A Bomber So Bad It Took 800+ Changes To Fix | Curtiss SB2C Helldiver

foreign helldiver is perhaps the best example of a potentially excellent aircraft design being ruined by uncompromising requirements entering service in 1942 at the height of the Pacific war between the United States and Japan it was meant to be a replacement for the SBD dauntless the helldiver was meant to be faster better armed and was meant to drop a far more potent payload onto the decks of various Japanese warships it was also intended to be mass produced on a scale not yet seen thus equipping the US Navy and army with an endless supply of dive bombing aircraft but and oh my goodness is this a big but the helldiver would quickly earn such a poor reputation that it's often considered the trigger point for the downfall of Curtis as an aircraft manufacturer its problems included but were not limited to two poor power to weight performance leaking hydraulic systems leaking fuel systems flaps that failed to retract electrical systems that felt their use was optional rather than mandatory landing gear legs that broke due to excessive weights and the early models had such poor directional stability that the captain of the carrier USS Yorktown suggested that they be pulled from service and used as sea anchors he hated them that much today's video should be considered an introduction to The Saga that is the helldiver giving a general overview of the aircraft and in the future we'll be covering the problem-plagued history of this machine in much more detail specifically with a focus on its early development and why Curtis was not to blame for this flying disaster but today we're focusing just more on the aircraft itself rather than the political and bureaucratic battle that raged on behind the scenes this video is also very kindly sponsored by Icarus art who produce beautiful Aviation themed prints and posters they've recently added a few new items to their collection including a piece depicting the Battle of Britain and another which has instantly become a favorite of mine is of the Yonkers ju-290 an aircraft that we covered quite recently you can purchase them as printed canvas or posters and the prices start for as little as ten dollars so to check out their collection click on the link below or go to Icarus art.net and use the code Rex to get a 10 discount on your order and now let's take a quick look at the ill-fated Curtis helldiver its Origins can be traced back to 1938. though the project that would materialize into the Douglas SBD dauntless was still hammering out the final details of the first production model the US Navy was already contemplating its successor rapid developments in Aero engine technology led to the Bureau of Aeronautics to believe that an aircraft could be built along similar principles to the SBD but on a slightly bigger scale and with a much more powerful engine and thus could carry their one thousand pound bombs faster and further early in 1938 they issued a requirement for such a design it was to be powered by the 1500 horsepower 14 cylinder right r2600 twin Cyclone it was to carry a greater fuel load than the SBD without drop tanks it was to carry a one thousand pound bomb in an internal Bombay and it was to be sufficiently compact enough that two of these dive bombers could fit onto the main elevator of U.S Navy Fleet carry areas this final requirement is where everything went wrong because the US Navy was asking manufacturers to build an aircraft with greater internal capacity than any built before whilst also limiting the maximum external Dimensions which as many can appreciate is something of a contradictory set of requirements specifically this would have an impact on the overall length of any aircraft designed and as such Curtis engineer Ray Blaylock was forced to submit a proposal for an especially short and Broad aircraft one that already looked a little unstable that the Navy then ordered as the Prototype X sb2c-1 in May of 1939 as originally planned it was a two-seat monoplane dive bomber one of its most Innovative features was an extensive hydraulic system which would operate the landing gear flaps Bombay and the wing folding mechanisms obviously with a manual backup as well Armament would consist of two forward firing a 50 caliber machine guns mounted in the nose and two 30 caliber machine guns were mounted on a ring in a similar fashion to those found on the SBD dauntless airframe construction was metal of course the fuselage being a semi-monocoque the wings built up on two spars in four sections and everything bar the control services had a stressed metal skin as Curtis Wright's manufacturing plants were already committed to producing the P36 and P40 fighter aircraft and as the Navy indicated they wanted a lot of these new dive bombers construction of a new Factory was initiated in Columbus Ohio factories however did not Sprout from the ground overnight and as such the Prototype helldiver was mostly constructed in a Cattle barn on the state fairground from this interesting beginning problems soon