Douglas' Excessively Large Torpedo Bomber: Douglas XTB2D Skypirate

[@chrissschwehr5911]

What is not mentioned is that the original request was for a long range torpedo bomber that could take off from West Coast fields, fly 1000 miles to sea, attack a Japanese task force and fly back. It was unknown if Hawaii would remain in U.S. hands after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Navy was afraid they would need to defend the West Coast from direct attack (which, until the Battle of Midway was a possibility). Thus this monster torpedo bomber was designed, built but never needed.

[@PavewayJDAM]

The B-36 of torpedo bombers.

[@1badhaircut]

@@PavewayJDAM except the B36 was needed in the post-war nuclear era and was an effective deterrent- do it did its job

[@AndyFromBeaverton]

Imagine the range if it was only carrying fuel for a scouting mission.

[@markwilliams974]

It is a very cool looking aircraft! I never heard of it either but I like the design. Looks very sturdy.

[@gatsu3351]

True Megachonker

[@lancerevell5979]

"Go big or go home." 😊

[@huskergator9479]

Size matters!

[@treystephens6166]

@@huskergator9479GODZILLA (1998) 🇺🇸

[@Firebrand55]

Looks a bit like the Centaurus-powered Blackburn Firebrand.

[@Evilroco]

The wing shape would help with level stability , it would have the same effect as a standard dihedral wing but would probably also make production of the centre spar easier

[@AndyFromBeaverton]

When 1 of 2 torpedoes was dropped, I would imagine it would help recenter itself.

[@davidelliott5843]

B17 could only carry 8000 pounds at significantly reduced range. All those 50cals and ammo add up - considerably.

[@sirclarkmarz]

The upward sweep on the outboard section of wing is called polyhedral it makes for a very stable aircraft something important when on a bomb or torpedo for approaching the deck of a carrier.

[@iskandartaib]

I suspect it's there for the same reason the Corsair had an inverted gull wing - ground clearance without too-long main gear legs.

[@davidelliott5843]

Corsair had gull wings to allow the wing roots to meet perpendicular to the fuselage. No root fairings were needed. It also provided clearance for one of the biggest propellers in use at the time.

[@331SVTCobra]

@@davidelliott5843 The corsair had a huge propeller, and the inverted gull wing was chosen as an alternative to longer landing struts. The consequence was that the wing roots went into the fuselage as you said which had unanticipated aerodynamic benefits. The lack of root fairings was a decision by the navy: they didn't want to spend the effort on fairings for Hellcats or Corsairs, they'd rather just have more of them.

[@simonauclair3662]

No its called dihedral. Anhedral is slope down, and polyhedral means geometric solids such as cubes or tetrahedrons.

[@bigblue6917]

It's interesting how many aircraft at this time were being designed with the contra-rotating propellers. As well as those you've covered there was a fighter designed by Martin Baker, better known for their ejection seats,and the Westland Wyvern which saw service with the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm. The Martin Baker aircraft would have been one of the fastest piston engined fight if it had reached service. The problem was that the designer was a perfectionist which meant he kept tinkering with it and the war was over before it was ready.

[@anzaca1]

Contr-rotating props were basically a necessity by this point. Piston engines and later turpboprops were getting so powerful that their torque was a huge problem, especially on carriers, where having a plane violently swing due to the torque was a problem. CR props were also far more efficient, allowing for higher speeds.

[@EstorilEm]

In addition to the torque issues, installing a single prop which could “absorb” the amount of power these engines created would be nearly impossible on a single-engined aircraft. The diameter would simply be FAR too big (even as it was, these props were huge.) The B-50 and B-36 could get away with it because they were so massive and had the ground clearance. The only other single-engine 4360s I can think of were the Boeing XF8 and Curtiss XBTC, which also required contra-rotating props. I don’t really think the super Corsair prototype counts - it’s cool but was apparently very difficult to fly (surprise, due to lack of rudder authority - presumably because of the p-factor.)

[@martindione386]

@@EstorilEm what's the p factor? pilot?

[@bigblue6917]

@@anzaca1 Thanks. anzaca. You've confirmed what I thought may be happening.

