The Bird Farm

by Philip Kaplan

  “Nevertheless, all went smoothly and I touched down on Biter, picking up the second wire. I came to a stop somewhat smartly and cut the engine, and it was only then that I realized that the deck was completely deserted! Then striding from the island came a lone figure—the Captain. He stepped up on the wing and said, with a pleasant smile, ‘I say, old boy, you were not expected so early and everyone’s at lunch!’ It was only then that the truth dawned on me: I had landed with the carrier 25 degrees out of wind, only 13 knots windspeed over the deck, the arrester wires lying flat and unsupported, and no batsman!”

  North American T-2 Buckeye trainers at NAS Pensacola, Florida, with Naval Flight Officer students in flight training.

  “Deck-landing the Seafire was not too difficult if everything was done properly. The aircraft handled well at low speeds, but I found it necessary to stick my head out over the edge of the cockpit coaming and peer under the exhaust stubs in order to see the batsman’s signals. If you handled the aircraft as directed by the batsman, if the batsman gave you the correct signals (as they usually did), and if the flight deck did not duck or dive, then the landing was usually OK.”

  —Alan Leahy, former Royal Navy fighter pilot

  Problem: Dead bugs on windshield. Solution: Live bugs on order.

  In World War Two, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation of Bethpage, New York, quickly established itself as the premier designer and manufacturer of high-quality, dependable and effective carrier-borne aircraft. The tradition continued with the coming of the TBF / TBM Avenger torpedo-bomber to the American fleet in 1942, and to the British Fleet Air Arm early in 1943. Well-armed and quite capable of defending itself, the structurally rugged Avenger proved to be a superb warplane. Operating primarily from escort carriers, FAA Avengers flew anti-submarine patrol missions and mine-laying sorties over the waters surrounding Britain, and worked well in the campaign to deny the use of the English Channel to enemy shipping in the run-up to the Normandy landings. FAA Avengers were extremely effective against the Japanese in the Pacific War, flying from the carriers Illustrious, Victorious, Indefatigable, Indomitable, and Formidable, and attacking enemy airfields and oil refineries. The big Grumman performed magnificently and inspired confidence in its crews. It is regarded as one of the best shipboard aircraft of World War Two.

  Of what may have been the most effective U.S. Navy fighter of that war, Eric Brown wrote: “No more outstanding example of skill and luck joining forces to produce just the right aeroplane is to be found than that provided by the Grumman Hellcat, unquestionably the most important Allied shipboard fighter of World War Two. U.S. Navy observers … had learned that speed, climb rate, adequate firepower and armour protection, pilot visibility and manoeuvrability were primary requirements in that order. In the case of the shipboard fighter, these desirable qualities had to be augmented by ample fuel and ammunition capacity, and the structural sturdiness that was a prerequisite in any aeroplane intended for the naval environment. The Grumman team had … formulated its own ideas on the primary requirements in a Wildcat successor, these having been arrived at by consensus: the opinions of U.S. Navy pilots had been canvassed and the results equated with analyses of European combat reports.

  A rare moment of down-time on the flight deck of a U.S. Navy carrier off the coast of Vietnam in the 1960s.

  “… so spacious was the cockpit that when I first lowered myself into the seat, I thought I would have to stand up if I was to see through the windscreen for take-off! There was a great deal of engine ahead, but in spite of the bulk of the Double Wasp, the view was not unreasonable, thanks to the Hellcat’s slightly hump-backed profile. The take-off was straight forward, with a tendency to swing to port requiring gentle application of rudder. Final approach to the deck was at 80 knots and the Hellcat was as steady as a rock, with precise attitude and speed control. I always used a curved approach to get a better view of the deck.

