As a former Naval Aviator (Anit- Submarine Squadron) I really like this presentation. I have had the fortunate opportunities to visit the museum twice. You even have one aircraft I flew in training (T-28) and the S-2 and HU-16 I flew in the fleet. On my last visit they even had a group completing their training and getting their Wings of Gold. I had the pleasure of wining a young Marine Aviator and using a pair of mine for the presentation. Keep up the presentations, the information was great.
I like underdog fighters like the F4F Wildcat, Hurricane and the Polikarpov I-16 more than the later fighters. This guy did a great job. I learnt some cool new info. 7.7mm bullets!!. Definitely gotta visit the N.A.M. One recommendation. Test the clip on mic before recording.
@@garrisonnichols7372 always somebody with them negative waves! By the time the f6f came along the tough little wildcat had knocked down most of the Japanese so called expert pilots, goes to show how well American naval aviators were trained and how good they were.
@@garrisonnichols7372 yes at the beginning, for about a year,down hill after that, and still the wild cat served on carriers long after the yanks turned most Japanese carriers into artificial reefs.
The F4F was a damn good airplane. And, so was the P-39 and the P-40. The problem was tactics. The Navy and the Army Air Corp wanted their pilots to dogfight the Zero. Claire Chennault of the Flying Tigers knew that was a dead sentence. He had his pilots fly in lead/wingman pairs (still used today). They would be above the enemy , dive down firing, and dive through and and out. They never tried to turn with the Zero. The Navy and Army Air Corp finally changed their tactics. And, by the time the much more advanced F6F and P-38 and F4U came on-line... most of the highly experienced Japanese pilots were gone.
FYI : It was Grumman's wildcat production that was ended due to up production of the F6F Hellcat, but General Motors was still producing the FM1 & FM2 models which was used on CVE's.
The Zero 20mm cannon had a low muzzle velocity. Around 2200. The machine gun about 2700. In a turning fight the 2 calibers didn't travel together and needed different leads. Shooting was really inefficient while under Gs. But, the US 50 cals all travelled together, and API bullet was devastating.
Y'all are experienced teachers and it shows. While I had learned most of these things before watching, I've seen it presented so clearly and both verbally and visually in such a variety of ways. If I ever get back to Florida, I'm gonna stop by.
Thank you for the video. It is very well done. There were a couple of small inaccuracies here and there (e.g, the Wildcat was used longer than 2 years when including use on escort carriers), but very few for someone not reading a script. All of the important stuff was right. Your manner of speaking and choice of words make the presentation much more interesting and memorable than would it otherwise be. I have watched three other videos about the Wildcat and Zero, but until now did not know that the control problem at high speeds was due to the long ailerons, but it makes sense. For some reason I had just figured it was the rudder. Best explanation of the Thatch Weave I have seen. Of course the 6.9 to 1 kill ratio is impressive, but I wonder what it was when including only fighter vs fighter combat. From what I have seen elsewhere it seemed to be on the order of 1.5 or 2 to 1 in 1942, but I have not researched it. Yet even that is good when considering that the Zero was more nimble and had a better climb rate, and that Japanese pilots had experience until late 1942. Thanks again. Keep up the good work! I definitely want to figure a way to get to the museum.
10,939 Type 0 Carrier Fighters built from early 1940 to mid-1945. The IJN tried to replace the A6M with a more capable fighter but never succeeded in manufacturing those successor aircraft in the numbers required. Consequently, the Zero remained in service though it was outclassed by late-war American fighters like the Corsair, the Mustang, and the Thunderbolt. The Zero was designed from the outset to use a drop tank (made from bamboo to save weight and conserve aluminum) which gave the plane an unprecedented range for a carrier fighter. The drop tank made it possible for Zeros to appear so far from their bases that it convinced Allied intelligence officers to deduce the number of operational Zeros to be considerably larger than the true number. The bamboo drop tank was a piece of brilliant design, but it was time-consuming to manufacture and required a craftsman's skill. Thin strips of sawn bamboo were glued side-by-side around a form and then heavily lacquered to seal it against leaks. The British knocked that into a cocked hat by inventing a drop tank made of paper-mâché that could be very cheaply mass-produced by relatively unskilled factory workers, such as British housewives and teenagers working part-time.
Information was great, and well delivered. I especially liked the presenter getting in the cockpit...I'd almost kill to be able to sit for just a few minutes in a Grumman made Wildcat cockpit. The match stick tactics lesson and self-sealing tanks demo was excellent too. Unfortunately, the audio was inconsistent and there were couple of camera faux pas, but I understand the conditions. I hope you consider redoing this with the same content, but multiple camera angles, better audio, and a first-person view of the cockpit, including the downward view windows almost unique to the Wildcat. Thanks. Since about 1973, the Wildcat has been my favorite aircraft and ADM Jimmy Thach my personal hero.