[@MScotty90]

@@martindione386 Looks like it's the propeller, I had to look it up. From wiki: P-factor, also known as asymmetric blade effect and asymmetric disc effect, is an aerodynamic phenomenon experienced by a moving propeller,[1] wherein the propeller's center of thrust moves off-center when the aircraft is at a high angle of attack. This shift in the location of the center of thrust will exert a yawing moment on the aircraft, causing it to yaw slightly to one side. A rudder input is required to counteract the yawing tendency

[@lancerevell5979]

Why the inverted gullwing style? Maybe the designer simply liked that look.

[@MisterApol]

Dihedral contributes to innate stability.

[@vascoribeiro69]

Like the Phantom it had a strong centre wing box, for landing gear and pylons.

[@irishrover4658]

The first thing I thought was Skypirate sounded like something you'd find in a teen adventure book from WWII. I picture Dave Dawson as the pilot!!

[@douglasrice7524]

Re: Your ending remark -- If you want a 'cool' or even a sensible name for a new aircraft type, get someone in the RAF to name it, as they have given the aircraft we sent 'over there' iconic titles like: Catalina, Lightning, and Mustang, Just about every piece of combat hardware that Britain got from us was re-christened with a MUCH better name than the dull-witted US ordinance fellows would bother with, and I'd bet my Firefly ((formerly 'M4)) tank on that!

[@minimalbstolerance8113]

Credit where it's due, you came up with some awesome aircraft names on your side of the pond post-war, like Sabre, Scorpion, Panther and Demon.

[@stephengardiner9867]

What a fantastic 1/48 scale kit this would be! This beast, the Boeing monster and the Martin Mauler all in 1/48... well, a respectable twin Mustang (finally!), an equally respectable P-51H (again, finally!) AND, of all things, the Douglas Skyshark have appeared in 1/48th. One can but hope. In a way, this aircraft's reason for existing at all matches that of the B-36 (and both were the behemoths of their kind as a result). How to strike at the enemy when all of your bases outside of North America have been lost? One must remember that this design originated at a time when it was feared that Japan might control most of the Pacific, possibly even the Hawaiian Islands (and likewise England might fall to Germany as well). Hence these long range, huge brutes conceived as a result. Well, Midway and the Battle of Britain saw those threats reduced. The hitherto unimagined horde of fleet carriers, light carriers and escort carriers issuing from the U.S. now meant that this beast, at least in its current form, had lost it's original purpose. Other existing types were handling it quite fine. Ironically, a smaller "sibling" from the same company became the attack aircraft that the Sky Pirate didn't! The Skyraider even dropped the occasional torpedo.

[@ArtietheArchon]

one thing about the skypirate is that, like Ivan Drago, whatever he hits he destroys. with a 4 torpedo loadout even a single TB2D getting through air defenses would remove all but the largest ships from existence

[@riderstrano783]

I’m having fun imagining an alternate Vietnam war where sky pirates were used in conjunction with AD-1s on recon and bombing runs

[@minimalbstolerance8113]

I believe I read somewhere that a lot of the best design elements of the Skypirate were recycled by Douglas into the Skyraider.

[@jannemaki-heikkila392]

Dimensions in meters and weight in bananas...how about that...😂

[@OldManAndTheSeaOfTooManyCats]

Left out is how the ultra-successful Douglas A-1 Skyraider relates to this design. It is said the Skyraider’s only flaw is that they didn’t make enough of them.

[@JFrazer4303]

The skyraider also disproves the CC common belief that the advent of the jet age killed all these prop planes. The US operated piston-prop combat planes into the -70s, for support into the '80s, and still operate props. Why the S2 & not the skypirate?

[@VigilanteAgumon]

​@@JFrazer4303At the very least, piston engines have given way to turboprops.

[@zingwilder9989]

It's quite amazing how the A-1 Skyraider simply left it in the dust.

[@konekillerking]

The Douglas Devastator was the most advanced aircraft of its type when it was designed. It’s just that technology surpassed it so quickly. The gull wing aspect was not for landing gear strength. It was for prop clearance. The extended landing gear was in fact an issue, facing weight and strength issues. You might have show how Douglas incorporated aspects of this design into the A-1 skyrader. A very successful design.

[@jamesrussell7760]

Being saddled with a name like Skypirate was, alone, the kiss of death!

[@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus]

It's interesting to me that the Skyraider and the Skypirate had their first flights just 5 days apart. Two huge piston singles from the same company at the same time. Who thought that was a good idea?

