Check out Ikarus Art here → ikarusart.net/ and use the code REX to get 10% off your order. F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible
This may require a separate video, but could you cover the advantages/disadvantages between all metal verses wood frame aircraft since, at least in the run up to and during the early stages of WW2 those would have been legitimate design considerations.
The Bessler steam plane, it was from the 1930s, so from a period when planes were proper things, it could be used for landing on short runways as the engine was instantly reversable in flight.
My father was a naval aviator who began his flying career in '42. During WWII, the flew the F4F, the F6F, the F4U and managed to even get some stick time in on SBDs. After the war, his first command (this was about '47) was an SB2C squadron out of NAS Glynco, GA. He said that as challenging as the F4U was (they called it the "Ensign Eliminator"), the Big Tailed Beast scared the hell out of him. The initial variants had an electrical problem and sometimes the wing-mounted ordinance wouldn't drop from the pylons when toggled, the end result being that the wings would snap off when a pilot pulled out of a dive. Nice........
F4U was impossible to land on a carrier until Eric Brown (Royal Fleet Air Arm) came in with a left turn and landed easily. Eventually even the USN accepted that this was actually a superb aircraft and really no harder to land than any other aircraft of the day.
My old college girlfriend's dad was a Helldiver pilot. Earned the Navy Cross in the First Battle of the Philippine Sea 20 June 1944 as Commanding Officer of Bombing Squadron 2 (VB-2) attached to USS Hornet (CV-12). He "scored a direct hit to leave a large hostile aircraft carrier leaving it burning and sinking". Captain Grafton Blair Campbell.
That must've been the Hiyo, a 24,000 ton fleet carrier converted from an incomplete passenger liner. The Pearl Harbor veteran Zuikaku as well as Hiyo's sister Jun'yo were also hit by dive bombs but were not sunk.
@@thenumbah1birdman Air Group 2 went after Zuikaku along with Air Group 1 from Yorktown. Hiyo was torpedoed by an Avenger from VT-24 off Belleau Wood and bombed by VB-10 from Enterprise.
@@thenumbah1birdmanAlways take veteran stories with a grain of salt lol. The fact that he likely hit the Zuikaku is a huge honor as it is, even if he didn’t score the killing blow
My dad was a radioman/gunner on this plane. Many pilots had difficulty flying this thing. Even the pilot who flies the only operational Helldiver today told me it's not easy to fly. Many said that even though the Dauntless was slower, it was easier to fly and more reliable.
The SB2C had double the bomb load of the Dauntless. The Navy tried to replace it but the intended replacement was worse than the SB2C. That aircraft was later developed into the Sky Rider
@@jamesricker3997 Dauntless = SBD = Slow But Deadly Helldiver = SB2C = Son of a B*tch, 2nd Class AM (or AM1) (Martin) Mauler (aka Able Mable) = Awful Monster the first try (BTD) by Douglas and was rejected in favor of the Mauler. Douglas gave Heinemann (who s on the same level as Kelly Johnson as a aircraft designer if not made to design an airplane to a strict set of specifications) the job of transforming the BTD not something that would work. He went from a 2 seater with a great on the Test Stand & Issues in the field R-4360 engine, to a single seater that used an engine that had all of the initial problems already worked out the R-3350 (Same engine used n the B-29) Thus the AD-1 Skyraider was born.....
@@kiwidiesel Sorry, TBD was a typo. The TBD Devastator was obsolescent if not obsolete by 1942 and the TBF/TFM Avenger replaced it. The BTD never got into production so there was no fleet nickname for it....
True, they are side by side in my mind. If you are interested in the same amount of technical details there is "WWII US Bombers" channel which while covers such narrow and specific topic goes very deeply into unclassified materials and shows all of them. The Chieftain is my go to for tanks though his manner of narrating is more free he clearly has a very good grasp of the subject and dipped into a lot of unclassified reports too. Not to mention that he is an ex-tanker and was inside nearly every surviving tank of any period. Its not much, but its nice when someone you see can say that that tank from WW2 was too cramped or something based on his personal experience
As you know, the tail came off this airplane. When I was I kid, I flew Cox powered model airplanes on a wire control. They had a Stuka, Spitfire, A-36 and a HellDiver. Guess what: The tail on the HellDiver used to come off on the model too.
@@Tekisasubakani It sure was. The tails never came off the other cox planes I flew and I flew all of them. Even though I was a kid, I knew about the Helldiver's tail problems and I was kind of surprised that the tail came off the model but apparently the elevators were too big.
My grandfather flew these, during and after War 2. He said that "What pilots _liked_ (in terms of aircraft type) was irrelevant, you flew what they told you to fly and that was that."
Yep...heard about the same thing from an old WW ll pilot. (USN) Unhappy with his assignment, he a several other pilots complained. They were told okay, put your wings on the desk and we'll find you a nice job humping ammo or something. He/they decided they were happy in the CASU.
@@88mike42 I actually wonder what they would have done if you called their bluff? No way they would have made a pilot hump ammo just because they didn't want to fly a certain aircraft, pilots are actually really important to the government and the government foot the bill for thousands of dollars worth of training, classrooms, practice flights etc.
@@danh1945 Yeah sorry I meant "you" in a more hypothetical way. Although I do see young guys being a bit afraid of rocking the boat. However I have a feeling if those pilots actually took their wings off their uniform and placed them on the desk the officer would have changed his tune really quick. No-way would they let a perfectly good pilot do menial tasks when the government foot the bill for their training.
@@-Zevin- I don't think they'd have been humping ammo either. Likely put in a training command. Anyway my friends point was you'll fly where and what we tell you.
There is a book on the Pacific War, a magazine size paperback. I can't put my hand on it at the moment, but it includes a picture of my cousin flying his Helldiver inverted over the flight deck of the U.S.S. Lexington during the War. He was coming in for a landing and got waved off when he pushed his control forward to power up the torque from the engine flipped his plane. He did crash into the Pacific, but he and his rear seater were rescued.
The story of one Micheel Vernon is a good read. This guy was enlisted as a scout (meaning he flew the SBD dauntless) in the naval air force, engaged in Midway on both US dive bomber sorties from Enterprise and the Cactus Air Force. His experience with the SB2C after returning from Guadalcanal and then joining CV-8 Yorktown war that it was comparable to "flying a brick". He flew it through the 1943-44 push through the Philippines, where his squadron (Bombing 2) encountered many issues, such as failing Bell cranks in the ailerons (meaning they'd snap and cause loss of roll control mid flight), unreliable autocannons that would jam at a rather high rate and bomb pylons that either disconnected when you didn't want em to, or refused to drop the bombs. His last flight on a borrowed SB2C-5 saw his tail hook snap off upon landing; not a great farewell. Info is from Hugh Ambrose's book "The Pacific", highly recommended
My dad led a design team at Curtis who's responsibility was for the SB2C model (I'm not sure what part of it exactly he was responsible) . He said one huge problem was the canopy having the bad habit of nearly decapitating the pilot on a hard landing. He said they fixed that pretty quickly.
Very interesting my dad also was an engineer on The Hell diver, he spoke at length on the progress they made with the wing and the constant improvement's they made on the plane when it was all said and done it was responsible for more bomb hits than any other carrier based plane , ya it had problems but it also was a beast that could deliver!!!
The USN managed to get the Corsair, Hellcat, and Avenger in their push for advanced carrier aircraft in 1940-1942 along with the Helldiver, so 3 out of 4 being successful pretty much as soon as they hit the Fleet (even with the F4U's carrier landing problems) is not a bad track record compared to either Royal Navy or Japanese Navy next generation aircraft development at the same time.
You have a point there! Poor US pilots if they had to face the IJN at its height with the American equivalent of the Barracuda, the Roc or the Fulmar...