began before the Prototype was even completed in February of 1940 winter tunnel tests on a scale model revealed an acceptably High stall speeds to the point that the approach speed for Carrier Landings was considered dangerous this necessitated the Hasty redesign of the Wings which also increased their total area by about 10 percent which itself increased weight and this leads into the other problem the aircraft's shape and mass would cause it to accelerate excessively when put into a dive for a bombing run but due to time constraints the only change made to address this was to provide variable opening capabilities of the flaps to act as impromptu dive breaks with these further modifications made the xsb2c-1 was completed and rolled out on December 13 1940 and although it had not even been tested in this new configuration the Navy had already placed a production order for 370 aircraft said order would not be completed for some time though as the Prototype experienced a truly calamitous testing program from its first flight on December the 18th it was apparent to everyone that the xsb2c had some serious stability problems the low speed characteristics as predicted by wind tunnel tests were questionable at best and some downright dangerous at worst it had horrible stability in the your axis and only marginal stability in pitch and then there was the engine though the r2600 was becoming a reliable Workhorse its current configuration combined with a new experimental three-blade propeller resulted in multiple failures one of which led to a hard landing on February the 9th which broke the prototypes back the following repairs testing continued throughout 1941 and revealed both the complexity of the design and its problems during the year multiple changes were made including the lengthening of the nose and forward fuselage the lengthening of the Bombay extending the cow flaps and making multiple alterations to the air scoop and the cooling systems the tail was also increased in size to try and fix some of the worst of the stability problems and things seemed to be somewhat improved when it was put through a new test program that ran from October the 20th until the Prototype was destroyed on December the 21st when it broke up in a dive thankfully the test pilots Baron Hills was able to bail out as the wing ended the tail had to disintegrate it at a fairly high altitude but this catastrophic loss could not have been worse timed not only had the Navy increased its production order to well over 1 000 aircraft but the US was now at war with Japan and everybody was screaming for as many aircraft as they could get the first production helldiver should have rolled out of the new Columbus plant in December of 1941 but due to the ongoing problems and delays this would not happen until April of 1942. by this point there were over 4 000 helldivers already on order three thousand to be built by Curtis for the US Navy and another one thousand to be built in Canada some also intended for the US Navy but some were also aimed at the Royal Navy as well due to the loss of the only prototype and due to the many unanswered questions about the aircraft's general performance and structural Integrity the first 14 production helldivers would be retained for research development and test testing to keep things simple for now we're just going to look at the major production variants operated by the United States and the other models will be covered in the Deep dive video I have planned which will also focus on the experimental variants of the helldiver as well as go into its service history in more detail the sb2c-1 was not only the first production model but it also served as an extension of the prototyping phase as early models went through an extensive series of design revisions between the data of the original Curtis proposal and that of spring 1942 the expected features of a modern combat aircraft had changed the Prototype did not include things such as self-sealing fuel tanks a DF loop radar or armor protection for the crew to name a few but the production sb2c ones did unfortunately this increased the empty weight from 7 1122 pounds to 10 144 pounds or around 4 600 kilos which had a knock-on effect on its performance this was then further compromised by modifications to the Armament which now amounted to four 50 caliber machine guns in the wings not the nose and a single 50 caliber machine gun in the rear for defense throughout 1943 a huge list of modifications began to build up and as production of the helldiver was well and truly underway a second production line had to be set up purely to update the earlier models to the revised specifications the sb2c-1 came in a mod 1 mod 2 and a mod 3 variant the last of which when compared to the original design featured almost 900 design changes and it was not until the 601st helldiver rolled out of the factory that all of the previous models had finally been brought up to a standard that the Navy would actually accept by this point the cumulative changes were recognized in a new model