Full flaps for Doolittle Raid takeoffs?

[RyanShort1]

That's what I thought, but in the above story by Lt. McElroy he mentions the tail guns being taken out along with the lower turret and the liaison radio.No big deal, just curious.

I THINK there may have been a provision for a tail gun in the B-25A, and he may have been remembering that as the 17th BG flew the early B-25s before the B models, but the B models were not set up for tail guns. They did have a lower belly turret which was an early Sperry remote-controlled device which was apparently pretty heavy and very difficult to hit a target with and they took them out and faired over the holes.

For what it is worth, the lower turrets on early B-25s were Bendix remote turrets, very unsatisfactory in just about every aspect. After the lower turret idea was dropped from the B-25 design, excess Bendix remote turrets were installed as early chin turrets on B-17Fs, also with unsatisfactory results due to the remote gun sight system. The Bendix remote turret was in the process of being redesigned through all this and that resulted in the successful final version of the turret with a direct aiming gunsight that ended up as the chin turret on the B-17G. Source: AAF Historical Studies No. 54: Development of Aircraft Gun Turrets in the AAF 1917-1944 (June 1947). Excellent 279 page source document on the subject.

You're right. I don't know why I typed Sperry instead of Bendix. Doh!

[Ken]

If I recall, there is a photo floating around that shows the postwar wreckage of a Doolittle B-25B in Japan and the skin placed over the area for the removed belly turret is clearly visible.

Ken

[RyanShort1]

If I recall, there is a photo floating around that shows the postwar wreckage of a Doolittle B-25B in Japan and the skin placed over the area for the removed belly turret is clearly visible.

Ken

Something a lot of people don't realize is that you can tell Google to search a site and that sometimes works better than the forum's search engine. The forum doesn't like the term "B-25B" but if you Google this search:

site:http://warbirdinformationexchange.org "B-25B" Japan

you will come up with a lot of interesting stuff. However, it looks like that fantastic image is currently down because of Photobucket or the like. I'm sure I have it saved somewhere, but probably won't find it quickly... and yes, it did show the area of the belly turret. I think it was this thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=64102

[Dave Hadfield]

Yes, it would have been full flaps. Normally this is not used, because if an engine failure occurs shortly after getting airborne, you're toast -- way below VMC and in a high-drag configuration. (SPLASH! Or, CRUNCH!) But this was about achieving separation from the carrier deck at the lowest possible airspeed. They used full flaps to gain a ground-effect in the shortest distance.

Once you're willing to accept the engine-failure risk, then the performance options increase greatly.

Part of their training would have been to milk the flaps up in stages, in ground effect, accelerating when able -- without contacting the surface! -- until they could clean up and climb normally.

[exhaustgases]

Wasn't Doolittle the very first guy to fly fully on instruments? Top aviator he was.

[wolf]

It was not uncommon that majority of the F-10's were modified with tail guns (NAA designed), as well as a some of the late B-25D's & G & PBJ-1D were also modified before being sent overseas

[Chris Brame]

Those last two shots are of the plane that's now dressed up as 40-2344 at the NMUSAF. First time I've seen 'em - thanks for posting!