From what I've read the only problem with landing an F4U on a carrier was the USN pilots. Once the Fleet Air Arm (Eric Brown) showed the USN how it was done they did very well & realized they were a bit premature in giving their planes to the Marines.
liked the video, glad you are doing another deep dive on it. I have a soft spot for the SB2C, my dad worked at the Curtiss Wright plant in Columbus on it. His area of assembly was from the firewall to the aft section of the bomb bay, like what was shown in the video.
True but the helldiver sent the most amount of Japanese ships to Davy Jones locker. The Slow But Deadly Dauntless was definitely a solid aircraft no doubt about that.
I think it's safe to say that the proper way to fulfil any design specification coming from the brass is to toss it out entirely and build something that works instead.
4:30 you can see how additional spare aircraft were disassembled and stored in the rafters in the hanger bay until needed as parts or to replace losses.
@@DIREWOLFx75 The Navy apparently thought elevator transit was a bottleneck in combat turn-around time. Using advanced hindsight, I think a better answer would have been to change the elevator design as follows: stowed position would be down on the hanger deck, with the hole in the flight deck being covered with retractable armor plates. That would have made it possible to store an aircraft right in the elevator, and thus makes it possible to add another elevator without too much loss of aircraft storage capacity, thereby taking the place of two planes on one elevator (one plane on the elevator would be easier and faster to manage anyway). This also eliminates the time needed to drop the elevator and push a fighter onto it in a scramble; just keep one fully armed in each one, so all that needs to be added is fuel and the pilots.
@@paulbade3566 "The Navy apparently thought elevator transit was a bottleneck in combat turn-around time." Well, yeah of course it was. But trying to solve that by creating a potentially useless plane is just pure idiocy. Figure out how to add more lifts, or how to move planes around or how to make the lifts move faster, make the lifts bigger on the next generation carriers etc etc, there's plenty of far better possible solutions. "I think a better answer would have been to change the elevator design as follows" Might work. Although there would definitely have been some issues with making sure the flight deck mechanism works properly but also that it does not end up making the flight "bumpy", as that could easily cause planes to go tail-up in worst case. "(one plane on the elevator would be easier and faster to manage anyway)" Drastically! To get two planes on a lift means packing them with very small margins of error and that definitely slows things down. . Overall, i think the first part of a solution would be to move over to(or even just ADD) edge of deck lifts, then widening the flight deck(including angled deck), so you can have an extra elevator or even two. Any fleet carrier worth its name is going to be big no matter what, so better make them as good as can get. As an aside, i've also wondered whether you could put the carrier bridge further back, and manage a second angled deck in front of the bridge, in paralell with the angled deck that is normal today. It would crossover the "normal" central deck, but it would still allow you to put 6 catapults on a carrier, as well as provide more space where you could fit a lift, and also provide an extra alternative for landing if there's an accident on one of the decks.
@@DIREWOLFx75 If I recall correctly, the Midway class of carriers was originally built with deck-edge elevators. I saw a proposal for a double angle deck but it was rejected because the carrier would have be much wider to keep it from being top-heavy, which means it has to be longer to maintain speed performance, necessitating much larger powerplants, etc. This would be awkward at the Panama and Suez Canals and many ports. At that point, buying another carrier to have an alternative landing space makes more tactical sense ("Don't put all of the eggs in one basket."), and doesn't cost too much more. In the Navy's defense, they wanted something that could be a drop-in replacement for the Dauntless without pulling existing carriers out of the war for modifications. But sometimes demanding too much could mean getting less than what you need or paying too high a price for it. The Mark 14 torpedo and (decades later) the A-12 Avenger are other examples.
The requirement for two of them to fit on a single elevator on top of everything else kinda reminds me of some game studios trying to concept, develop and publish a AAA game in a single year and proceed to surprise pikachu face when folk hate it. That's why it pays massive stonks to have an experienced designer on the bean-counter team to just point-out what's achievable within reason. But then again, they'd have to *pay* that designer instead of keeping the money for themselves so what do I know.
I went to High School in the town adjacent to the Curtiss Wright factory that built the engines for this bird. My Latin teacher was the town unofficial historian. He knew everyone and was the town clerk. One of his stories was how loud those engines were . Buildings close to the back fence of the factory were shake tremendously. It probably resulted to hearing damage to many of the residents that didn’t work at the factory.
After the Battle of the Philippine Sea. LTCDR James “Jig Dog” Ramage (CO of Enterprise’s VB-10) reported to VADM Marc Mitscher about VB-10’s performance in that battle. As he gave the report Ramage observes that Mitscher wanted a comparison of VB-10 and VB-16’s Dauntlesses compared to the other Carriers Helldivers. A discussion ensued where Mitscher proposed the possibility of returning the Dauntless to frontline service. With Ramage said that there would be no difficulty with the transition. But Mitscher’s staff objected due to the logistics involved in changing out the Dive Bombers on the front line.
My father flew an SBD in VB-16 whose squadron commander Ralph Weymouth. I knew he and others hated the SB2C and didn't want to fly them. My father had previously flown with Gus Widhelm at the Battle of Midway and the Battle of Santa Cruz. Gus became Admiral Mitscher's operations officer on the Lexington. I was never sure why the Lexington bomber squadrons didn't get the SB2Cs that were deployed to most of the US fleet in early 1944. I always suspect that his squadron commander, Ralph Weymouth and Gus Widhelm had something to do with it.
Take an aircraft with known and pretty severe stability issues, add hastily trained green pilots and then put them in the most challenging situation possible-carrier aviation in wartime. Just to spice things up, add in a hurried production schedule with less than stellar quality control, and you get the perfect storm of the SB2C. Even after they had supposedly worked out all the kinks, the SB2C was still a difficult aircraft to fly. Even the transition training film for pilots (available on TH-cam) points out "potential" stability issues and what to watch for and how to handle them.
It's somebody else mentioned I'm going to also add in, vb-17 tool sb2c-1 models into combat over rabaul, it was the only time for that model but pictures do exist, i recently converted an a-25 shrike kit into an sb2c-1 and while doing research for the markings found this information. In the pictures the older defensive armament of a single .50 is pretty clear, as are the wing .50 cals
You could mention the SB2C's last significant combat service ...1954 over Dien Bien Phu with the French Navy. The Naval aviators diving with their Helldivers into cauldron of fire earned the undying graditude of the trapped and doomed paras and Legionaires. 3F, 3e Flotille d'Assaut Embarquee, and their squadron leader LCDR Andrieux, were part of the Arromanches air group, averaged almost a mission a day until the end, with the loss of 2 Helldivers including LDCR Andrieux himself.
The real issue with the end of dive bombers had another reason. One was the fact that the Japanese flat-tops were getting few and far between. The other was the new rockets. A fighter or an attack aircraft with rockets was a pretty effective way of taking out a carrier flight deck.
So, the Navy required the requirements for the Helldiver was the U.S Navy ordering a W.W.II "Tardis". They expected Curtis to use "Temporal Engineering" the plane had to be bigger inside than the outer dimensions allowed.
There's death and taxes, but another sure thing in life is that hydraulics leak. No matter the design and quality of fittings and hoses, or the skill of the engineers, they leak -- often constantly. Some more than others. Good systems just leak a tiny bit in a manageable way, but even they can suddenly decide to spring a random reservoir emptying leak. Compressed air systems can be fun too, but far less messy. Another is pressurized ammonia gas for refrigeration. There always tends to be a whiff of it about, due to it escaping fittings and seals etc. Accidental rupture of the lines can be fatal and will be if a person can not get away from the leak fast enough (one of the only emergency drills where crew are not told to walk calmly, but to carefully run like fv
Having been around hydraulic systems (industrial) most of my working life I absolutely agree. All types of actuaying systems have their quirks. Pneumatic systems also leak and in my opinion are both weaker and less controllable. Electrical systems especially during this period were likely heavier. The leaks in hydraulic systems can usually be traced to fittings, hoses and actuator seals in that order. The fitting leakage IMO depends on the amount of contact area in the fitting itself. One of the worst offenders is the 37° flare fitting. Wheatherhead compression fittings leak less but if they need to be repaired on site are less forgiving. Also a lot if problems with 37° fittings stem from using thin wall tubing. Hose problems stem from not enough length putting excessive side loads on the hose ends. Actuator seal leaks are usually caused by side loading the rods or output shafts due to misalignment.
