Warbird Information Exchange

From Samuel Hynes’ Flights of Passage – Reflections of a World War II Aviator

His own personal impressions of flying various aircraft during World War II

The Stearman N2S, page 45:

The planes at Memphis were Stearman N2S’s, open-cockpit biplanes that were painted yellow and were known as ‘Yellow Perils.’ In fact they were anything but perilous; they were probably the safest and strongest airplanes ever built. They could be flown through acrobatic maneuvers that would disintegrate a fighter, they could be dropped to a landing from a stall twenty feet in the air, and they could be ground-looped with no more damage than a bit of scrapped paint. I did all these things to the planes, and they (and I) survived. And in the process I learned a bit more about flying.

What I learned, first of all, was the intense delight of flying an open plane. I’m not sure that I can explain why it is so different from a closed cockpit, but it has to do with the intimate presence of the air itself, the medium you fly in, streaming past and around you. You can thrust your whole arm out into the slipstream and press back against the flow of air; you can lean to the side, and the air will force the tears from your eyes and rush into your lungs. And you can look straight down into space, down to the earth and up to the sky, with nothing between you and the whole world. The plane is not a protective shell, as an automobile is, but an extension of your own body, moving as you move; and your head is the brain of the whole stretched and vibrating organism. Flying alone in an open plane is the purest experience of flight possible.

The Vultee SNV, page 66:

At Whiting (Field, NAS Pensacola) I learned to fly by instruments, in SNV’s, training planes that were neither honest antiques like the N2S’s, nor honestly modern like the planes we went on to, but in-between, low-winged, with cockpits that were closed, but with fixed landing gear and a shuddering, whining engine – transitional trainers, and like everything else in the world that can be called transitional, profoundly unsatisfactory. They were called Vultee Vibrators, and I never met anyone who enjoyed flying in them.

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“To invent the airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything!” - Otto Lilienthal

Natasha: "You got plan, darling?"
Boris: "I always got plan. They don't ever work, but I always got one!"

Remember, any dummy can be a dumb-ass...
In order to be a smart-ass, you first have to be "smart"
and to be a wise-ass, you actually have to be "wise"

The North American SNJ, page 79:

At Bronson (Field, an outlying training strip that was also part of NAS Pensacola) we flew SNJ’s – training planes that were like real combat planes, but slower, smaller, and safer. They had, most importantly, retractable landing gear. When a plane takes off and the wheels come up, it has cast off its connection with the earth and become adapted to the air (birds do the same thing with their legs). The pilot can’t see that the wheels are up, but knowing it makes a difference. The SNJ also had a closed cockpit, like a fighter, and it could be mounted with a machine gun, and carry toy-like practice bombs. It could execute any maneuver that a fighter could, and it was an excellent aerobatic plane. Because it had a variable-pitch propeller, it even sounded like a fighter – it took off with a whine that faded in the air to a sort of stammering whisper – wh-wh-wh-wh. Flying SNJ’s was like trying on officer’s uniforms; it made us feel almost like adults.

The Douglas SBD, page 92:

(At NAS Deland, just west of Daytona Beach, FL) I felt pleased and easy when I saw the planes in their rows. The SBD was slow, sturdy, dependable plane that I thought I could probably fly well enough. Old-timers said that you could lose a cylinder, or two feet of wing, and still get it home. It had no particular style, and you certainly wouldn’t call it beautiful; but it had its own aura of achievement. It had been the Navy’s dive-bomber through most of the early part of the war, and Marines had flown it at Guadalcanal. It worked well, carried the bombs (slowly) to the targets, could be dived with great accuracy, and would then fly you back. I didn’t think I wanted anything more than that from the plane I flew into combat. ‘But Christ,’ Taylor said, ‘look at it! It looks like a pickup truck. But a Corsair, man, that f$$$ahs beautiful!’ And of course he was right, that f$$$er was beautiful, and the SBD wasn’t. Still, I was content with its plainness – a matter of temperament, I guess.

_________________
“To invent the airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything!” - Otto Lilienthal

Natasha: "You got plan, darling?"
Boris: "I always got plan. They don't ever work, but I always got one!"