[@scottfw7169]

Apparently the government which commissioned the designs thought they were good ideas and that having a company already experienced in building Navy torpedo and bombing aircraft design and build them was a good idea while a war was going on. The two planes were created to fulfill different roles, Skypirate as a long range torpedo truck, the Skyraider as a strike and dive bomber, roles which require different types of airframe with their strengths in different structural areas. For instance, you could level bomb and glide bomb with an Avenger but dive bombing was forbidden. Carrying huge loads for huge distances requires huge fuel tanks and huge wings.

[@stevetournay6103]

There had been torpedo bombers (TBD, TBF) and, entirely separately, dive/scout bombers (SBD, SB2C). The Skypirate was the intended successor to the former, the Skyraider (initially called Dauntless II after the SBD) to the other. Ultimately it was realized that the Skyraider could fill all the needed roles...

[@nairbvel]

Somehow I never heard about this massive beast... Holy cow, that ordnance load was really something else!

[@lasagnajohn]

Haha, yea. You put 3,000 horsie on any airframe, it'll carry an impressive bomb load.

[@driftertank]

I suspect the multihedral shape of the wing was probably done to give the stability benefits of a high-dihedral wing while allowing for a simpler center section (pass through, constant chord spar structure, likely), as well as allowing for the wide-set main gear to be shorter than they would be if set mid-span on a constant-dihedral wing. It would also probably simplify ordnance loading, since all the hard points are the same height above the deck.

[@kurtpena5462]

You are a BOSS! The jet era robbed us of some really crazy designs. Not only compound motors and counter-rotating propellers, but also power recovery turbines like they used on the Constellations. Oh man, this thing was HUGE. A squadron could show up with 24 torpedoes all at once! Lights out!!!

[@whyjnot420]

Aside from the tail being a bit too chonky, this was a really good looking plane.

[@brookeshenfield7156]

Imagine how big the tail would have had to be without the torque-canceling twin props.

[@jimsvideos7201]

It doesn't seem like a great leap from this to the Skyraider though.

[@jnk542]

Thanks, fascinating stuff! Douglas might have profited from this failed project in its later Skyraider - which is also a quite similar name.

[@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus]

Skyraider and Skypirate had their first flights just 5 days apart, so it doesn't seem the failures of one could be used as lessons learned on the other.

[@johnjephcote7636]

I can imagine it being called the 'Skypilot' instead.

[@PunkinsSan]

Shame that "super props" didn't had ther true golden age. Such interesting designs went to the trash 😢

[@tootired76]

Well,that blows, but Douglas then came out with the A-1 Skyraider

[@Einwetok]

That's a LOT of Dakka...., and that's before the inevitable design bloat America's famous for.

[@JHX1]

I read the inv. gullwing is for drag reduce and landinggear, same with the junkers 87 and corsair.

[@Mailo1x]

@7:20 maybe it was to increase stability? Same was done in f4 phantoms

[@sirclarkmarz]

It's called polyhedral everything is math.

[@Absaalookemensch]

It's not that it was too large, just that aircraft carriers were too small. It would be perfect for a Project Habakkuk aircraft carrier, over 600 meters long.

[@nicholasmaude6906]

After the programme was cancelled the two prototypes should've been preserved in suitable aviation museums.

[@johnossendorf9979]

That's one Cool Logo !

[@iskandartaib]

Interesing. Tricycle gear. How does it compare to the Fairey Gannet?

[@jehoiakimelidoronila5450]

The dihedral outer wings are for roll stability, effectively making the pilot say "look ma, no hands" while doing something else in the cockpit besides flying. Also helps maintain roll authority. I. E. :you can still roll the plane even with the big-ass wing And, in my opinion, the angled outer wings makes it easier for the hydraulics to fold up with shorter arc than folding up from complete horizontal position. Maybe even for the wings to steer clear of the deck, but not that much 'cuz of how big it is

[@nuttyDesignAndFab]

angled wings give you stability. horizontal wings give you efficiency. the effect of dihedral is more pronounced at the tips (same reason the ailerons are there) so I'm guessing the wing design was an attempt to improve efficiency & top speed.

[@Scobragon]

Beautiful plane though.