I read the early SB2C's had aileron control horns that would break under stress. They were made out of some kind of "pot metal". Curtiss knew they were faulty before they sent the aircraft to the fleet.
Great work Rex, thank you for the quality uploads. Fascinating history of the Helldiver. Definitely interested in that Helldiver torpedo bomber variant.
Despite it's infamous history I always had a soft spot for this aircraft. Ludicrous carrier based designs always had interesting quirks in their designs that just got my interest.
One of the reasons why the USN had such high clearances on their hangers was for the purpose of storing spare airframes, wings, and engines in the overhead.
The droppable rear fuselage cover always struck me as… creative… (poor field of fire still, aerodynamically problematic and makes a strong structure a lot harder to pull off) - can’t wait for the deep dive!
Okay--the advertisement ending about 2:55 is one of the few that I've seen that are not intrusive and actually germane to the topic at hand! Good selection, sir!
It looks wrong. Aft fuselage isn’t long enough. Just like the Me-210 (which suffered from similar horrendous directional stability issues) It took Hungarians to say (in Magyar) ‘Nah mate. Just make the fuselage a bit longer’.
+Excellent coverage of this aircraft. Having only read of the exploits of Hellcat flyers in the later Pacific battles, I never knew of the extensive "teething" problems. Looking forward to the deep dive. Your commentary is inimitable. Even when I have watched other's videos of an aircraft, when I find a Rex's Hangar I dive into it, knowing that you will inform and entertain - Congratulations and thanks.
It always kinda amazes me that with all of the tens of thousands of American and British warbirds produced in WW2, that only few are left in flying condition today in 2023.
My father was a WW2 vintage Naval Aviator. He used to say that more Navy pilots were killed by the Curtiss Aircraft Company than by the Mitsubishi company. He related than early Helldivers had the unfortunate positioning of the dive brakes control located on the control stick where it could easily be accidentally deployed during a catapult launch. Straight into the “drink”.
I was at Otay resevoir in 2010 when they salvaged an SB2C Helldiver. It was in pretty good condition despite being submerged in a freshwater lake for 70 years. From what I understand its still in Pensacola Florida.
Great video, Rex. There was a book retelling all the shenanigans Curtiss was up to while milking the prototyping cow, from the 1920s to the end of aircraft production. The guys basically pocketed money by the hundreds of thousands. Wish I could remember the tittle and author. A real eye-opener.
You know the old saying: "if it looks right, it flies right"? Well some may disagree, but the Helldiver just looks way wrong to me. I'd rather stick with an SBD5 if given a choice.
From most photographed angles, the Helldiver looks fine to me (the tail is admittedly disproportionately large), but the plan view drawings really illustrate how oddly short the fuselage is, especially the aft fuselage. It looks like they took a proper-length airplane, cut out about 6 feet of fuselage aft of the wing, and reattached the tail.
I've always wondered how effective that rear gunner really was or could be. Has always seemed to me that there's just no field of fire for that rear gun with how massive the tail is.
very nice video - I'm building a 1/48 Vultee A-31 Vengeance atm and would love you to pull that planes history apart (which almost 2000 were built and probably better than the SB2c except for the bomb load) - for context the SB2C total was 7100ish.. so the even more unloved Vengeance didn't do too bad - and any plane the was designed with the major issue of a miscalculation of CoG has got to be fun!!
@@emjackson2289 Apache I think. Underrated machine the Vengeance. I recently read a book about the air war in Burma/India. It did an excellent close support job there.
Curtiss was also responsible for another, less well known would be front line aircraft in wwii. The SO3C Curtiss Seamew. It was the only plane that scared my naval aviator father during his 22 years. It was so bad the navy went back to the earlier and better Curtiss SOC.
Thank you for this video and I’ll be waiting for the follow ups. Until now I only had the reputation of the earlier Helldivers in my mind. In the end apparently it was a much better craft than I gave it credit for.
My father flew an SBD in combat during WWII from the aircraft carriers USS Hornet (CV8) and the USS Lexington (CV16). In addition to the Battle of Midway, he also saw combat at the Battle of Santa Cruz, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, as well as attacks on Japanese installations at Truk Lagoon, Hollandia, Palau, Wake Island, Wolei, the Marshall Islands, and the Caroline Islands. He was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and 2 Air Medals. Late in the war he was doing test work for rocket development at the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) in Inyokern California He had flown the SB2C Hell Diver, the F4F Wildcat, the F6F Hellcat and the F4U Corsair, the TBF Avenger, and the F7F Tigercat. After the war he also flew the F2H Banshee. He said that the F7F was his favorite all-time Navy plane to fly because of its awesome power. He hated the SB2C and called it a "Son of A Bitch 2nd Class". He loved and trusted the SBD (Slow But Deadly) which probably saved his life a number of times.
The SBD Dauntless is what won the war in the Pacific, especially at Midway. Helldiver was no match. I think that dauntless is one of the most underrated planes of the war
One of the most remarkable contrasts, between military aircraft that began front line service in WW2 and those from the mid 1970's and on: is so many are still in active service today. The F-16, first generation F-18 and A-10 for example. Virtually the same airframes. When so many wartime aircraft had service lives measured in months before being discarded or relegated to very minor roles. We have 4th Generation with service lives measured in decades!
@@cancermcaids7688 I'm guessing you think that's a bad thing? Not really a judgement thing, I'm just pointing out the benefits of mature technology. Got a B-52 anyone?
For a long time there was only one SB2C flying (for the Commemorative Air Force) in the United States .....until this year. NOW there are 2 more, thanks to some really skilled restoration crews working with other organizations in the U.S. . I can't wait to see all three flying together at Oshkosh someday !
Jocko Clark threw it off the second Yorktown; sailors called it the "Son of A Bitch 2nd Class". Curtiss went out of the airplane business shortly after WW2.
Lots of aircraft manufacturers either folded or merged with other aircraft manufacturer's to keep from folding after the war, all that's proof of is after the war there just wasn't that much room for that many aircraft manufacturer's that'd swollen to the size they did during the war. All of those companies that folded or merged with others to keep from folding had a long list of reasons why it happened and Curtiss was no different, blaming it happening to any of them because of a single aircraft is nonsense, the reasons are long, involved and would require an entire book on each one to cover it.
I had the fortune to know about 4 or 5 pilots that from WWII that just so happened to be dive bomber pilots. They told me to a person that the hell diver was a downgrade in every way possible of being an airplane compared to the dauntless that it was replacing
In one of the many many books on aviation I have read was a story of the first aircraft carrier attempting to qualify the Helldiver for carrier service. Allegedly the captain of the carrier got so angry and frustrated with the problems/issues the Helldiver's had he ordered all the hellcats on and below be pushed off the stern of the carrier into the ocean. I have always wondered if this is true?
You mentioned that the SB2C might well have contributed to the end of Curtis, and listed some of the problems with leaky fuel systems, etc., I suddenly thought about another Curtis bird... the C46 "Commando". You might consider a video on this aircraft, as apparently, this flying truck had some serious issues of its own, and certainly did not help the Curtis reputation. I am old enough to remember the C46 flying in airline passenger and freight service in Mexico.
One of my ex wife's second cousins was a dive bomber pilot in WWII. He began his career in SBD's and love the airplane. He, like so many Naval Aviators raised bloody hell when they were told they were transitioning to SB2C. He, like most Helldiver pilots, referred to it as "The Beast". It did not accelerate of decelerate quickly, had VERY heavy control forces and was not as maneuverable as the Dauntless. He truly hated it
My cousin, after flying in the desert war, was made a test pilot of Helldivers at the factory at CanCar in Canada. I wish I had asked him about this aircraft. He apparently liked to throw it around a bit, and was reprimanded for performing forbidden moves.