designation the sb2c-1 C which technically began production after the 200th-1 model had been produced but would still receive modifications for some time time the biggest change found on the new Dash C was the Armament with the 450 caliber machine guns in the wings being swapped out for a pair of 20 millimeter cannons the dash 1C would become the main production version of this initial series with approximately 778 being built before things switched over to the dash 3 variants the dash-1c was the first hell diver to go to see aboard a carrier as an active unit with vb4 and VB6 working up with the type aboard USS Yorktown in May of 1943. by this point the helldiver already had a poor reputation and it was often referred to as the big tailed beast or simply as the Beast and some claimed that its designation of sb-2c stood for son of a [ __ ] second class there were in fact several other more imaginative and less delicate names for the held lever as well but I will talk about those later the yorktown's early experience with the hell divers was not pleasant at all there was an exceptionally High attrition rate due to Landing accidents either due to hook bouncing landing gear collapses or plain old-fashioned poor handling the situation became so poor that near the end of the working up period with deployment to the front looming the Yorktown elected to swap back to the older SBD dauntless with its Crews believing that they needed much more time to get to grips with this new and recalcitant to dive bomber because of this last minute change it would be the helldivers of USS Bunker Hill that would see the types combat debut striking Rebel on November the 11th 1943 after the helldivers disastrous start the sb2c-3 represented the first shift in the right direction even with all the improvements the dash 1C models still had their problems they were still difficult to control at low speeds which led to numerous takeoff and Landing accidents they could not be put into a clean dive as they encountered extreme tail buffeting which led to a fatal loss of control and then a high-speed plunge into either the ground the ocean or the deck of a Japanese warship and they still suffered from the occasional mechanical problems specifically hydraulic leaks and engine trouble now some of these problems did stem from subpar workmanship coming out of the new Columbus Factory and were not a direct result of a design defect so today I'm just going to focus on the design changes that improved the helldiver and we'll look at the other issues in the Deep dive video the biggest Improvement found in the dash 3 was an upgrade in the power plant as it was felt that the dash 1C was underpowered the r2600-20 version of the twin Cyclone was installed and producing a healthy 1900 horsepower driving a four blade propeller it made for a huge Improvement not only did the top speed increase from 281 to 294 miles an hour or 473 kilometers an hour but the added power gave Pilots a bit more wiggle room when it came to carrier Landings this was further improved with later-3 models when perforated flaps and dedicated dive brakes were added this further improved low speed handling and the number of deck accidents aboard carriers began to drop off dramatically approximately 1112-3 models were built by Curtis plus another 413 sbw threes and 150 spf3s were built by manufacturers in Canada before things moved on to the SB b2c-4 this was the most produced model of the helldiver with Curtis producing 2045-4 variants alone it inherited all of the improvements found on the dash 3 and the only major differences was the addition of a prop spinner the deletion of the small Windows behind the Pilot's seat and the fitting of four zero length rocket launches underneath each Wing some dash-4s were also equipped with Airborne search radar and these were known as the sp2c-4e by this time it was late to 1944 and although the helldiver was finally performing well indeed performing exceptionally well after roughly a thousand modifications to the original design spec the role of the dedicated dive bomber was becoming rapidly obsolete the latest generation of carrier-borne fighter aircraft were able to carry the same amount of Ordnance up to 2000 pounds of bombs from the same carriers and at a higher speed and of course they were Fighters which meant they could do considerable damage to enemy air units as well this also meant that a version of the hell diver intended for the Army Air corps known as the a25 strike was all but unneeded when it was finally ready for service in later 1943 thanks to the Advent of the P-47 Thunderbolt approximately 900 of the a25s were built and after some negotiations around 410 of these were reassigned to the Marine Corps these would not see combat however as they were based on an earlier less refined version of the helldiver and were instead used as trainers or Target tugs the Marine Corps would use the dash 4 variant of the helldiver alongside the Navy though many of their pilots would have gladly taken an f6f Hellcat instead the helldiver did still