[@slawojka]

This man sound familer to Garbaj what the hell

[@sirclarkmarz]

There's a utility agricultural aircraft that has almost as exact same design not quite as big though the Fletcher FU 24.

[@K1W1fly]

Other than the completely different wing and tailplane planform and dihedral, much smaller tail and completely different fuselage proportions... Almost exactly the same design!

[@thedevilinthecircuit1414]

Skyyyyyyyyy Pirate! How high can you fly? You'll never (never, never) Reach the sky!

[@stevetournay6103]

Ah. I'm not the only one...

[@obelic71]

to be fair the RAF gave one aircraft a pirate name. A Buccaneer what means sea robber is a originaly a French name for a pirate. The Blackburn Buccaneer of the RAF was a longlasting strike aircraft that was withdrawn from service after the 1991 desert storm campain.

[@minimalbstolerance8113]

A guy I know who's an ex-RAF squadron leader told me the story of one particular Buccaneer nicknamed "Guinness Girl," and how it caused one of the biggest explosions of the first Gulf War almost by accident. Apparently, it was one of the tail-end Buccaneers on a strike against Iraqi targets, and by the time it got to the primary target, that target had already been blown to hell, so the pilot of Guinness Girl got permission to bypass it and attack the secondary target, an Iraqi airfield. When making their attack run on the airfield, Guinness Girl's weapons operator managed to land their bombs right on top of an Iraqi AN-2 transport that was on the runway, getting ready to make a supply run to the front lines, and as such was loaded with fuel and munitions. As were the five other AN-2s sitting on the runway just behind it waiting their turn to take off. As I said, it was one of the biggest, if not the biggest bang of the first Gulf War.

[@cameronturner7475]

Maybe the up turned wings for extra clearance when landing. With those long wings I can see a strike during a rough landing

[@sirclarkmarz]

It's a polyhedral angle for horizontal stability very important on bomb and torpedo runs in approaching a carrier deck .

[@ThatSlowTypingGuy]

7:20 Probably for the same reason the Sopwith Camel's lower wing was angled upward slightly. It's more forgiving on landing for inexperienced pilots if they don't come in quite level.

[@vascoribeiro69]

They got fed up of so much complexity that from a napkin and a pencil the Skyraider was born.

[@zingwilder9989]

Right. It was introduced in 1946 and taken out of service in 1973. I'd call that a success for both Army (later Air Force) and Navy.

[@vascoribeiro69]

@@zingwilder9989 it was never used by USAAF. Only by USAF in Vietnam with retired USN machines.

[@zingwilder9989]

@@vascoribeiro69 Thank you for that information. I was always under the impression that both services used this unit from its introduction.

[@vascoribeiro69]

@@zingwilder9989 they were well praised by downed pilots while performing SAR escort with the callsign SANDY.

[@thedevilinthecircuit1414]

The inverted gull wing on the F4U was largely a response to the need for shorter landing gear struts and larger propeller swing and it also improved pilot visibility of the carrier deck on landing.

[@53kenner]

Actually, it appears that was a secondary advantage. I thought just like you did until I saw an episode of Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles which went over this and discovered that Vought was trying to wring every knot of speed out of the design and they realized that you get the least amount of induced drag if the wing sticks out of the fuselage at a right angle. So, they did that ... and then cranked the wing upwards to give it an effectively positive dihedral. There's a lot of websites I would shrug off, but Greg is big on resorting to original sources and employing actual mathematics when in doubt.

[@michaelwallbrown3726]

i wonder who talked the Navy into wanting this behemoth,i suppose it could have been used in a ground support role

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

Closest to Skypirate are the Blackburn Buccaneer and the de Havilland DH.110 Sea Vixen which wad originally to be called Pirate.

[@minimalbstolerance8113]

And the Vought A-7 Corsair

[@amievil3697]

An aircrafts called "SKYPIRATE" not needed anymore!? What part of "Skypirate" were they not getting?! Seriously "Skypirate" what do you fly? I'm a Skypirate that is some Final Fantasy gold. OMG we just got attacked by a "Skypirate" We have "Skypirates" look out!!!