  “The Hellcat had twice the power of the Zero-Sen in a tight loop and U.S. Navy Hellcat pilots soon learned to avoid any attempt to dogfight with the Japanese fighter, and turn the superior speed, dive and altitude characteristics of the American fighter to advantage. The Hellcat had not been the fastest shipboard fighter of World War II, nor the most manoeuvrable, but it was certainly the most efficacious, and one of its virtues was its versatility. Conceived primarily as an air superiority weapon with the range to seek out the enemy so that he could be brought to battle, as emphasis switched to offensive capability, the Hellcat competently offered the strike potential that the U.S. Navy neeeded to offset the reduced number of bombers aboard the service’s fleet carriers. The Hellcat was certainly the most important Allied shipboard aircraft in the Pacific in 1943–44, for it turned the tide of the conflict, and although Japanese fighters of superior performance made their appearance, they were too late to wrest the aerial ascendancy that had been established largely by this one aircraft type.”

  In the Second World War era, the American Navy had a pronounced preference for powering its fighter aircraft with air-cooled radial engines, while the American Army preferred liquid-cooled inline engines for its fighters. The Navy put its money on what it perceived as the ruggedness and reliability of the radial engine and saw it as better suited to long over-water flights. It was natural then that Chance-Vought selected the big Pratt & Whitney R-2800 to power their impressive and unusual new fighter, the F4U Corsair. U.S. Navy personnel referred to it as the “bent-winged bird,” and the Japanese would call it “whistling death.”

  The Corsair came from the drawing board with many inherent flaws that would require more than a hundred separate modifications relating to lateral stability and aileron control alone. But when the XF4U-1 prototype flew on 29 May 1940, the Navy knew it was on course toward the special air superiority fighter it so desperately needed. The prototype surpassed 400 mph in level flight, the first American combat airplane to do that. Teething troubles with the engine challenged Pratt & Whitney for a while, but the marriage of the R-2800 to the F4U airframe was a good one and would ultimately produce one of the finest propeller-driven airplanes of all time.

  The radical gull-wing design of the Corsair was Chance-Vought’s solution to the problem of propeller clearance brought about by the huge 13’ 4” prop needed to transfer power from the R-2800. With a conventional wing design, the airplane would have an unacceptably high angle of attack when landing or taking off. The gull-wing design also provided the pilot increased visibility across the wing at the “bend,” as well as an improved drag factor which added to the performance, and the folding-point of the wing aided in the stowage problem on board carriers.

  According to Eric Brown, “The incipient bounce during landing resulting from overly stiff oleo action … was found to be most disconcerting by pilots fresh to the F4U-1, but not so disconcerting as the virtually unheralded torque stall that occurred all too frequently in landing condition. Compounded by a serious directional instability immediately after touch-down—and coupled with the frightful visibility from the cockpit during the landing approach—it was small wonder that the U.S. Navy concluded that the average carrier pilot was unlikely to possess the necessary skill to master these unpleasant idiosyncrasies, and that committing the Corsair to shipboard operations until these quirks had been at least alleviated would be the height of foolhardiness.

  “Oddly enough, the Royal Navy was not quite so fastidious as the U.S. Navy regarding deck-landing characteristics, and cleared the Corsair for shipboard operation some nine months before its American counterpart. The obstacles to the Corsair’s shipboard use were admittedly not insurmountable, but I can only surmise that the apparently ready acceptance by their Lordships of the Admiralty of the Chance-Vought fighter for carrier operation must have been solely due to the exigencies of the times, for the landing behaviour of the Corsair really was bad, a fact to which I was able to attest after the briefest acquaintance with the aircraft.

  The Douglas A-1 Skyraider attack aircraft, notable fo
r its impressive performance during the Vietnam War. By the end of its production run in 1957, the Douglas design by Ed Heinemann had seen nearly 4,000 examples delivered for service with the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, the British Royal Navy, and the South Vietnamese Air Force.

  “I was well aware that the U.S. Navy had found the Corsair’s deck-landing characteristics so disappointing in trials that it had been assigned for shore duties while an attempt was being made to iron out the problems, and although the Fleet Air Arm was deck-landing the aircraft, I knew that, by consensus, it had been pronounced a brute and assumed that shipboard operations with the Corsair were something of a case of needs must when the devil drives. The fact that experienced U.S. Navy pilots could deck-land the Corsair had been demonstrated a couple of months earlier. I was most anxious to discover for myself if the Corsair was the deck-landing dog that it was reputed to be. It was!