Thank you so much, Mr. Thiessen. Excellent talk about the Wildcat, an aircraft that gets maligned far too often. It was a fine plane, just a bit overmatched, and our pilots and support crew just did a better job working around the faults of the Wildcat while playing to its strengths, using far less experienced pilots, support staff, and command staff. We performed better in the given situation, won the war of attrition, and eventually the war of engineering. I would like to see an episode dedicated to Allied engineering *priorities* (or ethos) versus those of the Axis. They seem to have dialed in all their stuff years before we became involved, but they never learned to truly mass produce their matériel, nor did they ever seem to be able to introduce SO MANY new designs and upgrades as we did. They advanced at a slower rate and could not produce enough of anything, even before we started bombing factories and such. Once we started bombing ball-bearing factories instead of population centers their defeat became a foreseeable eventuality. So can NAM produce an episode that studies the engineering behind our weapons and vehicles and how that differed from the design and problem-solving ethos of our enemies?
Yes the F4F had a 6.9 kill ratio over Japanese AC. That includes all types including bombers. The kill ratio vs the A6M was closer to 1:1. See The First Team. About 10,900 A6M's of all models were built. The F4F stayed in service until the end of the war mainly on the "Jeep carriers" as the FM2 made by General Motors.
Great video series well presented. Keep it going if possible Americans need to know these FACTS. I was privileged to serve with DJ Kiely in VMFA-312 when he commanded the checkerboards. He hosted the veterans reunion we had in Pensacola. He gave us an excellent tour of the museum. He was a great leader, fighter pilot, and Marine. Under appreciated by the Marine Corp should have commanded an air wing.
Thank you so much Duane for such an fascinating explanation of the tactics developed against the Mitsubishi Zero Zen while the F4F Wildcats were Americas best carrier fighter. The Zero also pioneered external fuel tanks giving incredible range.
The self sealing tanks didn't totally seal back up after the projectile went through. It more or less "clotted" the hole to dramatically slow any fuel leakage to a minimum allowing a damaged aircraft to fly as far as possible before fuel was exhausted. Still that was a thousand times better than a gaping hole.
@@edrussell9573 "It more or less "clotted" the hole to dramatically slow any fuel leakage". Pretty sure this is also going to help prevent or slow a fire also, no? Still, self sealing fuel tanks were only effective against smaller projectiles up to 20mm.
@@edrussell9573 Let's see. Ki-84's had 30mm. Ki-45's and 46's had 37mm's. Me-262's carried four 30mm's. Let's not forget the biggest threat is that aircraft can be shot at from the ground with AAA cannons 40mm and larger. Dumbass.
Yes the Wild cat needs some more love and don't forget the brave Men that flew them. Yes visit Pensacola great museum and you can catch the Blue Angels practicing if you're there at the right time.
My thanks. Doubt I'll get to Pensacola anytime soon, as I've only one friend on the peninsula, and a sister on the pan-handle. Thanks for chalk talk about the F-4F. Take care.
..been to this museum 4-5 times, but it has been a long time...2001-2002 being the last time...would love to go again one day!..this video series is a GREAT idea, so glad to see this done :)..VERY well done...only one thing I see needs some attention/tweaking...the sound needs some work, probably microphone related...the sound is very low, then gets louder, then gets very low again...makes it hard to follow the audio...this video and a few of the others also...I'm sure the bugs can be worked out..and keep it up!...keep these videos coming!...great job, and Thank You!...
One other advantage was that the pilots only had to watch the other pilots; if they saw attackers aiming at their buddies and turned towards them, the other pilots saw their friends' movement and knew what to do. It made it a lot easier with less sky to scan.
Awesome video subject. love this plane so much. Wish you guys could remaster the video and reupload it. 360p and less sure makes it hard to see some of the content. thanks
Thanks so much for this video Sir! I learned so much. I really into historic aircraft at my age of 60, also building model model aircraft. I guess the Zero would be considered a flying gas-can. I plan touring the USS Midway in SD after the pandemic.
What a great museum.I love ww2 vintage props more than anything. I would be in heaven wandering around there. I come from the UK so the American ones are pretty rare although they had a p47 and a p51 at my local airshow this year. The wildcat wasn't worse than the zero in loads of ways though, it had that stonking two stage supercharger, plus it's .50s are better guns for plane to plane fighting and it could escape in a dive if things got too lively .Thanks for the upload.
While the Wildcat was replaced by the Hellcat on fleet carriers it continued flying off the smaller CVL’s and CVE’s. Wildcats were flown till the end of the war. The British Royal Navy also flew the Wildcat from their carriers. However the Brits renamed their Wildcats calling it the Martlet
U.S. pilots' adaptation to the Wildcat's deficiencies / liabilities are a great example of how the U.S. was THE BEST at this in WW2. Another example was the F4U Corsair. Initially built for carrier operations, faster than the Wildcat's big brother the Hellcat w a better roll rate, it's terrible visibility problems for carrier landings was a liability. So the US Navy adapted by giving them to land based Marine squadrons where it excelled as a fighter and as a ground attack aircraft.
Some of this was also the top down dictatorial aspect of the culture of our opponents. An example was the ME-262 which could have wrecked havoc on our Air Forces in Europe but was in short supply. The reason was Hitler (who didn't know a thing about aviation or tactics wanted the airplane converted over to more of a bombing role. The Japanese has similar issues in not rotating their best around and not making changes to the Zero.