[@kennethgambill4751]

Possible reason for the unusual Gull Wing Design was to maximize use of "Wing in ground effect" Assuming you're flying level at nearthe surface, the Sjypirate would be Wing in ground effect, allowing it to expend less fuel and fly further, theoretically. So the upward slant of the Wing tips would alow the Skypirate to maintain a degree of lift should it need to break the effect immediately without substantial loss in energy. I noticed the Sky Pirat had an unsual amount of wing area which allowed it to carry larger stores. Having this large amount of wing area would allow the skypirate to easily enter and stay in "wing in ground " effect while below Radar and on it's way to a target, deliever it's payload the bank and break contact rapidly without haviung too much of delay in power or control. Just an Idea.

[@enscroggs]

The McDonnell-Douglas F4 Phantom II also has a wing dihedral applied at the folding chord section. Dihedral angle applied to the wings helps an aircraft avoid sideslip during low-speed maneuvers, probably beneficial during carrier landings. Most WWII fighters had dihedral wings, but in most cases, the angle was constant from root to tip, such as in the case of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, the Republic P-47, and the Messerschmitt Bf-109. The Grumman F6F had dihedral wings, but the upward angle was applied at an outer section of the span past a section of flat or zero-dihedral, not unlike the Skypirate or the Phantom II. Why was the Hellcat, a radial-powered, single-engine carrier-based fighter given that sort of "interrupted dihedral" rather than the constant dihedral of the highly successful Zero, another radial-powered, single-engine carrier fighter. Perhaps because the Zero was not originally designed with foldable wings and the Hellcat was.

[@stevetournay6103]

Looks like an Invader rear-ended a Mauler...but that bottom view in the air suggests an outsize Nanchang CJ6A! The name makes me hear the 80s song "Sky Pilot" in my head...

[@stitch626aloha]

The Corsair's gull wing was ORIGINALLY designed to completely remove the need for costly gussets on the wings by making them enter the fuselage at a 90* angle

[@NormanSilver]

BIG? How about the Grumman AF? Biggest single engine Carrier landing capable plane I ever saw. My dad herded Savage Nuke Rated turbines too. Had a small jet engine in the fuselage too.

[@jefferyroy2566]

It's curious that the Forrestal class was not included in the list of carrier classes. My father preferred landing his TBM-3 on the Essex class, but had to qualify on the Saratoga after it was commissioned in 1956 (he was in Naval Air Reserve). He found that long deck on an Essex more reassuring that the "short porch" on the Saratoga.

[@neiloflongbeck5705]

Douglas (and Heinemann) was also working on the XBT2D.

[@Rogue-7.62]

In hindsight, Douglas Aircraft would have been better off having initially developed the aircraft using the then available R3350 radial without the contra-prop and reduced capacity to maybe half what the original design was rated for. Thus awaiting a new dash number of the aircraft in the future, utilizing the R4360 once it became available. The plane would still have had far more capacity than anything the Navy had throughout WW2 that was carrier based and might have given the aircraft design a fighting chance at being fielded in a combat roll. Seeing as a great many of Douglas's aircraft where very robust and durable at taking combat damage, it might have saved more aviators lives as well. A prime example of robustness would be both the A-1 Skyraider and the A-26 Invader, of which both designs so use up and into the Vietnam War. The A-26 being numerically changed to the B-26K Counter Invader.

[@DavidBrown-cp2vm]

This is an unsubstantiated guess formed from years of amateur viewing of aviation's history. Out of 10 projects, 9 are duds (roughly) due to :- Being designed around a new and/or experimental engine which does not eventuate or is in short supply. Takes too long, need for it disappears into history. Technically obsolete before process is completed. Bad luck crash puts the wind up everybody and slows everything down. Assorted unforseeable personnel & historical problems. No.1 has gone through to fame and glory and is built in large enough numbers to become an aircraft the whole world has heard of. It's as fascinating as archaelogy. Long "live" the also rans !! Thanks for the excellent video.

[@obsidianjane4413]

If the invasion of Japan had to have been conducted, it would have served as a "bomb truck" providing CAS. Probably would have done a good job at that. Its likely that it never would have dropped any torps. @7:40 The dihedral wing was to improve lateral stability, necessary in a stumpy plane that had to fit in elevators. @13:00 Jets didn't replace it, the A-1 Skyraider was chosen instead.