Remember, any dummy can be a dumb-ass...
In order to be a smart-ass, you first have to be "smart"
and to be a wise-ass, you actually have to be "wise"

The Grumman TBF Avenger (Eastern/General Motors TBM) page 113:

The base at Santa Barbara was small, new, and temporary-looking, with nothing like the old-school elegance of Pensacola; but that seemed just right for Marines…. Our squadron was VMTB-943…. The planes we would fly were TBM’s, the model that the Navy had chosen to replace the disastrous Douglas Devastators, the torpedo bombers that had been shot out of the air at Midway. The TBM was a big plane – the biggest single-engine plane ever built – and a good one. It could carry a ton of bombs (the SBD carried only 1,000 pounds), and had a range twice that of the SBD, and greater speed. Because it carried the bombs internally, in a closed bomb bay, it had a curious, sagging look along its belly; and to keep this sag off the ground, it had very long landing gear, which were attached close to the fuselage, so that they seemed to be a pair of long, awkward legs. It looked, on the ground, like some barnyard fowl, and pilots called it the Pregnant Turkey.

Any plane looks awkward on the ground. A plane’s environment is the air, and it becomes itself when the air begins to flow over its surfaces, and it responds to the controls; but the Turkey looked as clumsy in the air as it did on the ground. It really did look like a turkey taking off, and whatever you did with it in the air, that thick, pregnant body moved effortfully. It was only beautiful to the men who flew it; for it was a beautifully functional plane. It did what it was designed to do; it had no tricks, would not stall or spin off in a landing approach (as a Corsair would), would fly heavily but steadily through bad weather or through enemy fire. There was not glory in flying Turkeys, but there was a good deal of flying pleasure.

The Curtiss SB2C, page 142:

That month the Navy took away half the squadron’s TBM’s and gave us SB2C’s instead. These were the Navy’s new dive-bomber, bigger and faster than the SBD’s I had trained in, but in every other way less satisfactory. The SBD was named the Dauntless, though I never heard it called anything but Speedy-D, and it was dauntless; some public-relations man had decided to call the SB2C the Helldiver, and it was as showy and as phony as the name, like a beach athlete, all muscle and no guts. It was a long, slab-sided, ugly machine, with a big round tailfin. Unlike most service planes, it was entirely electrically operated (others had hydraulic systems for wheels, flaps, and wing-folding), and the circuits were very undependable, so that you might approach for a landing, flip the switch that activated the flaps, and find that only one flap opened (which would probably roll the plane on its back a hundred feet from the ground); or only one wheel would retract on takeoff; or circuits would get crossed, and the wheels would drop when you wanted to turn on your bombsight. We were all afraid of the SB2C’s, and we flew them as though they were booby-trapped. On dive-bombing flights, nobody dived; we settled for gentle glides toward the target, and even gentler pull-ups. And we landed like the Air Force- far apart, flat in the approach, and with plenty of power. ‘That thing looks like a coffin,’ Rock said, ‘and it flies like a coffin. It ain’t worth a pot of cold piss.”

In the end it wasn’t the power system’s failings that saved us, but those big tails. The squadron’s Executive Officer was sitting in an SB2C one morning, pretending to warm it up, but actually using the cockpit oxygen mask to breathe a little pure oxygen, which was very good for hangovers. While he was sitting there, breathing deeply and running the engine at screaming full throttle, the tail of the plane fell off. It just fell off, and blew across the mat, with the mechanic running after it. We all went out form the ready room to look at the plane, sitting there, tailless and disgraced, with the Exec standing by it, looking as though his hangover was worse, and each of us was thinking, Jesus, that could have happened while I was flying it. So they were all grounded, and after a while they were taken away, and we went back to TBM’s, the planes that we trusted and knew how to fly.

_________________
“To invent the airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything!” - Otto Lilienthal

Natasha: "You got plan, darling?"
Boris: "I always got plan. They don't ever work, but I always got one!"

Remember, any dummy can be a dumb-ass...
In order to be a smart-ass, you first have to be "smart"
and to be a wise-ass, you actually have to be "wise"

The Grumman F6F and F4F, page 191:

The F6F was a boring plane, efficient enough but without any character. Flying it was like driving the family car on a Sunday afternoon. Even Joe, who loved flying so much that he even liked Links, was unimpressed. We circled the field for an hour, as we were instructed to do – you were supposed to be within gliding distance on a test hop, in case the engine failed – and landed. Nothing had happened; it was like being alone with a girl that you don’t like.

But the F4F Wildcat was marvelous – very small (so small that it seemed you could reach out from the cockpit and touch both wing-tips), simple, maneuverable, and delicately responsive to the controls. After the TBM, which needed hydraulic boosters to be flown at all, and the humdrum F6F, the Wildcat was like a toy designed especially to please pilots. It did acrobatics as though it wanted to, and had been hoping you’d try one; and when you did, it flew you through the most intricate maneuver in a cooperative, friendly way.