@@richardgreen1383 This was true of both Germany and Japan but especially of Hitler who meddled in every everything including simple logistic shipments to the Eastern front. Per the Zero, Japan did try to make upgrades to it but it had the same basic issue as the bf109 - both were relatively small / lighter airframes built around a larger engine for their time, so they were great front line fighters in the beginning of the war. But when the need arose to match newer superior Allied fighters, these airframes were so small / light you couldn't really stuff larger / heavier engines in them. The Germans did develop a supercharged version of the bf109 that performed well at high altitude but they didn't have the resources to mass produce them. Had hitler not hindered the development and later, the role of the 262, then it would have come on line as a front line Luftwaffe fighter much earlier in which case perhaps the Japanese would have developed their own version earlier. That would have presented a serious issue for Allied air power in both theaters of war. Germany and Japan did have other fighters that showed promise but the weaknesses of those designs were a direct consequence of a serious lack of resources and manufacturing prowess, both of which the Americans leveraged in spades. Lastly, if the 262 had been deployed much earlier, while it may have extended the war a bit longer it still wouldn't have changed the outcome. The U.S. and Britain would have accelerated their own jet program (pardon the pun) and had a similar fighter on line to meet the challenge.
The reason why propeller driven single engine aircraft turn easier in one direction as opposed to the other is because of the laws of physics. The torque of the engine and spinning prop. If it is turning clockwise to the right as you sit in the cockpit, you will roll right faster. By the same token, if it is turning counterclockwise, you will roll faster to the left. That big prop spinning out front influences the handling. This is in concert with the Zero’s large aileron control surfaces, which when being buffeted by high speeds, were more difficult to overcome. The savvy Wildcat pilot pretty much knew what direction a panicked Zero pilot might reflexively turn, and could lay a burst of bullets the enemy just might fly into. The lightly built plane would explode in flame, and a good chance the pilot was holed as well. It is true of any prop driven aircraft, then and now. Engine designs in WW One that had the whole engine spinning really had this going on.
The fighters on Wake were with Marine Squadron VMF-211, which consisted of twelve F4F-3 Wildcats. I believe the Marine Squadrons based out of Midway flew some Brewster Buffalos, but I don’t know of any on Wake.
Isn't that tactic against the Zeros the same the Germans invented in the 30s with the "Rotte"= 2 planes and the "Schwarm" = 4 Planes? Like the Wildcat the Me 109 was a "boom and zoom" fighter plane as well. Interessting!
F4F-3 and the FMs had 4x.50 mgs while the F4F-4 had 6x.50 mgs The 4 mg planes climbed faster due to less weight and carried more ammo per gun. Against the Zero 4x.50 was deadly.
This is an excellent documentary. Not trying to be snarky, but were there gunsights that weren't right on the centerline of the pilot's eyes? Seemed like faint praise.
IIRC Wildcats fifty caliber guns used incendiary ammo. Given that Japanese aircraft lacked armor and self sealing fuel tanks fifty caliber incendiary bullets turned Zeros into crematoriums
The biplane and deficient fighters in 1940 are a product of 30s budgets and I suspect the navy put most of its budgets into ships. Probably the European war ended that and they had modern British fighter in the battle of Britain for specs, I assume the US knew of modern fighter specs. So they had a benchmark for a plane, Wildcat was good but it was 20% below that benchmark and they needed a larger engine and plane to meet the benchmark. A Hellcat prototype was on order before the war, they were putting money into military shortcomings I assume since the early sword rattling in Europe. The M4 tank was being prototyped around the same time, just before the war, by no coincidence I assume.
В 109 предплечия пилота почти плотно прижаты к ребрам. Возникает вопрос: удобно ли это при пилотирование с усилием на ручку? Американская инженерная культура с самого начала отличалась заботой об эргономике! 😊
F4F commonly consideredas zero bait but was the plane that brought the nippoese to their knees ....by the time the hellcat & corsair arrived the nipponese had bled thru. Also the wildcats could be used by the smaller carriers...F4F was the hero of the pacific and was marvel of forward thinking engineering. Go navy! And No drag queens flying those cats!
Great plane, flown by the best pilots the first team of navy fighter squadrons had to offer. Men like Jimmie Thach, Butch O'Hare, Art Brassfield, Scott McCusky and James Flatley. It had serious problems, slow to climb to altitude, short range, leaky self sealing tanks and jamming guns in the first months of the war. But together with the mechanics and the air departments they worked it out. The plane was built strong, was a stable gun platform and had devastating fire power.
Hmm... the math of fighter tactics is pretty complicated - I haven't figured it out - yet. (Nobody is paying me to do it). It gets more complicated when you consider the engine power, because it takes the fight into 3 dimentions. It took a Robin Olds to figure that out with the conservation of energy between potential and kinetic energy. Today with the F-15 and the Typhoon you can throw away energy because those aircraft have so much power that they don't know what to do with it.