[@jehb8945]

However all is not lost for Douglas as the United States Navy would commission a requirement for a dedicated multi-role attack which initially was fulfilled by another ungodly large aircraft called The Martin AM Mauler which also use the r 4360 and could only be flown from the Midway class aircraft carriers however Douglas would submit what was initially called The destroyer II but would become known as the skyraider which maxed out at an unreasonable load out could carry 8,000 lb of dimes but normal payload was a still healthy 6,000 lb and more importantly it was powered by the large 18 cylinder r-3350 radial which was less of a maintenance nightmare than the corncob r-4360 and more importantly the skyraider could fit on smaller aircraft carriers I still wonder if WWII could have ended a little sooner or at the very least the Japanese Navy could have been destroyed even faster if the Navy realized hey we don't need dedicated torpedo and dedicated dive-bombers we just need a single-seater capable of carrying both kind of weapons and the skyraider also had died brakes and during Korea actually torpedoed Hwancon damn

[@olsonspeed]

Could be that people still remember the movie "Sky Pirates" which received a dismal 18% on Rotten Tomatoes.

[@rickstevens1479]

When you have an unlimited budget, you order aircraft that everyone knows will never go in to production..order 23 planes you know will be rejected...must be nice ..

[@stephengardiner9867]

I rather doubt that the Boeing XF-8 would have been a great fighter but as a strike aircraft... single crew instead of two or three, long range, heavy payload... It is a testament to the incredible wartime weapons production capacity of the U.S. that resources were available to develop aircraft that never had a hope in hell of ever seeing production OR service as they were no longer fulfilling a perceived need. Naval aircraft that were too big to operate from existing (or even planned carriers until the Midways came along and that Douglas Skypirate was probably too big for even them). The Grumman Tigercat was positively petite compared to this thing and it was thought to be too large for the Essex class carriers. Wasted assets perhaps but the Skyraider was the "fallout" from one of these doomed designs and you ain't gonna get many aircraft that gave more "bang for the buck" than the Skyraider.

[@tommytwotacos8106]

i LOVE every single one of your videos that I see, so why do I only click the thumbs up once out of every ten times? It's like my standards have adjusted to the quality of video expected instead of judging your videos against everything else that I see. I'm going to have to fix that. My apologies.

[@scootergeorge7089]

F6U-1 Pirate

[@bobechs7234]

Seems like Douglas did convince the Navy to buy a big, hulking single engine carrier plane that could carry the bomb load of a strategic bomber off carriers that it already had. Just not this exact one.

[@alexsanders2423]

I enjoy your videos so much. Thank you for your hard work. I love military aviation and ground vehicles. Please keep doing what you do.

[@peterpruyne4153]

It is a puzzle as to why folks who don’t know much about aircraft do these videos. It’s called dihedral, kind of a basic and important concept. Look it up.

[@UncleManuel]

Holy moly, that group photo really conveyes the sheer size of that thing! Wow! 😮😮

[@krzysztofbosak7027]

Best guess for straight midsection is structural integrity and having straight wing spars. The midsection is very heavily loaded...

[@rileycpo]

Why do you keep using Meters? Do you have a few 6-packs of Bubba Beer in your Fridge? Great video otherwise.

[@ericscottstevens]

There was enough scrap metal collected in the US to build an additional 53 aircraft carriers by the end of the war. ..........were going to need a bigger boat.

[@aldenconsolver3428]

I rather like it, if it had been made 2 years earlier and first used for land bases I think it could have been very impressive. If nothing else 4 2000 lb bombs would have made such a mess of any WW2 carrier only one accurate pilot would have ended that mission.

[@realityquotient7699]

Designers kept trying to make contra-rotating props a thing. Only the Russians ever managed it successfully.

[@enricomercado4671]

For some reason it seems the word "Buzzard" comes to mind when I see pictures of the Sky Pirate......

[@donadams8345]

Great video! Skypirate sounds like the name of an airplane from a 1930's comic book.

[@shawnkelley9035]

Great job!

[@davidhewson8605]

Learn so much from comments as from your download. Thanks all. Dave

[@RedXlV]

The oddest thing to me about this design is that (as seen at 8:00 ) is that even when folded, the wings take up such an large amount of deck space. But I suppose with so much payload being carried under the wings, it kind of had to be that way.

[@TimTheInspector]

The wings likely had the flat centre section to make external stores loading easier by using the same height bomb cart for each station. It also would have put the wing fold hinges just a bit lower than they’d have been on an ordinary dihedral wing which would save space on a carrier’s hangar deck. The tips are raised for stability.