  “In the deck-landing configuration with approach power, the Corsair could demonstrate a very nasty incipient torque stall with dangerously little warning, the starboard wing usually dropping sharply. With the large flaps fully extended the descent rate was rapid, and a simulated deck-landing at 80 knots gave very poor view and sluggish aileron and elevator control. A curved approach was very necessary if the pilot was to have any chance of seeing the carrier, let alone the batsman! When the throttle was cut the nose dropped so that the aircraft bounced on its main wheels and once the tail wheel made contact the aircraft proved very unstable directionally, despite the tail wheel lock, swinging either to port or starboard, and this swing had to be checked immediately with the brakes. Oh yes, the Corsair could be landed on a deck without undue difficulty by an experienced pilot in ideal conditions, but with pilots of average capability, really pitching decks and marginal weather conditions, attrition simply had to be of serious proportions.”

  Eventually, most of the negative characteristics of the Corsair were overcome and her pilots came to appreciate her excellent performance. In World War II, Corsair pilots destroyed 2,140 enemy aircraft for a loss of 935 Corsairs (190 in aerial combat, 350 due to anti-aircraft fire, 230 from other causes, and 165 in crash landings). A further 692 were lost on non-operational flights.

  Just too late for World War Two, the Douglas A-1 Skyraider joined the U.S. military inventories in 1946 and really began to show what it could do when the Korean War broke out in 1950. The Skyraider is easily the most unique, versatile, and utilitarian single-engined propeller-driven combat plane in aviation history. Able to carry a bomb load greater in weight than its own empty weight, it was operated very successfully by several U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine, and U.S. Air Force squadrons, as well as the South Vietnamese Air Force during the Vietnam conflict. It has also been in the service of Britain, France, Cambodia, Chad, and the Central African Republic. In Vietnam it was referred to as “Spad” or “Sandy.” The big 318 mph plane could carry 8,000 pounds of ordnance on sixteen underwing pylons, considerably more than the bomb load of a four-engined B-17 bomber in WWII.

  A Douglas A-4 Skyhawk on the catapult for launch.

  Among the many wonderful aircraft of the Duxford, England-based Fighter Collection is, arguably, the ultimate piston-engined air superiority fighter of the Second World War era, the Grumman F8F Bearcat. Stephen Grey, the man behind the superb Fighter Collection, has flown his Bearcat spectacularly (as well as several other splendid fighter types) in major air shows like Flying Legends at Duxford for years. He probably knows the Bearcat at least as well as anyone who has ever had anything to do with it. “One approaches the Bear with care. On the deck, it looks exactly as it was intended—the smallest airframe that could be mated to the Pratt & Whitney 2800 engine, while swinging that huge Aeroproducts propeller, 12’ 7” in diameter, with the broadest blades you ever did see and just 6” ground clearance, without the oleos depressed. The whole thing is achieved by sitting it on extraordinarily long mainwheel legs. They have, of necessity, been attached to the extremities of the wing center section and an ingenious double hinge system is adopted to fold the upper portion outwards as the main portion folds in. Difficult to describe but, believe me, an amazing amount of ironmongery folds away into a small hole. Somehow, they also found space for a 150-gallon centerline droptank.

  “The wingspan is only 35’ 6”, the length an exceptionally short 27’ 8”, but it sits 13’ 8” high. A mean, muscular-looking, long-legged Bulldog. The cockpit is tiny, European style, with controls well placed but with canopy rails so tight against my shoulders that I have to be helped in—damn that apple pie.

  “I am in it, so fly it. Those early days were quite educational. The only piston-engined fighter I had then flown was the Mustang. While the P-51 has bags of torque, no one would complain that it was overpowered—rather, slightly overweight, like certain pilots I know. The briefing was pretty exhaustive: ‘Do not exceed 54”, and get the gear up before 140 knots.’