Interesting the F4F-3 Wildcat was THE first plane to fly using a 2 stage supercharger on the PW R1820 engine. Both the Wright R1830 and the PW R1820 were offered in various forms, the Wright having the single stage 2 speed supercharger, and later in the war when the 2 stage supercharger was in short supply the PW R1820 also used the single stage 2 speed unit. Most people do not know this ugly little fat plane used the first 2 stage supercharger. PW went on to use the 2x2 supercharger on the PW R2800 as used in the F4U Corsair and the F6F Hellcat !!! And NO RR did not invent the 2 stage 2 speed supercharger, they just added their version to the merlin in Late 1942 !!! The 2 stage supercharger was invented and patented in the USA in 1938 !!!! FYI !!!!!
I read a story about the USS. Lexington when the war started. She was losing a lot of aircraft do to mechanical problems. But niece they recovers one of the down aircraft they found the carberator was fouled with rubber from the self sealing tanks. The reason the rubber failed was do to low quality gas that was picked up when the Lexington pass through the Panama canal.
Actually, the early sealing liners were glued together. The glue dissolves. This was fixed by using the vulconizing process to fabricate the fuel bladders.
its nice to have soch a comfy cockpit when your getting shot down by a zero....lol....its probably not to bad when your performing your part of a thatch weave either.
You will notice there is a big plate of heavy steel behind the pilot and 7.7mm would not penetrate that. A small cockpit means a smaller plate needed and less weight. According to accounts, pilots would pull in their shoulders and crouch down behind that plate when bullets started to hit.
You've missed a-lot of Wildcat history here. You've only presented its history of when it was our prime fighter and going by what you've presented here the Wildcat post Hellcat did nothing and that is very-very incorrect. Wildcats were at nearly every major battle throughout the war, they were "even" at the D day landings and were likely at the Marinas turkey shoot too. This is the history of the Wildcat that I came here for. They didn't just hunt submarines and escort ships across the Atlantic, they did A-lot more post Hellcat than you could ever imagine! I want to know exactly what and where its further contributions were post Hellcat, I know it contributed maybe even more to the war effort post Hellcat than it did prior to the Hellcat. Please inquire, continue and include UK and other post Hellcat allied Wildcat contributions as well as ground based Wildcats' history too! You'll find a very deep and rich historical continuation of the Wildcats contributions "throughout the entire war". I want to know more!
The Japanese were doomed from the start. We had great pilots and aircraft. The bravery of their pilots was totally offset by their flammable aircraft that burst into flame almost immediately, which is attested by gun cam footage. The most important factors, however, were that we cracked their codes, they had a paucity steel and fuel, and we fought in WWI while they were still untrained.
Great presentation. The narrator had a lot of knowledge, and a nice manner in presenting it.
Excellent job teaching about this great airplane.
Thanks nice presentation, very enjoyable and informative!
im not sure what i like better.....The MAN hosting this video,or the video...GREAT VIDEO and the narrator was OUTSTANDING!!!!
As a former Naval Aviator (Anit- Submarine Squadron) I really like this presentation. I have had the fortunate opportunities to visit the museum twice. You even have one aircraft I flew in training (T-28) and the S-2 and HU-16 I flew in the fleet. On my last visit they even had a group completing their training and getting their Wings of Gold. I had the pleasure of wining a young Marine Aviator and using a pair of mine for the presentation. Keep up the presentations, the information was great.
The engines for the F4F for interchangeable with the B-24 and I believe the PBY Catalina 5:07
I appreciate this gentleman for telling us this.
This guy is the perfect narrator for this subject.
I love these Naval Aviation Museum videos. The presenters are knowledgable multi faceted informational experts.
awesome story, will visit
Great video and thank you
Spitfire-like setup. Fabulous.
I like underdog fighters like the F4F Wildcat, Hurricane and the Polikarpov I-16 more than the later fighters. This guy did a great job. I learnt some cool new info. 7.7mm bullets!!. Definitely gotta visit the N.A.M. One recommendation. Test the clip on mic before recording.
Great history, the Wildcat did the job it needed to do.
The Mitsubishi Zero was better
@@garrisonnichols7372 always somebody with them negative waves! By the time the f6f came along the tough little wildcat had knocked down most of the Japanese so called expert pilots, goes to show how well American naval aviators were trained and how good they were.
@@rogernicholls2079 True but the Mitsubishi Zero was still a better plane at the beginning of the war
@@garrisonnichols7372 yes at the beginning, for about a year,down hill after that, and still the wild cat served on carriers long after the yanks turned most Japanese carriers into artificial reefs.
The Naval Aviation Museum is awesome. If you ever get to Pensacola, DO NOT miss visiting it! Excellent presentation, Mr. Thiessen. Thank you!
OUTSTANDING! Yeah, I shouted that.
The F4F was a damn good airplane. And, so was the P-39 and the P-40. The problem was tactics. The Navy and the Army Air Corp wanted their pilots to dogfight the Zero. Claire Chennault of the Flying Tigers knew that was a dead sentence. He had his pilots fly in lead/wingman pairs (still used today). They would be above the enemy , dive down firing, and dive through and and out. They never tried to turn with the Zero. The Navy and Army Air Corp finally changed their tactics. And, by the time the much more advanced F6F and P-38 and F4U came on-line... most of the highly experienced Japanese pilots were gone.
this plane sucks in Warthunder though just saying
FYI : It was Grumman's wildcat production that was ended due to up production of the F6F Hellcat, but General Motors was still producing the FM1 & FM2 models which was used on CVE's.
