or G favors the Spit.

First, all Naval Aviators learned how to use the plotting board during pilot training. then, when they were assigned to squadrons, there was more overwater training. Second, the navigation officer back in those days was responsible for maintaining the squadron's supply of charts (maps to the Army and Air Force). So, when a squadron deployed, the navigation officer was responsible to ensure that the squadron had the proper charts for where the carrier was headed. Charts of targets were of vital importance and in many cases, they had to be created because they didn't exist. These "target maps" were often created by the photo interpreters would use imagery to create charts. It was the navigation officer's responsibility to work with the intel folks to create what was needed.

Thanks for this response. I may have one of these photo created maps. 8 inches by 8 inches. Minutes of degrees only in tens indicated on the grid. Shoreline, rivers, only bays and cities named. Noted in pencil: March 18 1945 USS Wasp. Attack Kanoya airfield. Then pencil lines indicating the route in and out with a spiral offshore (assembly ?) Then into Kanoya. The next day Wasp and Franklin were both hit almost simultaneously in the same manner (dive bomber) and within sight of each other. Everyone knows the Franklin story but whenever the Wasp story is told most say it was a kamikaze. Wasp was later attacked by kamikazes but never hit by one.. Anyway l digress. It is a very cool map maybe even flown in on the attack by my dad.

Pilot skill is critical, but so are tactics and how the how the dogfight begins is as welll. And, then, how well can the pilot fly the airplane to the extremes of his plane's performance envelope.

Yes and no. To create the TA-152, Kurt Tank started with the FW-190D-9 and then changed the engine, wing design, added a pressurized cockpit, increased the armament. So, it is about as close to an FW-190D-9 as the F/A-18E/Fs are to the F/A-18 C/Ds.