Excellent vid as usual. Looking forward to the deep dive, as I've never even looked at the Helldiver. It's a pity that the specs were so unattainable, without the endless mods, but you have to give Curtiss credit for never giving up, and for cranking out as many as they did. As for suggestions, how about the Henschel He-123 and the He-126? Both played a serious part in the war.
Rex, you are favorite channel, please never stop. I really mean that. I mean this in the best possible way, you are the Bob Ross of history. I could listen to you all day
Burt Kinzey, in his Squadron/Signal book on the SB2C, points out that the Grumman TBF Avenger was built the the same elevator requirement as the SB2C. Grumman, recognizing the problem of a too-short fuselage, designed the wing folding structure to enable the two TBFs to be arranged diagonally on the elevator. This allowed sufficient length on the TBF for it to be a good-handling airplane. The problem with the short-coupled SB2C was not a boneheaded Navy specification; the problem was unimaginative Curtiss engineers!
This is what happens when something is rushed. The Dauntless was getting the job done and could outperform Zeros in a dog fight. One pilot out on patrol was jumped by 3 Zeros where he and his gunner managed to shoot down all 3 during a prolonged dogfight that lasted 20 to 30 minutes. The Dauntless pilot took advantage of the Zeros inability to dive hard to the right or take extreme turns without losing a wing. He used the dive brakes to take sharp hard turns so the Zero behind him flew by the rear gunner who placed some rounds into it with the pilot making another sharp turn to get some more in once flying by in his sights. Once back at his carrier, the pilot gave a detailed report on how he maneuvered then was transferred to a fighter squadron.
Can you ellaborate a little on the slats in the SB2? This seems to be one of the earliest types with movable leading edge aerodynamic control surfaces that I recollect. Thank you Rex for your always interesting deliveries.
A triumph of development over design, (or, more accurately, over specfication.) One of those orders that doomed its vendor. Now, C-W builds circuit boards. Establishing new factories in an area that does not have a culture of workmanship suitable to the product is fraught with difficulty. Neville Shute (Norway)'s autobiography illustrates the problem. (He was trying to build an airship with a workforce of peasants.) It takes a generation or so to convince people that a mistake on their part will kill people.
I do believe you are correct I recently built a model of a vb17 aircraft, early version with four fifty cals as wing armament and a single fifty for the gunner, non perforated dive flaps. That was the earliest unit I could find that took the aircraft in the combat over Rabaul.
@@Sakai070 Thanks. I believe the Mod III had perforated flaps and twin 30s, but it sounds like you built an earlier-still version. Most of my info comes from the Detail and Scale book on the A/C, which is pretty good on details like this. AS for C-W, I actually worked for them from 1981 to 2001. They were a shadow of their WWII size then and very conscious of their fall from the top. Yet, their corporate culture was still the same in many ways. Rex says that this Helldiver version marked the decline of their fortunes as an airframe manufacturer, but there were other earlier failures in A/C design that gave warning signs of what was to come.
I've never been a pilot so I'm not gonna talk out of my a**But I am an expert on machinery especially world war two. The reality is the US government CHANGED what it really needed, and Curtis paid the price first. Politicians meddeling in equipment procurment was the first big mistake. The timing of world war 2 for Curtis was unfortunate. The run up to World War 2 exposed a defect in the way we were creating war planes. Engineers would design a plane and then see how much weight they could put on It.😒 Instead of designing it to take the amount of weight it would need for combat. Other manufacturers saw that defficiency early and Incorporated. Larger carrying capacity for future. designs. It is seldom talked about but this mindset was critical to us creating better equipment👍
![A Domestic Failure That Became An International Success | Curtiss P-36 Hawk [Aircraft Overview #33]](/img/n.gif)
Check out Ikarus Art here → ikarusart.net/ and use the code REX to get 10% off your order.
F.A.Q Section
Q: Do you take aircraft requests?
A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:)
Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others?
A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.
Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos?
A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :)
Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators?
A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible
Hello Rex's Hangar I have a video request: Could your next video please be about the Zhuchenko vertoplan please and thank you?
Can you do the ki-32?
This may require a separate video, but could you cover the advantages/disadvantages between all metal verses wood frame aircraft since, at least in the run up to and during the early stages of WW2 those would have been legitimate design considerations.
The Bessler steam plane, it was from the 1930s, so from a period when planes were proper things, it could be used for landing on short runways as the engine was instantly reversable in flight.
I can’t believe you haven’t done a video on the SBD Dauntless yet!
My father was a naval aviator who began his flying career in '42. During WWII, the flew the F4F, the F6F, the F4U and managed to even get some stick time in on SBDs. After the war, his first command (this was about '47) was an SB2C squadron out of NAS Glynco, GA. He said that as challenging as the F4U was (they called it the "Ensign Eliminator"), the Big Tailed Beast scared the hell out of him. The initial variants had an electrical problem and sometimes the wing-mounted ordinance wouldn't drop from the pylons when toggled, the end result being that the wings would snap off when a pilot pulled out of a dive. Nice........
I'm about an hour from Glynco. I have done a large portion of what flight training I have received out of the airport there
"Ensign Eliminator", lol...always love that military gallows humor
Bug report - Bombs do not deploy, leading to wings snapping off.
Response - Intended behaviour, will not fix.
F4U was impossible to land on a carrier until Eric Brown (Royal Fleet Air Arm) came in with a left turn and landed easily. Eventually even the USN accepted that this was actually a superb aircraft and really no harder to land than any other aircraft of the day.
Your father would be fascinating to talk to. Grateful for his service.
My old college girlfriend's dad was a Helldiver pilot. Earned the Navy Cross in the First Battle of the Philippine Sea 20 June 1944 as Commanding Officer of Bombing Squadron 2 (VB-2) attached to USS Hornet (CV-12). He "scored a direct hit to leave a large hostile aircraft carrier leaving it burning and sinking". Captain Grafton Blair Campbell.
You could have just said "Captain Grafton Blair Campbell" and we would have assumed he was a hero from the 40s. Amazing name.
That must've been the Hiyo, a 24,000 ton fleet carrier converted from an incomplete passenger liner. The Pearl Harbor veteran Zuikaku as well as Hiyo's sister Jun'yo were also hit by dive bombs but were not sunk.
@@thenumbah1birdman Air Group 2 went after Zuikaku along with Air Group 1 from Yorktown. Hiyo was torpedoed by an Avenger from VT-24 off Belleau Wood and bombed by VB-10 from Enterprise.
@@ph89787 Ah
@@thenumbah1birdmanAlways take veteran stories with a grain of salt lol. The fact that he likely hit the Zuikaku is a huge honor as it is, even if he didn’t score the killing blow
My dad was a radioman/gunner on this plane. Many pilots had difficulty flying this thing. Even the pilot who flies the only operational Helldiver today told me it's not easy to fly. Many said that even though the Dauntless was slower, it was easier to fly and more reliable.
The SB2C had double the bomb load of the Dauntless.
The Navy tried to replace it but the intended replacement was worse than the SB2C. That aircraft was later developed into the Sky Rider
@@jamesricker3997 Dauntless = SBD = Slow But Deadly
Helldiver = SB2C = Son of a B*tch, 2nd Class
AM (or AM1) (Martin) Mauler (aka Able Mable) = Awful Monster
the first try (BTD) by Douglas and was rejected in favor of the Mauler.
Douglas gave Heinemann (who s on the same level as Kelly Johnson as a aircraft designer if not made to design an airplane to a strict set of specifications) the job of transforming the BTD not something that would work. He went from a 2 seater with a great on the Test Stand & Issues in the field R-4360 engine, to a single seater that used an engine that had all of the initial problems already worked out the R-3350 (Same engine used n the B-29)
Thus the AD-1 Skyraider was born.....