My father flew Wildcats of CVE 94, the Lunga Point. Said it was his favorite plane ever.
The Zero 20mm cannon had a low muzzle velocity. Around 2200. The machine gun about 2700. In a turning fight the 2 calibers didn't travel together and needed different leads. Shooting was really inefficient while under Gs. But, the US 50 cals all travelled together, and API bullet was devastating.
I think I heard they had a selector for guns. So 20mm alone, 7mm alone or both together.
One of the best aircraft presentations I've seen
Y'all are experienced teachers and it shows. While I had learned most of these things before watching, I've seen it presented so clearly and both verbally and visually in such a variety of ways. If I ever get back to Florida, I'm gonna stop by.
Really enjoyed the video and the knowledge behind it👍
Thank you for the video. It is very well done. There were a couple of small inaccuracies here and there (e.g, the Wildcat was used longer than 2 years when including use on escort carriers), but very few for someone not reading a script. All of the important stuff was right. Your manner of speaking and choice of words make the presentation much more interesting and memorable than would it otherwise be. I have watched three other videos about the Wildcat and Zero, but until now did not know that the control problem at high speeds was due to the long ailerons, but it makes sense. For some reason I had just figured it was the rudder. Best explanation of the Thatch Weave I have seen. Of course the 6.9 to 1 kill ratio is impressive, but I wonder what it was when including only fighter vs fighter combat. From what I have seen elsewhere it seemed to be on the order of 1.5 or 2 to 1 in 1942, but I have not researched it. Yet even that is good when considering that the Zero was more nimble and had a better climb rate, and that Japanese pilots had experience until late 1942. Thanks again. Keep up the good work! I definitely want to figure a way to get to the museum.
Very informative !!! The F4F Wildcat was a favorite- want to visit the museum !!!!
10,939 Type 0 Carrier Fighters built from early 1940 to mid-1945. The IJN tried to replace the A6M with a more capable fighter but never succeeded in manufacturing those successor aircraft in the numbers required. Consequently, the Zero remained in service though it was outclassed by late-war American fighters like the Corsair, the Mustang, and the Thunderbolt. The Zero was designed from the outset to use a drop tank (made from bamboo to save weight and conserve aluminum) which gave the plane an unprecedented range for a carrier fighter. The drop tank made it possible for Zeros to appear so far from their bases that it convinced Allied intelligence officers to deduce the number of operational Zeros to be considerably larger than the true number.
The bamboo drop tank was a piece of brilliant design, but it was time-consuming to manufacture and required a craftsman's skill. Thin strips of sawn bamboo were glued side-by-side around a form and then heavily lacquered to seal it against leaks. The British knocked that into a cocked hat by inventing a drop tank made of paper-mâché that could be very cheaply mass-produced by relatively unskilled factory workers, such as British housewives and teenagers working part-time.
Information was great, and well delivered. I especially liked the presenter getting in the cockpit...I'd almost kill to be able to sit for just a few minutes in a Grumman made Wildcat cockpit. The match stick tactics lesson and self-sealing tanks demo was excellent too. Unfortunately, the audio was inconsistent and there were couple of camera faux pas, but I understand the conditions. I hope you consider redoing this with the same content, but multiple camera angles, better audio, and a first-person view of the cockpit, including the downward view windows almost unique to the Wildcat. Thanks. Since about 1973, the Wildcat has been my favorite aircraft and ADM Jimmy Thach my personal hero.
Thank you so much, Mr. Thiessen. Excellent talk about the Wildcat, an aircraft that gets maligned far too often. It was a fine plane, just a bit overmatched, and our pilots and support crew just did a better job working around the faults of the Wildcat while playing to its strengths, using far less experienced pilots, support staff, and command staff. We performed better in the given situation, won the war of attrition, and eventually the war of engineering.
I would like to see an episode dedicated to Allied engineering *priorities* (or ethos) versus those of the Axis. They seem to have dialed in all their stuff years before we became involved, but they never learned to truly mass produce their matériel, nor did they ever seem to be able to introduce SO MANY new designs and upgrades as we did. They advanced at a slower rate and could not produce enough of anything, even before we started bombing factories and such. Once we started bombing ball-bearing factories instead of population centers their defeat became a foreseeable eventuality. So can NAM produce an episode that studies the engineering behind our weapons and vehicles and how that differed from the design and problem-solving ethos of our enemies?
Vindicator, seen as the presenter walks away from the floor Wildcat, was also a type used at midway Also, a video I'd like to see.
Yes the F4F had a 6.9 kill ratio over Japanese AC. That includes all types including bombers. The kill ratio vs the A6M was closer to 1:1. See The First Team. About 10,900 A6M's of all models were built. The F4F stayed in service until the end of the war mainly on the "Jeep carriers" as the FM2 made by General Motors.
