WWII PTO Naval carrier based fighter and bombers -

[Dixon Cannon]

Ok all you FL experts; I’ve decided to get my WWII Naval aircraft identification straight after all these years. I can I.D. ETO aircraft with the best of them, but I never took the time to identify the differences in those carrier based birds. Here is what I’ve discerned:

The Douglas Dauntless SBD Dive Bomber: 1.) Antenna portside fuselage nose 2.) Tubular torpedo sight from cockpit windscreen. But there are some with a cowl air port at the forward top of the cowl and some without. What is the difference and designation there?

Douglas TBD Devastator: 1.) Antenna at centerline fuselage nose 2.) Nose cowl is small and symmetrical 3.) large circular air port under starboard wing. What was the purpose of that air port under the right wing?

Curtis SB2C Helldiver: 1.) Same portside fuselage antenna as a Dauntless, BUT a large vertical stabilizer distinguishes the aircraft from all others.

Curtis SBC4 Helldiver: This is the earlier Curtis ship produced as a biplane. Not to be confused with the Grumman F3F, because they both had the Grumman style exposed retractable gear. The Grumman ships is a fat, stubby thing like the ‘Wildcat’ came to be. It is a crew of one. The Curtis SBC4 is not as stubby looking but it’s distinguishing feature is the long enclosed canopy for the crew of two.

Grumman TBF Avenger : The only ship with a ‘turret backward facing’ (which is an easy way to remember it!). It also has the strange inverted pitot tube out on the tip of the port wing.

I think we all know the differences between the ‘Wildcat’, the “Hellcat’ and the ‘Corsair’ right? Got that straight as a kid!

The only other one that can be confusing it the Vought SB2U ‘Vindicator’ that got thrown into the mix. It looks much like the Douglas Devastator inasmuch as that antenna is portside-fuselage-nose but there is a rather large scoop air port on the cowling top starboard. Without identifying that cowl scoop first, it is easy to mistake it for the Devastator. They both are often shown with the torpedo sight protruding from the windscreen as well.

Does anyone know the answers to the queries above regarding the Dauntless cowl differences and the Devastator port wing air scoop?

-dixon cannon

 

[1930artdeco]

The air scoop on the Devastator is more than likely an oil cooler as for the Dauntlass I 'think' that the smooth cowling is the older varient and they added the scoop later to aid in cooling or for the downdraft carb.

Mike

 

[tater]

First a quick note on USN nomenclature.

First letter(s) are aircraft role: SB=Scout Bomber, TB=Torpedo Bomber, F=Fighter, etc. The middle number exists if BuAer bought planes of the same type from the manufacturer before, if it is the first of a type from the mfg, then the "1" is omitted. Last letter is the MFG code. Ie: SBD = Scout Bomber (1, omitted), Douglas. F4F = Fighter, 4th procured from Grumman (code F=Grumman). All USN aircraft of the era follow this pattern. A trailing number is a "mark" that has changes F4F-3, F4F-4, etc.

The Douglas Dauntless SBD Dive Bomber: 1.) Antenna portside fuselage nose 2.) Tubular torpedo sight from cockpit windscreen. But there are some with a cowl air port at the forward top of the cowl and some without. What is the difference and designation there?

The sight telescope is for dive bombing or using the forward gun. That and the cowl detail makes it an SBD-3 or -4. Later models (SBD-5) got a reflector sight.

Douglas TBD Devastator: 1.) Antenna at centerline fuselage nose 2.) Nose cowl is small and symmetrical 3.) large circular air port under starboard wing. What was the purpose of that air port under the right wing?

I'd have to look it up but I'd bet an oil cooler.

Curtis SB2C Helldiver: 1.) Same portside fuselage antenna as a Dauntless, BUT a large vertical stabilizer distinguishes the aircraft from all others.

2d SB type from Curtis (SB 2 C, make sense?). Yeah, nothing common looks like the the "beast," as it was sometimes called. Big plane.

Curtis SBC4 Helldiver: This is the earlier Curtis ship produced as a biplane. Not to be confused with the Grumman F3F, because they both had the Grumman style exposed retractable gear. The Grumman ships is a fat, stubby thing like the ‘Wildcat’ came to be. It is a crew of one. The Curtis SBC4 is not as stubby looking but it’s distinguishing feature is the long enclosed canopy for the crew of two.

First Curtis SB type, -4 model.

Grumman TBF Avenger : The only ship with a ‘turret backward facing’ (which is an easy way to remember it!). It also has the strange inverted pitot tube out on the tip of the port wing.

GM ("Eastern Aircraft Division"), also built them, called TBM instead of TBF (M= GM)

I think we all know the differences between the ‘Wildcat’, the “Hellcat’ and the ‘Corsair’ right? Got that straight as a kid!

There are also the FMs, which are the F4F built by General Motors (code M).

The only other one that can be confusing it the Vought SB2U ‘Vindicator’ that got thrown into the mix. It looks much like the Douglas Devastator inasmuch as that antenna is portside-fuselage-nose but there is a rather large scoop air port on the cowling top starboard. Without identifying that cowl scoop first, it is easy to mistake it for the Devastator. They both are often shown with the torpedo sight protruding from the windscreen as well.

Before reflector sights, they all had telescopes, even the fighters. The idea was to force you to line your eye up to remove head movement (parallax).

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Tater, thank you for the clarification on these machines. WWII navy is a whole 'nother world to me. This information is VERY helpful indeed! One question; what is "...if BuAer bought planes of the same type from the manufacturer..."? -dixon cannon

 

[DeaconKC]

Okay, the same manufacturer would have different numbers, Grumman is an easy explanation F4F first F was Fighter, the 4th one built by grumman for the navy, the second F was Grumman's code. then the F5F was the Skyrocket, the F6F was the Hellcat, the F7F was the Tigercat.

 

[tater]

Tater, thank you for the clarification on these machines. WWII navy is a whole 'nother world to me. This information is VERY helpful indeed! One question; what is "...if BuAer bought planes of the same type from the manufacturer..."? -dixon cannon

BuAer is short for Bureau of Aeronautics, the USN materiel support organization for aircraft.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

I'm glad I raised these questions; this has been very informative. Thanks all!

-dixon cannon

 

[tater]

The USN aircraft procurement system was interesting, and they did it to build-in contingencies. They'd put a spec out, then buy types from multiple manufacturers to that spec. Hence we see the Brewster F2B and Grumman F4F at the same time. The F4F was judged the more suitable plane and was produced more (the export version of the F2B was in fact the most successful fighter aircraft of the war with the highest win/loss ratio in Finland, actually). Before the war started, the USN has asked for a replacement for the F4F, better in every metric. The two aircraft submitted (before the war, BTW) were the F4U (Corsair) and the F6F (Hellcat). Both ended up in service (the former initially had some issues with carrier qualification).