What no acronym for BTD and TBD , I'm a little saddened 😢
Crews that had the Dauntless fought to keep them as long as they could rather than flying the Helldiver.
@@kiwidiesel Sorry, TBD was a typo. The TBD Devastator was obsolescent if not obsolete by 1942 and the TBF/TFM Avenger replaced it.
The BTD never got into production so there was no fleet nickname for it....
Rex's Hangar has really become a aviation equivalent of Drachinifel's contribution to naval history knowledge.
Greg's Airplanes is pretty good, too.
True, they are side by side in my mind. If you are interested in the same amount of technical details there is "WWII US Bombers" channel which while covers such narrow and specific topic goes very deeply into unclassified materials and shows all of them.
The Chieftain is my go to for tanks though his manner of narrating is more free he clearly has a very good grasp of the subject and dipped into a lot of unclassified reports too. Not to mention that he is an ex-tanker and was inside nearly every surviving tank of any period. Its not much, but its nice when someone you see can say that that tank from WW2 was too cramped or something based on his personal experience
So the US Navy wanted a plane that was bigger on the inside while being smaller on the outside? Did they think Curtis built the TARDIS?
Apparently.🙄🙄🙄🙄
Nah, they just expected them to hire Harry Potter...
Oh hoho ho
You can spot middle management influence anywhere...
The US navy was kinda fucking insane in WW2
As you know, the tail came off this airplane. When I was I kid, I flew Cox powered model airplanes on a wire control. They had a Stuka, Spitfire, A-36 and a HellDiver. Guess what: The tail on the HellDiver used to come off on the model too.
So it was fully authentic!
@@Tekisasubakani It sure was. The tails never came off the other cox planes I flew and I flew all of them. Even though I was a kid, I knew about the Helldiver's tail problems and I was kind of surprised that the tail came off the model but apparently the elevators were too big.
My grandfather flew these, during and after War 2. He said that "What pilots _liked_ (in terms of aircraft type) was irrelevant, you flew what they told you to fly and that was that."
Yep...heard about the same thing from an old WW ll pilot. (USN) Unhappy with his assignment, he a several other pilots complained. They were told okay, put your wings on the desk and we'll find you a nice job humping ammo or something. He/they decided they were happy in the CASU.
@@88mike42 I actually wonder what they would have done if you called their bluff? No way they would have made a pilot hump ammo just because they didn't want to fly a certain aircraft, pilots are actually really important to the government and the government foot the bill for thousands of dollars worth of training, classrooms, practice flights etc.
@@-Zevin- It wasn't me. Besides these guys were very junior at the time and you "grew" where you were planted.
@@danh1945 Yeah sorry I meant "you" in a more hypothetical way. Although I do see young guys being a bit afraid of rocking the boat. However I have a feeling if those pilots actually took their wings off their uniform and placed them on the desk the officer would have changed his tune really quick. No-way would they let a perfectly good pilot do menial tasks when the government foot the bill for their training.
@@-Zevin- I don't think they'd have been humping ammo either. Likely put in a training command. Anyway my friends point was you'll fly where and what we tell you.
My grandparents neighbor flew these during WW2- He always said "SB2C" was the planes rate (rank)- SB2C= "Son of a B*** 2nd Class"
And a plane doesn't get a nickname as supremely un flattering as that without some reason for it.
Also nicknamed "The Beast" because of its issues.
@@cjmanson5692 A slightly more flattering nickname, to be fair..
Hi! :3
I heard that sob 2nd class thing in the first time i heard of this thing. The dogfights episode death of the Japanese navy. Always liked it tho.
My father was given a choice as radio operator/gunner between the SB2C and PBY...he said, ".....PBY" :)
Wise choice. :)
Chose right.
He chose wisely.
Not even a few seconds to think about it! 😅
Id choose pby. Just scouting and spotting.
There is a book on the Pacific War, a magazine size paperback. I can't put my hand on it at the moment, but it includes a picture of my cousin flying his Helldiver inverted over the flight deck of the U.S.S. Lexington during the War. He was coming in for a landing and got waved off when he pushed his control forward to power up the torque from the engine flipped his plane. He did crash into the Pacific, but he and his rear seater were rescued.
Name of book ?
Yeah please let us know the name when you find it.
Bit clumsy of him -ya don't just slam the throttle wide open - contra prop OK.
@@dianedougwhale7260 You should have told him that oh wait, your were *not* there. 🙄
The story of one Micheel Vernon is a good read. This guy was enlisted as a scout (meaning he flew the SBD dauntless) in the naval air force, engaged in Midway on both US dive bomber sorties from Enterprise and the Cactus Air Force. His experience with the SB2C after returning from Guadalcanal and then joining CV-8 Yorktown war that it was comparable to "flying a brick". He flew it through the 1943-44 push through the Philippines, where his squadron (Bombing 2) encountered many issues, such as failing Bell cranks in the ailerons (meaning they'd snap and cause loss of roll control mid flight), unreliable autocannons that would jam at a rather high rate and bomb pylons that either disconnected when you didn't want em to, or refused to drop the bombs. His last flight on a borrowed SB2C-5 saw his tail hook snap off upon landing; not a great farewell. Info is from Hugh Ambrose's book "The Pacific", highly recommended
My dad led a design team at Curtis who's responsibility was for the SB2C model (I'm not sure what part of it exactly he was responsible) . He said one huge problem was the canopy having the bad habit of nearly decapitating the pilot on a hard landing. He said they fixed that pretty quickly.
Very interesting my dad also was an engineer on The Hell diver, he spoke at length on the progress they made with the wing and the constant improvement's they made on the plane when it was all said and done it was responsible for more bomb hits than any other carrier based plane , ya it had problems but it also was a beast that could deliver!!!
The USN managed to get the Corsair, Hellcat, and Avenger in their push for advanced carrier aircraft in 1940-1942 along with the Helldiver, so 3 out of 4 being successful pretty much as soon as they hit the Fleet (even with the F4U's carrier landing problems) is not a bad track record compared to either Royal Navy or Japanese Navy next generation aircraft development at the same time.
Yeah, but Corsair and Avenger both had massive teething problems to start with too, so maybe 1/4 is more accurate for 1942 at least.
You have a point there! Poor US pilots if they had to face the IJN at its height with the American equivalent of the Barracuda, the Roc or the Fulmar...
From what I've read the only problem with landing an F4U on a carrier was the USN pilots. Once the Fleet Air Arm (Eric Brown) showed the USN how it was done they did very well & realized they were a bit premature in giving their planes to the Marines.
@@aussie6910 RN pilots were landing F4U's on escort carriers IIRC.
@@recoil53 Yes, with a turning approach the USN hadn't thought of.
I get it was deeply flawed, but I've always liked the looks of the Helldiver. The compact yet brawny shape just screams "war-fighter".
Does “flying brick” scream the same thing?
@@rambler05🤣It really does look like it's something to be thrown at the enemy, not flown to it
liked the video, glad you are doing another deep dive on it. I have a soft spot for the SB2C, my dad worked at the Curtiss Wright plant in Columbus on it. His area of assembly was from the firewall to the aft section of the bomb bay, like what was shown in the video.
I saw the only flying Helldiver at the Oshkosh Airshow. Pretty special to stand next to it and see it fly.
Personally it's the dauntless for me , she saved our ass many times, a true warplane. 👍🇺🇲
True but the helldiver sent the most amount of Japanese ships to Davy Jones locker. The Slow But Deadly Dauntless was definitely a solid aircraft no doubt about that.
I think it's safe to say that the proper way to fulfil any design specification coming from the brass is to toss it out entirely and build something that works instead.
4:30 you can see how additional spare aircraft were disassembled and stored in the rafters in the hanger bay until needed as parts or to replace losses.
Pretty much a "to urgent to fail" situation, making two units fit on the carrier lift platform made for an extreme challenge.