have some advantages though it could deliver its bombs more accurately as a dive bomber and it could carry them across a greater range this it did to admiration in the naval and land battles of the last 18 months of the Pacific War helldivers were put to especially good use during the Battle of Leyte golf where they took part in the aerial Beatdown of the yamato-class battleship Musashi in the subion sea during the course of the engagement with the 64 000 ton Battleship held overs from no less than five different U.S carriers would take part in the Musashi's gradual demise scoring several direct hits without their wings coming off in the dive much to the relief of their pilots while the dash-4 helldivers were busy earning a belated and semi-decent reputation for themselves production of the last major variant the dash 5 was getting underway as the design was now considered mostly viceless the improvements found on on the dash 5 were subtle internal fuel tankage was increased by around 35 US gallons a new frameless canopy provided better visibility for the pilot a four-blade paddle propeller without a spinner was installed the ASB radar was deleted with an an aps-4 radar pod as an optional modification instead and the tail Hook was now fixed in the extended position owing to several mishaps with previous models that saw helldivers shooting off the carrier deck and into the Pacific Ocean production of the dash 5 began in February of 1945 and approximately 970 had been built by War's end which saw the cancellation of future orders the dash 5 became the standard post-war dive bomber in Naval squadrons and although it was quickly replaced by the ad Skyraider it is significant that the helldiver was one of the few aircraft designed before the Pacific War that saw real service after its conclusion the only other aircraft that outlasted it in this regard would be variants of the F4U Corsair but by 1950 the helldiver had been entirely retired from active duty with the aircraft being relegated to either training or testing roles if they weren't scrapped and by the mid-1950s they had disappeared from the Navy inventory altogether at the conclusion of its production run 7140 sb2cs had been produced across more than a dozen different variants they would see service not to just with the United States but with Australia Britain though none saw action France Greece Italy Portugal and Thailand when it was retired the aircraft was a far cry from the unreliable slow and dangerous Beast that it first taken to the skies in 1940 but in many ways the damage had been done the start of the helldiver's career had been so spectacularly awful that its reputation never fully recovered and by extension it was viewed as a black mark on the record of Curtis Wright indeed the early problems and production delays led to the project being investigated by The Truman committee which had been set up to investigate a whole series of delays issues and expenditure concerns felt within the National Defense program this was the start of a troubling period for the company one that saw it put most of its efforts into existing designs such as modifying the P40 or fixing the helldiver and because of this Curtis Wright began to lag behind in terms of aircraft development in the post-war years their failure to secure several key contracts for military aircraft projects and an inability to adapt to the Civil Market would lead to them pulling out from the aircraft manufacturing business altogether how much influence the hell diver had on this fate is still up for debate but it certainly had an impact unfortunately this does nothing to improve its reputation which is a bit of a shame as once the Thousand odd Kinks had been worked out the sp2c became a pretty decent dive bomber it fought in a multitude of creditable actions it contributed to the sinking of a large amount of Japanese tonnage and it even saw some post-war action with foreign operators had the Navy started with a more flexible design requirement from the outset the future of the helldiver and perhaps Kurt is Right could have been very different all of this and more will be explored in a deep dive video that I'm gradually working on it's going to be pretty in-depth covering the full Saga of its early development problems looking at the Truman committee itself the helldiver's wartime service foreign use and some interesting experimental programs including attempts to convert it into a torpedo bomber but that is a much much longer video for another day as always thank you all so much for watching and a big thank you of course to the patreon supporters I will update all of these details upon my return next month

Channel: Rex's Hangar

Views: 281,050

Keywords: Curtiss aircraft, curtiss SB2C, curtiss SB2C Helldiver, SB2B, SB2C Helldiver, curtiss sb2c-5 helldiver, ww2 aircraft, SB2B WW2, Pacific war, rexs hangar, rex's hangar, ww2 aviation, dive bomber, curtiss helldiver, air force, wwii naval aviation

Id: jodMwJ1KVRA

Length: 24min 38sec (1478 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023