[@ronaldbyrne3320]

Dodged that bullet. Looks like it dogfights like a brick. 🙂

[@stevetournay6103]

Well since it was a torpedo bomber, it would not have been expected to function as a fighter...

[@ronaldbyrne3320]

@@stevetournay6103 ahhh yes. You’re right. 🙂

[@davidhauton7643]

Still somehow retains an elegance only the late piston prop planes seem to have. Pity that there aren't any working examples......

[@stevetournay6103]

Nor any static ones either. An example of its predecessor, the BTD Destroyer, does survive, though, in a US museum.

[@chuckcawthon3370]

Great Story. I have a great book that details this plane in parallel with your video content. Well Done Sir.

[@06colkurtz]

Now you are losing credibility. The Douglas torpedo bomber was obsolete and the employment tactics were terrible. Do better

[@amelierenoncule]

The pansies at Disney probably has the term copyrighted.

[@firstcynic92]

Sky pirate. Is it boarding enemy ships to steal their booty? 🏴‍☠️

[@JGCR59]

Ah well Douglas had the AD Skyraider which perfectly fitted the role so it wasn't really a loss for Douglas

[@lansen6385]

Why are dimensional given in meters, and the weight given in pounds? Should be in kilos.

[@petesheppard1709]

And so...the Navy had to settle for the AD Skyraider...sigh...

[@Andy47357]

the plane was designed in sae units. read out the size in the units it was designed in. just say 49’6” long and 70’ wide

[@coreyandnathanielchartier3749]

The Douglas engineers , years later, were rumored to have stated they added the dihedral to the outer wing panels "because it looked so cool".

[@guypehaim1080]

With a shorter tail, it could make the plane more twitchy in yaw and therefore would have a negative effect on the plane's use as a gun platform.

[@henriyoung3895]

That voice is THUMBS DOWN for me.

[@mebeasensei]

The Fairy Gannet makes me think this could have been like it, with a turboprop

[@couttsw]

Narrator has no tonal change in his voice, just drones on and on and on. I've been more excited watching cement harden.

[@dirkellis9212]

I imagine the dihedral was for similar aerodynamic reasons as the F 4 phantom don't recall what that was but none the less

[@Free-Bodge79]

Never even seen or heard of it. Thank you for the information. Great work once again . 👊💛👍

[@LoneStarMillennial]

I think the gull wing is for the folding wing, to strengthen it since it was a longer than typical wingspan for this type of folding wing.

[@whyjnot420]

A thought about using "*** pirate" in a navy context... Just how long would it be before people started calling it the Ass Pirate?

[@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus]

69 seconds.

[@whyjnot420]

@@fantabuloussnuffaluffagus Quite right.

[@jagsdomain203]

I have been I to ww2 for 40 years and never heard of this intl I played world of warships

[@83-Outdoors]

Wings probably made that way for slower stall speed

[@chriskortan1530]

An interesting design with a lot of potential. It was doomed to failure like most of the late war super-props. The combined effect of the Navy's belief of "everything jet", fascination with single seat planes( something that seemingly comes in phases every ten years), and primarily a lack of vision about a different kind of multi-role aircraft for ASW or AEW. The big platform looks very capable of handling those roles. It took the US and Britain half a decade or more to come back with airplanes like the Tracker or the Gannet.

[@None-zc5vg]

The British Navy used an AEW-conversion of the Grumnan "Avenget' until the Fairey 'Gannet' went into service.

[@53kenner]

I don't think we can tell what any branch of the Armed Forces was thinking late in the war, at least not based on their purchases. The government was dead set on cutting back military production and returning to a peacetime economy -- which is why brand spanking new fighter planes were being flown straight from the factory to the wrecking yard -- common sense would have at least dictated holding onto those machines and scrapping out aircraft with a number of flight hours or poor maintenance logs. The Navy, in particular, had to keep fighting for its budget as the Air Force kept claiming that aircraft carriers were obsolete and they could maintain the peace with heavy bombers and nuclear weapons. New acquisition programs are hard to get rolling when you are spending a lot of your effort trying to keep them from taking everything away and shutting you down. Then Korea happened, air bases got over run, and carriers made the best possible argument for their existence by flying missions when little else was available.