I just can't get over how stupid that requirement was.
@@DIREWOLFx75 The Navy apparently thought elevator transit was a bottleneck in combat turn-around time. Using advanced hindsight, I think a better answer would have been to change the elevator design as follows: stowed position would be down on the hanger deck, with the hole in the flight deck being covered with retractable armor plates. That would have made it possible to store an aircraft right in the elevator, and thus makes it possible to add another elevator without too much loss of aircraft storage capacity, thereby taking the place of two planes on one elevator (one plane on the elevator would be easier and faster to manage anyway). This also eliminates the time needed to drop the elevator and push a fighter onto it in a scramble; just keep one fully armed in each one, so all that needs to be added is fuel and the pilots.
@@paulbade3566 "The Navy apparently thought elevator transit was a bottleneck in combat turn-around time."
Well, yeah of course it was. But trying to solve that by creating a potentially useless plane is just pure idiocy. Figure out how to add more lifts, or how to move planes around or how to make the lifts move faster, make the lifts bigger on the next generation carriers etc etc, there's plenty of far better possible solutions.
"I think a better answer would have been to change the elevator design as follows"
Might work. Although there would definitely have been some issues with making sure the flight deck mechanism works properly but also that it does not end up making the flight "bumpy", as that could easily cause planes to go tail-up in worst case.
"(one plane on the elevator would be easier and faster to manage anyway)"
Drastically! To get two planes on a lift means packing them with very small margins of error and that definitely slows things down.
.
Overall, i think the first part of a solution would be to move over to(or even just ADD) edge of deck lifts, then widening the flight deck(including angled deck), so you can have an extra elevator or even two.
Any fleet carrier worth its name is going to be big no matter what, so better make them as good as can get.
As an aside, i've also wondered whether you could put the carrier bridge further back, and manage a second angled deck in front of the bridge, in paralell with the angled deck that is normal today.
It would crossover the "normal" central deck, but it would still allow you to put 6 catapults on a carrier, as well as provide more space where you could fit a lift, and also provide an extra alternative for landing if there's an accident on one of the decks.
@@DIREWOLFx75 If I recall correctly, the Midway class of carriers was originally built with deck-edge elevators.
I saw a proposal for a double angle deck but it was rejected because the carrier would have be much wider to keep it from being top-heavy, which means it has to be longer to maintain speed performance, necessitating much larger powerplants, etc. This would be awkward at the Panama and Suez Canals and many ports. At that point, buying another carrier to have an alternative landing space makes more tactical sense ("Don't put all of the eggs in one basket."), and doesn't cost too much more.
In the Navy's defense, they wanted something that could be a drop-in replacement for the Dauntless without pulling existing carriers out of the war for modifications. But sometimes demanding too much could mean getting less than what you need or paying too high a price for it. The Mark 14 torpedo and (decades later) the A-12 Avenger are other examples.
The requirement for two of them to fit on a single elevator on top of everything else kinda reminds me of some game studios trying to concept, develop and publish a AAA game in a single year and proceed to surprise pikachu face when folk hate it. That's why it pays massive stonks to have an experienced designer on the bean-counter team to just point-out what's achievable within reason. But then again, they'd have to *pay* that designer instead of keeping the money for themselves so what do I know.
What? Didn't Curtiss have TARDIS technology yet?
Pointing out what's achievable to the Navy is an exercise in futility no matter how much you pay someone to try.🤷♂️
A terrific introductory video to the Helldiver, and I look forward to watching the deep dive video(s) in the future. Top work, as always, Rex!
I went to High School in the town adjacent to the Curtiss Wright factory that built the engines for this bird. My Latin teacher was the town unofficial historian. He knew everyone and was the town clerk. One of his stories was how loud those engines were . Buildings close to the back fence of the factory were shake tremendously. It probably resulted to hearing damage to many of the residents that didn’t work at the factory.
After the Battle of the Philippine Sea. LTCDR James “Jig Dog” Ramage (CO of Enterprise’s VB-10) reported to VADM Marc Mitscher about VB-10’s performance in that battle. As he gave the report Ramage observes that Mitscher wanted a comparison of VB-10 and VB-16’s Dauntlesses compared to the other Carriers Helldivers. A discussion ensued where Mitscher proposed the possibility of returning the Dauntless to frontline service. With Ramage said that there would be no difficulty with the transition. But Mitscher’s staff objected due to the logistics involved in changing out the Dive Bombers on the front line.
My father flew an SBD in VB-16 whose squadron commander Ralph Weymouth. I knew he and others hated the SB2C and didn't want to fly them. My father had previously flown with Gus Widhelm at the Battle of Midway and the Battle of Santa Cruz. Gus became Admiral Mitscher's operations officer on the Lexington. I was never sure why the Lexington bomber squadrons didn't get the SB2Cs that were deployed to most of the US fleet in early 1944. I always suspect that his squadron commander, Ralph Weymouth and Gus Widhelm had something to do with it.
A video that is almost 25 minutes long and has the words "In depth" & "Later video" in it. You just know this is going to be a doozy.
I love how the prototype broke up and the thought was “eh let’s put it into production. It’ll be fine.” Not “Maybe we should make more prototypes”
Take an aircraft with known and pretty severe stability issues, add hastily trained green pilots and then put them in the most challenging situation possible-carrier aviation in wartime. Just to spice things up, add in a hurried production schedule with less than stellar quality control, and you get the perfect storm of the SB2C. Even after they had supposedly worked out all the kinks, the SB2C was still a difficult aircraft to fly. Even the transition training film for pilots (available on TH-cam) points out "potential" stability issues and what to watch for and how to handle them.
It's somebody else mentioned I'm going to also add in, vb-17 tool sb2c-1 models into combat over rabaul, it was the only time for that model but pictures do exist, i recently converted an a-25 shrike kit into an sb2c-1 and while doing research for the markings found this information. In the pictures the older defensive armament of a single .50 is pretty clear, as are the wing .50 cals
Thank you for this excellent overview of a troubled but fascinating plane! I sincerely look forward to your forthcoming deep-dive
You could mention the SB2C's last significant combat service ...1954 over Dien Bien Phu with the French Navy. The Naval aviators diving with their Helldivers into cauldron of fire earned the undying graditude of the trapped and doomed paras and Legionaires. 3F, 3e Flotille d'Assaut Embarquee, and their squadron leader LCDR Andrieux, were part of the Arromanches air group, averaged almost a mission a day until the end, with the loss of 2 Helldivers including LDCR Andrieux himself.
The real issue with the end of dive bombers had another reason. One was the fact that the Japanese flat-tops were getting few and far between. The other was the new rockets. A fighter or an attack aircraft with rockets was a pretty effective way of taking out a carrier flight deck.
"Tiny Tim" for the win!
So, the Navy required the requirements for the Helldiver was the U.S Navy ordering a W.W.II "Tardis". They expected Curtis to use "Temporal Engineering" the plane had to be bigger inside than the outer dimensions allowed.
In all my years of reading about WWII, I don't think I've ever read a kind word written about the SB2C.
There's death and taxes, but another sure thing in life is that hydraulics leak. No matter the design and quality of fittings and hoses, or the skill of the engineers, they leak -- often constantly. Some more than others. Good systems just leak a tiny bit in a manageable way, but even they can suddenly decide to spring a random reservoir emptying leak. Compressed air systems can be fun too, but far less messy.
Another is pressurized ammonia gas for refrigeration. There always tends to be a whiff of it about, due to it escaping fittings and seals etc. Accidental rupture of the lines can be fatal and will be if a person can not get away from the leak fast enough (one of the only emergency drills where crew are not told to walk calmly, but to carefully run like fv
Having been around hydraulic systems (industrial) most of my working life I absolutely agree. All types of actuaying systems have their quirks. Pneumatic systems also leak and in my opinion are both weaker and less controllable. Electrical systems especially during this period were likely heavier.