Correct info according to Wikipedia, about 7800 F4Fs were produced during the war.
20,000 Mitsubishi Type 0 (A6M) Reisen fighters were built.
Thank you for the tour!
Great video series well presented. Keep it going if possible Americans need to know these FACTS. I was privileged to serve with DJ Kiely in VMFA-312 when he commanded the checkerboards. He hosted the veterans reunion we had in Pensacola. He gave us an excellent tour of the museum. He was a great leader, fighter pilot, and Marine. Under appreciated by the Marine Corp should have commanded an air wing.
Never mind the technical difficulties: The point is that the presentation provokes relevant questions!
Another great video General
Joe Foss has an air port in Sioux Falls, SD named after him as well
Love the wildcat
It is a world class museum!👍
Brilliant. Thank you for this thorough presentation.
Thank you so much Duane for such an fascinating explanation of the tactics developed against the Mitsubishi Zero Zen while the F4F Wildcats were Americas best carrier fighter. The Zero also pioneered external fuel tanks giving incredible range.
The self sealing tanks didn't totally seal back up after the projectile went through. It more or less "clotted" the hole to dramatically slow any fuel leakage to a minimum allowing a damaged aircraft to fly as far as possible before fuel was exhausted. Still that was a thousand times better than a gaping hole.
You are wrong. The self sealing bladders prevented fires.
@@edrussell9573 "It more or less "clotted" the hole to dramatically slow any fuel leakage". Pretty sure this is also going to help prevent or slow a fire also, no? Still, self sealing fuel tanks were only effective against smaller projectiles up to 20mm.
@@davidcantrell5098 Okay. They were only good enough against cannons. Please show me the the airplanes that had cannons larger than 20 mm. Dumbass.
@@edrussell9573 Let's see. Ki-84's had 30mm. Ki-45's and 46's had 37mm's. Me-262's carried four 30mm's. Let's not forget the biggest threat is that aircraft can be shot at from the ground with AAA cannons 40mm and larger. Dumbass.
Yes the Wild cat needs some more love and don't forget the brave Men that flew them.
Yes visit Pensacola great museum and you can catch the Blue Angels practicing if you're there at the right time.
Excellent presentation detailing the strengths of each type (Wildcat V Zero).
I loved the part where you sat in the cockpit and explained the components 😎
My thanks. Doubt I'll get to Pensacola anytime soon, as I've only one friend on the peninsula, and a sister on the pan-handle. Thanks for chalk talk about the F-4F. Take care.
..been to this museum 4-5 times, but it has been a long time...2001-2002 being the last time...would love to go again one day!..this video series is a GREAT idea, so glad to see this done :)..VERY well done...only one thing I see needs some attention/tweaking...the sound needs some work, probably microphone related...the sound is very low, then gets louder, then gets very low again...makes it hard to follow the audio...this video and a few of the others also...I'm sure the bugs can be worked out..and keep it up!...keep these videos coming!...great job, and Thank You!...
Thatch weave, that is really cool. I wonder what the first flight of zeros thought when everything turned upside down for those pilots.
One other advantage was that the pilots only had to watch the other pilots; if they saw attackers aiming at their buddies and turned towards them, the other pilots saw their friends' movement and knew what to do. It made it a lot easier with less sky to scan.
Awesome video subject. love this plane so much. Wish you guys could remaster the video and reupload it. 360p and less sure makes it hard to see some of the content. thanks
Rear admiral Edward Feightner was also an ace pilot from USS Enterprise flew with the Blue Angels with Voris
Well done ! ! !
Thanks so much for this video Sir! I learned so much. I really into historic aircraft at my age of 60, also building model model aircraft. I guess the Zero would be considered a flying gas-can. I plan touring the USS Midway in SD after the pandemic.
What a great museum.I love ww2 vintage props more than anything. I would be in heaven wandering around there. I come from the UK so the American ones are pretty rare although they had a p47 and a p51 at my local airshow this year. The wildcat wasn't worse than the zero in loads of ways though, it had that stonking two stage supercharger, plus it's .50s are better guns for plane to plane fighting and it could escape in a dive if things got too lively .Thanks for the upload.
While the Wildcat was replaced by the Hellcat on fleet carriers it continued flying off the smaller CVL’s and CVE’s. Wildcats were flown till the end of the war. The British Royal Navy also flew the Wildcat from their carriers. However the Brits renamed their Wildcats calling it the Martlet
Yes, it was able to use the escort carriers which did not have such a long flight deck.
Great video. Thank-you
Great video great history on the wildcat.
Restored by the San Diego Aerospace Museum
The ever endearing boxy little Wildcat. It held its own until its big brother the Hellcat came along...
U.S. pilots' adaptation to the Wildcat's deficiencies / liabilities are a great example of how the U.S. was THE BEST at this in WW2. Another example was the F4U Corsair. Initially built for carrier operations, faster than the Wildcat's big brother the Hellcat w a better roll rate, it's terrible visibility problems for carrier landings was a liability. So the US Navy adapted by giving them to land based Marine squadrons where it excelled as a fighter and as a ground attack aircraft.