Joe and I would take off, soberly and separately, and rendezvous high above the island, and chase tails, or dogfight, or just drift around, one flying wing on the other, looking down at the military busy-ness going on below us. On our second flight, Joe slid up into formation on my wing flying upside down. He had found a manual, and had discovered that the Wildcat had a pressurized oil system and could fly inverted without the engine seizing up. He flew along, head-down, roaring with laughter, as though he were playing a great joke on gravity. For a while led him in gentle turns and climbs, and he stayed there in position, flying as well upside down as I did rightside up.

I felt so much at home in a Wildcat that I even ventured a Victory Roll, the fighter pilot’s grandstand maneuver. Approaching the field for a landing, I dived toward the runway, building up speed, and pulled up in a slanting slow-roll to the left. Beneath me as I rolled, five or six hundred feet below, I could see some of the squadron playing softball on a field behind the Quonset hut. Then the plane was rolling out, scooping a little, but safe; and I swung around into the downwind leg, and swept in to a landing. I was scared when I entered the roll – I remember thinking, This is the kind of dumb showing off that gets guys killed – and I was even more scared afterward, when I thought about it. Still, I was glad I had tried it, even though T said that it didn’t look so hot from second base.

_________________
“To invent the airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything!” - Otto Lilienthal

Natasha: "You got plan, darling?"
Boris: "I always got plan. They don't ever work, but I always got one!"

Remember, any dummy can be a dumb-ass...
In order to be a smart-ass, you first have to be "smart"
and to be a wise-ass, you actually have to be "wise"

Anything about the N3N? Now that sugar's beautiful!

_________________
Magister Aviation
It's all in my book

Um, the Helldiver wasn't all electric. It had hydraulics for wheels, flaps, and wing fold. I also wouldn't call a Helldiver slab sided. It's pretty round.

Regarding the SB2C comments. I have just over 200 hours in the CAF SB2C-5 as PIC a few years back. Everything was hydraulic, cowl laps, oil cooler door, gear, flaps, wing fold and bomb doors. There was even a primary and secondary hydraulic system, with a valve in the floor to the left of the pilot's seat to seal off the secondary system, to retain fluid for gear and flaps, as I remember, to get back on deck after combat damage. There was a second valve to dump hydraulic pressure from the system to allow for free fall of the gear.

I have also talked to many veteran SB2C pilots over the years I was flying the plane and I was told they dove the aircraft at 70+ degrees up to the aircraft redline with dive brakes to below 2000 feet before pulling out. The talk of the tail being blown off on the deck seems very unlikely. I know that the early versions of the SB2C were not well liked by those used to the much more docile SBD but some of this seems well over the edge. My 2 cents. Fly safe.

Randy

...and his comments about the F4F...??

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remember the Oogahonk!
old school enthusiast of Civiltary Warbirds and Air Racers

I told a former F-14 pilot about the F6F comments about. 'being alone with a girl you did not like'. He laughed and said there is not a single fighter pilot who flew the Tomcat that could not identify with that after transitioning to the Hornet. Not my personal knowledge but boy I sure love the Tomcat!

Tom P.

Lon - the two Wildcats that I have about 200 hours in were both later GM Eastern built FM-2 "Wilder Wildcats". The FM-2 had a Wright R-1820, single-row, 9-cylinder engine of about 1425 hp, while the earlier Grumman built F4F had a P&W R-1830, two-row, 14-cylinder engine of about 1,200 hp. I flew the FM-2 in acro displays at many air shows but I am sure it did not have a "pressurized" engine oil system. I do seem to remember it having an oil pickup "flop tube" which was flexible and would allow oil to be delivered, at least for a short time, when the aircraft was inverted. However, I never attempted straight and level inverted flight for more than a second to two, or in maneuvers such as a Cuban-8, on a descending inverted down line for a couple of seconds. I would agree that the Wildcat was very pleasant to fly in acro and could be looped under a 1500 foot ceiling, if you were experienced and had a low level acro card. Mine was to zero feet, something I tried not to experience! I doubt that the F4F was very much different. This was several years ago so if I'm not remembering correctly, I welcome any corrections. Hope that helps.

Randy

I remember watching Gerald Martin racing N681S at Reno and he would fly right at the pylons and then stand the left wing vertical and almost pivot around the pylon, snap back to level and aim at the next pylon and do it again.
It wasn't very fast but it was beautiful to watch.

_________________
remember the Oogahonk!
old school enthusiast of Civiltary Warbirds and Air Racers

Lon, N681S was the first Wildcat I sponsored and flew in the CAF for a number of years. I also delivered and flew N18P to the Cavanaugh Flight Museum from its old home with Joe Mabee in Midland, Tx. That one was like a new aircraft. Just FYI.

Randy