The leaks in hydraulic systems can usually be traced to fittings, hoses and actuator seals in that order.
The fitting leakage IMO depends on the amount of contact area in the fitting itself. One of the worst offenders is the 37° flare fitting. Wheatherhead compression fittings leak less but if they need to be repaired on site are less forgiving. Also a lot if problems with 37° fittings stem from using thin wall tubing. Hose problems stem from not enough length putting excessive side loads on the hose ends. Actuator seal leaks are usually caused by side loading the rods or output shafts due to misalignment.
I read the early SB2C's had aileron control horns that would break under stress. They were made out of some kind of "pot metal". Curtiss knew they were faulty before they sent the aircraft to the fleet.
F...you 2
I love this new format! This channel has quickly become one of my new favorites. Keep up the great work!
Great work Rex, thank you for the quality uploads. Fascinating history of the Helldiver.
Definitely interested in that Helldiver torpedo bomber variant.
Despite it's infamous history I always had a soft spot for this aircraft. Ludicrous carrier based designs always had interesting quirks in their designs that just got my interest.
That is the first picture I've ever seen with planes on the ceiling of the hanger deck. Fascinating.
And thank you.
One of the reasons why the USN had such high clearances on their hangers was for the purpose of storing spare airframes, wings, and engines in the overhead.
The droppable rear fuselage cover always struck me as… creative… (poor field of fire still, aerodynamically problematic and makes a strong structure a lot harder to pull off) - can’t wait for the deep dive!
Okay--the advertisement ending about 2:55 is one of the few that I've seen that are not intrusive and actually germane to the topic at hand! Good selection, sir!
little did the Navy know they already had a div bomber in the F4U
It looks wrong. Aft fuselage isn’t long enough.
Just like the Me-210 (which suffered from similar horrendous directional stability issues)
It took Hungarians to say (in Magyar) ‘Nah mate. Just make the fuselage a bit longer’.
Great start of an interesting subject! There’s so little deep history on this one. Keep up the GREAT work!!
+Excellent coverage of this aircraft. Having only read of the exploits of Hellcat flyers in the later Pacific battles, I never knew of the extensive "teething" problems. Looking forward to the deep dive.
Your commentary is inimitable. Even when I have watched other's videos of an aircraft, when I find a Rex's Hangar I dive into it, knowing that you will inform and entertain - Congratulations and thanks.
It always kinda amazes me that with all of the tens of thousands of American and British warbirds produced in WW2, that only few are left in flying condition today in 2023.
Well the Brits were really in desperate need of scrap post-war. So much so, they even murdered and sliced up their most storied warship (Warspite)
My father was a WW2 vintage Naval Aviator. He used to say that more Navy pilots were killed by the Curtiss Aircraft Company than by the Mitsubishi company. He related than early Helldivers had the unfortunate positioning of the dive brakes control located on the control stick where it could easily be accidentally deployed during a catapult launch. Straight into the “drink”.
A WW ll Helldiver pilot said the cockpit layout looked entirely like the result of afterthoughts.
I was at Otay resevoir in 2010 when they salvaged an SB2C Helldiver.
It was in pretty good condition despite being submerged in a freshwater lake for 70 years.
From what I understand its still in Pensacola Florida.
Great video, Rex. There was a book retelling all the shenanigans Curtiss was up to while milking the prototyping cow, from the 1920s to the end of aircraft production. The guys basically pocketed money by the hundreds of thousands. Wish I could remember the tittle and author. A real eye-opener.
You know the old saying: "if it looks right, it flies right"? Well some may disagree, but the Helldiver just looks way wrong to me. I'd rather stick with an SBD5 if given a choice.
From most photographed angles, the Helldiver looks fine to me (the tail is admittedly disproportionately large), but the plan view drawings really illustrate how oddly short the fuselage is, especially the aft fuselage. It looks like they took a proper-length airplane, cut out about 6 feet of fuselage aft of the wing, and reattached the tail.
I've always wondered how effective that rear gunner really was or could be. Has always seemed to me that there's just no field of fire for that rear gun with how massive the tail is.
4:20 I finally understand why they call it a hanger.
very nice video - I'm building a 1/48 Vultee A-31 Vengeance atm and would love you to pull that planes history apart (which almost 2000 were built and probably better than the SB2c except for the bomb load) - for context the SB2C total was 7100ish.. so the even more unloved Vengeance didn't do too bad - and any plane the was designed with the major issue of a miscalculation of CoG has got to be fun!!
And there was the oft forgotten Mustang dive-bomber, the A36 (Invader?)
@@emjackson2289 Apache I think.
Underrated machine the Vengeance. I recently read a book about the air war in Burma/India. It did an excellent close support job there.
Curtiss was also responsible for another, less well known would be front line aircraft in wwii. The SO3C Curtiss Seamew. It was the only plane that scared my naval aviator father during his 22 years. It was so bad the navy went back to the earlier and better Curtiss SOC.
Thank you for this video and I’ll be waiting for the follow ups. Until now I only had the reputation of the earlier Helldivers in my mind. In the end apparently it was a much better craft than I gave it credit for.
How have I only JUST NOW found such an amazing channel???
My father flew an SBD in combat during WWII from the aircraft carriers USS Hornet (CV8) and the USS Lexington (CV16). In addition to the Battle of Midway, he also saw combat at the Battle of Santa Cruz, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, as well as attacks on Japanese installations at Truk Lagoon, Hollandia, Palau, Wake Island, Wolei, the Marshall Islands, and the Caroline Islands. He was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and 2 Air Medals. Late in the war he was doing test work for rocket development at the Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) in Inyokern California He had flown the SB2C Hell Diver, the F4F Wildcat, the F6F Hellcat and the F4U Corsair, the TBF Avenger, and the F7F Tigercat. After the war he also flew the F2H Banshee. He said that the F7F was his favorite all-time Navy plane to fly because of its awesome power. He hated the SB2C and called it a "Son of A Bitch 2nd Class". He loved and trusted the SBD (Slow But Deadly) which probably saved his life a number of times.
Love your work! BTW, the imperial range value at 17:22 seems to have picked up an extra digit along the way.
I can’t wait for the longer video, especially details on foreign operators.
I didn't know Helldivers had that many problems 😮
The SBD Dauntless is what won the war in the Pacific, especially at Midway. Helldiver was no match. I think that dauntless is one of the most underrated planes of the war
One of the most remarkable contrasts, between military aircraft that began front line service in WW2 and those from the mid 1970's and on: is so many are still in active service today. The F-16, first generation F-18 and A-10 for example. Virtually the same airframes. When so many wartime aircraft had service lives measured in months before being discarded or relegated to very minor roles. We have 4th Generation with service lives measured in decades!
@@cancermcaids7688 I'm guessing you think that's a bad thing? Not really a judgement thing, I'm just pointing out the benefits of mature technology. Got a B-52 anyone?
For a long time there was only one SB2C flying (for the Commemorative Air Force) in the United States .....until this year. NOW there are 2 more, thanks to some really skilled restoration crews working with other organizations in the U.S. . I can't wait to see all three flying together at Oshkosh someday !
From an aesthetic standpoint, I love the SB2C. I’ve seen one in pieces being rebuilt at Yanks but never a complete model. I hope to see one someday.
It was a flying wing that thought it was an airplane & dressed that way. It killed Curtiss - Wright.
Jocko Clark threw it off the second Yorktown; sailors called it the "Son of A Bitch 2nd Class".
Curtiss went out of the airplane business shortly after WW2.
Hello! :3
Lots of aircraft manufacturers either folded or merged with other aircraft manufacturer's to keep from folding after the war, all that's proof of is after the war there just wasn't that much room for that many aircraft manufacturer's that'd swollen to the size they did during the war.
All of those companies that folded or merged with others to keep from folding had a long list of reasons why it happened and Curtiss was no different, blaming it happening to any of them because of a single aircraft is nonsense, the reasons are long, involved and would require an entire book on each one to cover it.