Some of this was also the top down dictatorial aspect of the culture of our opponents. An example was the ME-262 which could have wrecked havoc on our Air Forces in Europe but was in short supply. The reason was Hitler (who didn't know a thing about aviation or tactics wanted the airplane converted over to more of a bombing role.
The Japanese has similar issues in not rotating their best around and not making changes to the Zero.
@@richardgreen1383 This was true of both Germany and Japan but especially of Hitler who meddled in every everything including simple logistic shipments to the Eastern front. Per the Zero, Japan did try to make upgrades to it but it had the same basic issue as the bf109 - both were relatively small / lighter airframes built around a larger engine for their time, so they were great front line fighters in the beginning of the war. But when the need arose to match newer superior Allied fighters, these airframes were so small / light you couldn't really stuff larger / heavier engines in them. The Germans did develop a supercharged version of the bf109 that performed well at high altitude but they didn't have the resources to mass produce them. Had hitler not hindered the development and later, the role of the 262, then it would have come on line as a front line Luftwaffe fighter much earlier in which case perhaps the Japanese would have developed their own version earlier. That would have presented a serious issue for Allied air power in both theaters of war. Germany and Japan did have other fighters that showed promise but the weaknesses of those designs were a direct consequence of a serious lack of resources and manufacturing prowess, both of which the Americans leveraged in spades. Lastly, if the 262 had been deployed much earlier, while it may have extended the war a bit longer it still wouldn't have changed the outcome. The U.S. and Britain would have accelerated their own jet program (pardon the pun) and had a similar fighter on line to meet the challenge.
Wonderfully Informative Duane...
The reason why propeller driven single engine aircraft turn easier in one direction as opposed to the other is because of the laws of physics. The torque of the engine and spinning prop. If it is turning clockwise to the right as you sit in the cockpit, you will roll right faster. By the same token, if it is turning counterclockwise, you will roll faster to the left. That big prop spinning out front influences the handling. This is in concert with the Zero’s large aileron control surfaces, which when being buffeted by high speeds, were more difficult to overcome. The savvy Wildcat pilot pretty much knew what direction a panicked Zero pilot might reflexively turn, and could lay a burst of bullets the enemy just might fly into. The lightly built plane would explode in flame, and a good chance the pilot was holed as well. It is true of any prop driven aircraft, then and now. Engine designs in WW One that had the whole engine spinning really had this going on.
Torque makes little difference in turns but it makes a huge difference in rolling the aircraft
Leroy Grumman had been a Naval Aviator. He knew what was needed.
His legacy seems is excellent! As a navy brat, grumman is my second savior!
Do they know how to use mic?
A fine Presentation but most of the fighter planes on wake Island were F2 Brewster buffaloes they had very few f4f Wildcats
The fighters on Wake were with Marine Squadron VMF-211, which consisted of twelve F4F-3 Wildcats. I believe the Marine Squadrons based out of Midway flew some Brewster Buffalos, but I don’t know of any on Wake.
Isn't that tactic against the Zeros the same the Germans invented in the 30s with the "Rotte"= 2 planes and the "Schwarm" = 4 Planes? Like the Wildcat the Me 109 was a "boom and zoom" fighter plane as well. Interessting!
Awesome...I think that's in Pensacola...if he'd let me climb in that F4F I'd be a kid in a candy store
excellent😁
F4F-3 and the FMs had 4x.50 mgs while the F4F-4 had 6x.50 mgs The 4 mg planes climbed faster due to less weight and carried more ammo per gun. Against the Zero 4x.50 was deadly.
Loved the self-sealing fuel tank demonstration!
...I've always heard there were something north of 12,000 Zeros manufactured...
Yes that numbers true.
This is an excellent documentary. Not trying to be snarky, but were there gunsights that weren't right on the centerline of the pilot's eyes? Seemed like faint praise.
That would be incredible....I've loved that plane since I was a child
IIRC Wildcats fifty caliber guns used incendiary ammo. Given that Japanese aircraft lacked armor and self sealing fuel tanks fifty caliber incendiary bullets turned Zeros into crematoriums
The biplane and deficient fighters in 1940 are a product of 30s budgets and I suspect the navy put most of its budgets into ships. Probably the European war ended that and they had modern British fighter in the battle of Britain for specs, I assume the US knew of modern fighter specs. So they had a benchmark for a plane, Wildcat was good but it was 20% below that benchmark and they needed a larger engine and plane to meet the benchmark. A Hellcat prototype was on order before the war, they were putting money into military shortcomings I assume since the early sword rattling in Europe. The M4 tank was being prototyped around the same time, just before the war, by no coincidence I assume.
3:06. Gunsight must be exactly in front of you because how in other way could you aim in the enemy's plane ?
Move your head.
Or better, consider the gunsight as a periscope, always looking forward.
So we completely forget the Brewster buffalo
Wildcat could out dive the A6M
В 109 предплечия пилота почти плотно прижаты к ребрам. Возникает вопрос: удобно ли это при пилотирование с усилием на ручку? Американская инженерная культура с самого начала отличалась заботой об эргономике! 😊
Tadayoshi Koga crashed in Dutch Harbor Alaska after firing on an American Recon plane, not a bog after strafing .