  “Having been used to the long throttle travel on the 51, and needing all of it on take-off, I was surprised that an inch of throttle movement gave me 50” and a very rapid view of the side of the runway. I pulled up the nose to avoid exceeding the gear speed and the runway lights, to find myself in what seemed like the vertical. Finally cleaned up, I looked down to see this major Florida airfield as a tiny model, thousands of feet below. Out over the Everglades, even back at 1,900 r.p.m. and 29.5”, I was still several miles behind the aircraft. Within a few more minutes I had a sensation of familiarity and increasing exhilaration. The Bearcat is a joy to throw around. Harmony of control, aided by its spring tab ailerons, is outstanding; the controls delightfully light and very responsive. It demonstrates all the hallmarks of a great day fighter in that it has poor stability, which translates into rapid divergence and, with its high power / thrust-to-weight ratio, outstanding agility. The Bearcat manual says this is not an instrument airplane. Believe it.

  “Clean stalls are under the book figure of 100 knots, as the Fighter Collection aircraft is unarmed and lighter. The onset has little warning, excepting a very brief stick shudder prior to an immediate wing drop. With everything down, the stall comes at 70 knots, the nose dropping hard and violently off to the left after the same brief shudder. A rapid application of power will torque you around the prop. Potentially disastrous on the approach.

  “Accelerated stalls are straightforward, until you try them while reducing or, still worse, adding coarse power. The resulting snap rolls have to be experienced to be believed. The aircraft is so short coupled, you need the draught over the tail at any time you go for high Alphas.

  “Another cute trick, which took me some time to work out, is aileron reversal. Induced by simultaneously pulling hard and rolling at very high speeds at low altitude, I first put in hard left aileron and found myself rolling right. Then, just as you have considered what the hell is happening and the speed is backing off, the Bear rolls hard left. We went right through the geometry, the rigging, the spring tabs, the lot, before I flew it again.

  “Subsequent, deep examination of the manual showed a max deflection aileron limit of 4.5g. An experienced old salt confirmed that the wing was first twisting unloaded, then the ailerons work. This was, apparently, a ‘design feature’ of all Bearcats. Whoever said wing warping was ineffective? Needless to say, we now do no barrel-like manouvers at high speed in the Fighter Collection Bearcat.

  “Another part of the early education was during practice for the first air show. I pulled up for the first Cuban and while inverted looked for the rollout target on the airfield, only to find it twice as small as the same in a 51. Yippee, I will do a one-and-a-half downward instead of a half. Through 360 degrees and back to inverted, the Bear was oscillating longitudinally and beginning to tuck under. A quick glance at the airspeed indicator showed I had hit the Candy bar, 435 knots and still accelerating. Fortunately I was unladen and still rolling (the correct way) when I hit the compressibility dive brakes. The oscillation stopped and I now had the problem of avoiding the increasingly large airfield. W
e thoroughly inspected the airframe and my underwear after that one.

  “I do not wish to leave you with the impression of an impossible roaring monster. The airplane is a beautiful, well domesticated ‘Pussycat’ (but still with teeth and claws) when flown well within its envelope—as we have done since those early ‘hooligan’ days. The Bearcat was the end of an era, the end of a technology. The ultimate piston-engined air superiority fighter? The Spitfire XIV or the Sea Fury could give it a run, but different fun.”

  Hawker’s World War II Typhoon ground attack fighter led to their Tempest which, in turn, led to Sydney Camm’s Project F.2/43, resulting in a great naval fighter, the Sea Fury, with deliveries of Sea Fury F Mk Xs to the Fleet Air Arm beginning in February 1947.

  With the invasion of South Korea by the North Korean army in June 1950, the British Government contributed the services of the British Eastern Fleet headed by the carrier HMS Triumph. The Triumph was to operate off Korea together with the ships of the U.S. Navy. HMS Theseus replaced Triumph in October, bringing with her No. 807 Squadron and its twenty-one Sea Fury FB Mk 11s. Subsequently, Theseus gave way to HMS Glory, as British carriers continued to operate off the Korean coast in six-month cycles. The Sea Fury proved highly successful as a fighter bomber in the demanding conditions of the Korean conflict. Perhaps its finest hour came on 9 August 1952 when four of the piston-engined fighters of 802 Squadron were intercepted by eight MiG-15 jets, resulting in a spectacular air fight and the downing of one MiG, with two others severely damaged. None of the Sea Furys were hit.