Take a look at the ceiling of the hanger deck at 4:25…..never knew they hung airplanes from the ceiling.
At the time they were light enough and small enough.
Reminds me of the F-4 Phantom... they had to make a ton of corrections on it.
Like adding a gun to it because they vastly overestimated the performance of early guided missiles.
@@lonelystrategos - Yup.
@@aggravatedfruit_au The gun may not be that important, but they still put one on most modern fighters, just in case.
@@aggravatedfruit_au - thank you, that's very interesting.
@@lonelystrategosnot the F-35B or C, though the USMC and USN have purchased "gun pods" for them.
To be fair to Curtiss, it's hard to top a Heinemann. The SBD Dauntless was something special.
dont mess with a grumman or douglas
My great great grandfather commanded the USS Yorktown, didn't realize he did he had helldivers on there
What does that even mean? It's the standard dive bomber of the Navy?
Looking forward to the "full" story.
I had the fortune to know about 4 or 5 pilots that from WWII that just so happened to be dive bomber pilots. They told me to a person that the hell diver was a downgrade in every way possible of being an airplane compared to the dauntless that it was replacing
In one of the many many books on aviation I have read was a story of the first aircraft carrier attempting to qualify the Helldiver for carrier service. Allegedly the captain of the carrier got so angry and frustrated with the problems/issues the Helldiver's had he ordered all the hellcats on and below be pushed off the stern of the carrier into the ocean. I have always wondered if this is true?
Helldiver's! F'n spell check!
What did the Hellcats do to deserve that! Lol
It was the Helldiver's. Stinkin' spellcheck!
You mentioned that the SB2C might well have contributed to the end of Curtis, and listed some of the problems with leaky fuel systems, etc., I suddenly thought about another Curtis bird... the C46 "Commando". You might consider a video on this aircraft, as apparently, this flying truck had some serious issues of its own, and certainly did not help the Curtis reputation. I am old enough to remember the C46 flying in airline passenger and freight service in Mexico.
I think they still fly with Buffalo Airways up in the Canadian Arctic
One of my ex wife's second cousins was a dive bomber pilot in WWII. He began his career in SBD's and love the airplane. He, like so many Naval Aviators raised bloody hell when they were told they were transitioning to SB2C. He, like most Helldiver pilots, referred to it as "The Beast". It did not accelerate of decelerate quickly, had VERY heavy control forces and was not as maneuverable as the Dauntless. He truly hated it
Grumman met the two planes on the elevator design with the Avenger, very smart design!
My cousin, after flying in the desert war, was made a test pilot of Helldivers at the factory at CanCar in Canada. I wish I had asked him about this aircraft. He apparently liked to throw it around a bit, and was reprimanded for performing forbidden moves.
Yes, it had a lot of flaws, but it did look, to my eyes, quite good.
Certainly Better than the vast number of Navy aircraft designs for the Royal Navy from 1939-1945' !!! 🤔🧐 Semper Fi ❤🤍💙
12:00 that wind tunnel is massive, imagine the fear if only momentarily as you were caught in that sucubus 😂
Excellent vid as usual. Looking forward to the deep dive, as I've never even looked at the Helldiver. It's a pity that the specs were so unattainable, without the endless mods, but you have to give Curtiss credit for never giving up, and for cranking out as many as they did. As for suggestions, how about the Henschel He-123 and the He-126? Both played a serious part in the war.
I'm no engineer and just looking at it I could've told them it would have poor power to weight ratio! The thing is way too big for just one engine!
Rex, you are favorite channel, please never stop. I really mean that. I mean this in the best possible way, you are the Bob Ross of history. I could listen to you all day
Great stuff! I'm looking forward to part two and the xsb2c-6!
Burt Kinzey, in his Squadron/Signal book on the SB2C, points out that the Grumman TBF Avenger was built the the same elevator requirement as the SB2C. Grumman, recognizing the problem of a too-short fuselage, designed the wing folding structure to enable the two TBFs to be arranged diagonally on the elevator. This allowed sufficient length on the TBF for it to be a good-handling airplane. The problem with the short-coupled SB2C was not a boneheaded Navy specification; the problem was unimaginative Curtiss engineers!
Rex, hurry back your videos are absolutely EXCELLENT!
This is what happens when something is rushed. The Dauntless was getting the job done and could outperform Zeros in a dog fight. One pilot out on patrol was jumped by 3 Zeros where he and his gunner managed to shoot down all 3 during a prolonged dogfight that lasted 20 to 30 minutes. The Dauntless pilot took advantage of the Zeros inability to dive hard to the right or take extreme turns without losing a wing. He used the dive brakes to take sharp hard turns so the Zero behind him flew by the rear gunner who placed some rounds into it with the pilot making another sharp turn to get some more in once flying by in his sights. Once back at his carrier, the pilot gave a detailed report on how he maneuvered then was transferred to a fighter squadron.
The pilot was the "Swede".
Can you ellaborate a little on the slats in the SB2? This seems to be one of the earliest types with movable leading edge aerodynamic control surfaces that I recollect. Thank you Rex for your always interesting deliveries.
Just looking on SB2C plans something tells me it should be at least twice as long to be somewhat stable.
A triumph of development over design, (or, more accurately, over specfication.) One of those orders that doomed its vendor. Now, C-W builds circuit boards.
Establishing new factories in an area that does not have a culture of workmanship suitable to the product is fraught with difficulty. Neville Shute (Norway)'s autobiography illustrates the problem. (He was trying to build an airship with a workforce of peasants.) It takes a generation or so to convince people that a mistake on their part will kill people.
I believe VB-17 flew the first combat mission for the A/C using the SB2C-1 Mod III. Do look into it.
I do believe you are correct I recently built a model of a vb17 aircraft, early version with four fifty cals as wing armament and a single fifty for the gunner, non perforated dive flaps. That was the earliest unit I could find that took the aircraft in the combat over Rabaul.
@@Sakai070 Thanks. I believe the Mod III had perforated flaps and twin 30s, but it sounds like you built an earlier-still version. Most of my info comes from the Detail and Scale book on the A/C, which is pretty good on details like this. AS for C-W, I actually worked for them from 1981 to 2001. They were a shadow of their WWII size then and very conscious of their fall from the top. Yet, their corporate culture was still the same in many ways. Rex says that this Helldiver version marked the decline of their fortunes as an airframe manufacturer, but there were other earlier failures in A/C design that gave warning signs of what was to come.
To be fair , that's about the same number of changes the brits had to make the SA80 useable, and that was just a rifle.
"My body lies under the ocean,"
"My body lies under the sea,"
"My body lies under the ocean,"
"Wrapped up in an SB2C!"
Wow, so many good photos!
Two Dauntless’s and a DEVASTATOR hanging from the ceiling of the hangar deck at 4:32. I did not know that was a practice.
The American carriers had extra tall hangers for just that purpose.
They hung a lot of spares up there
They'd hang entire airframes on the ceiling so they could replace lost planes and scavenge others for spares.
When literally *EVERY* square foot counts...
I've never been a pilot so I'm not gonna talk out of my a**But I am an expert on machinery especially world war two. The reality is the US government CHANGED what it really needed, and Curtis paid the price first. Politicians meddeling in equipment procurment was the first big mistake. The timing of world war 2 for Curtis was unfortunate. The run up to World War 2 exposed a defect in the way we were creating war planes. Engineers would design a plane and then see how much weight they could put on It.😒 Instead of designing it to take the amount of weight it would need for combat. Other manufacturers saw that defficiency early and Incorporated. Larger carrying capacity for future. designs. It is seldom talked about but this mindset was critical to us creating better equipment👍
A true example of If you polish a turd enough.... Great work Rex, can't imagine how long the deep dive is going to be
It seems the tale of the SB2C meshes well with Perun's video on military procurement.
Why did Curtiss not tell the purchaser that it’s requirements were contradictory?