F4F commonly consideredas zero bait but was the plane that brought the nippoese to their knees ....by the time the hellcat & corsair arrived the nipponese had bled thru. Also the wildcats could be used by the smaller carriers...F4F was the hero of the pacific and was marvel of forward thinking engineering.
Go navy! And No drag queens flying those cats!
Fantastic presentation
Great plane, flown by the best pilots the first team of navy fighter squadrons had to offer. Men like Jimmie Thach, Butch O'Hare, Art Brassfield, Scott McCusky and James Flatley. It had serious problems, slow to climb to altitude, short range, leaky self sealing tanks and jamming guns in the first months of the war. But together with the mechanics and the air departments they worked it out. The plane was built strong, was a stable gun platform and had devastating fire power.
Very true and thank you for your information
Hmm... the math of fighter tactics is pretty complicated - I haven't figured it out - yet. (Nobody is paying me to do it).
It gets more complicated when you consider the engine power, because it takes the fight into 3 dimentions.
It took a Robin Olds to figure that out with the conservation of energy between potential and kinetic energy.
Today with the F-15 and the Typhoon you can throw away energy because those aircraft have so much power that they don't know what to do with it.
Soz,we had 'TOP GUN' in 42? Navy pilots... Any questions?
It was a helluva fighter....held the line against the cream of the crop of the Japanese, at a time when the war was still sketchy
Just like 'pick and roll' in basketball lol
25:10
👍👍always 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸!!!
Interesting the F4F-3 Wildcat was THE first plane to fly using a 2 stage supercharger on the PW R1820 engine. Both the Wright R1830 and the PW R1820 were offered in various forms, the Wright having the single stage 2 speed supercharger, and later in the war when the 2 stage supercharger was in short supply the PW R1820 also used the single stage 2 speed unit. Most people do not know this ugly little fat plane used the first 2 stage supercharger. PW went on to use the 2x2 supercharger on the PW R2800 as used in the F4U Corsair and the F6F Hellcat !!! And NO RR did not invent the 2 stage 2 speed supercharger, they just added their version to the merlin in Late 1942 !!! The 2 stage supercharger was invented and patented in the USA in 1938 !!!! FYI !!!!!
I read a story about the USS. Lexington when the war started.
She was losing a lot of aircraft do to mechanical problems.
But niece they recovers one of the down aircraft they found the carberator was fouled with rubber from the self sealing tanks. The reason the rubber failed was do to low quality gas that was picked up when the Lexington pass through the Panama canal.
Actually, the early sealing liners were glued together. The glue dissolves. This was fixed by using the vulconizing process to fabricate the fuel bladders.
Very informative tough old bird..... feel a bit sorry for the young camera operator...
Too bad those who created the wars never flew those planes.
Nice
If only the F4F had a four bladed constant speed propeller.....
Grumman Iron Works
its nice to have soch a comfy cockpit when your getting shot down by a zero....lol....its probably not to bad when your performing your part of a thatch weave either.
You will notice there is a big plate of heavy steel behind the pilot and 7.7mm would not penetrate that. A small cockpit means a smaller plate needed and less weight. According to accounts, pilots would pull in their shoulders and crouch down behind that plate when bullets started to hit.
@@fazole I know I sure would lol
Don't forget that the Japanese pilots had to fly till they died! The Japanese didn't have the fuel to give the new pilots the training they needed.
Someone get a mop.
What?! An aviation museum I have not been to yet? I'm off!!!
You've missed a-lot of Wildcat history here. You've only presented its history of when it was our prime fighter and going by what you've presented here the Wildcat post Hellcat did nothing and that is very-very incorrect. Wildcats were at nearly every major battle throughout the war, they were "even" at the D day landings and were likely at the Marinas turkey shoot too. This is the history of the Wildcat that I came here for. They didn't just hunt submarines and escort ships across the Atlantic, they did A-lot more post Hellcat than you could ever imagine! I want to know exactly what and where its further contributions were post Hellcat, I know it contributed maybe even more to the war effort post Hellcat than it did prior to the Hellcat. Please inquire, continue and include UK and other post Hellcat allied Wildcat contributions as well as ground based Wildcats' history too! You'll find a very deep and rich historical continuation of the Wildcats contributions "throughout the entire war". I want to know more!
Would you watch a 4 our video? Not me. This was enough history. Otherwise, buy some books.
Birth...Life...Give Life...Then Death...WildCat & HellCat.😎😉🐱👤 Won't mention Tiger & Panther Cats...narry the claws for satisfaction.😽
The Japanese were doomed from the start. We had great pilots and aircraft. The bravery of their pilots was totally offset by their flammable aircraft that burst into flame almost immediately, which is attested by gun cam footage. The most important factors, however, were that we cracked their codes, they had a paucity steel and fuel, and we fought in WWI while they were still untrained.
Yamamoto knew it too.
It seems either the camera woman was drunk that day or it's amateur hour 🤣