Speaking of collaborations, have you heard of Oceanliner Designs? They recently did a video on the SS Malolo; it's a very interesting story on a ship with highly unique safety systems that were well ahead of their time that saved the ship on its maiden voyage. You should give them a look and see if a collaboration is worth it! Anyway, the question: Has any Navy ever build a ship with automated containment systems, such as automatically closing watertight doors (such as the SS Malolo), automatic pumps, etc?
I think for pure tech, Gregs aircraft and autos is the best for specs and aerodynamic info and a worthy reference from a engineer/pilot. Drach I cant tell you how you have changed my entire perspective on ships. Been here since the robo guides. Thank you, I have also been watching Rex, Semper Fi.
I have a friend of 101 years who flew Wildcats and Hellcats. He flew Wildcats at Guadalcanal off the small carriers. He is very sharp and alert and talks about the Wildcat like he just flew it yesterday.
Please, interview and get as much info from him written down as possible, if it's not a hassle. Very rare opportunity to get the firsthand account of a hero
A correction to your presentation. At the Battle of Midway, all the carrier-based fighters were F4F-4 models. The only F4F-3's were the few in the Marine Corp fighter squadron based on Midway.
I worked at Grumman when some WW2 era employees were till around. Grumman's design philosophy was always that you were designing a family of aircraft not an individual airplane. This allowed them to iterate changes quicker than some competitors like Brewster. Also as a Former Naval Pilot himself Leroy Grumman placed pilot safety high and sought out feed back from people flying the planes.
@@f1b0nacc1sequence7 I lived in Suffolk County, but worked for Grumman in Bethpage, Great River, and Bohemia, a few times. Last time was on the MQ4C and E2D.
My Grandmother worked at Grumman during WWII. As far as Brewster goes they couldn't build anything well. Between the management and the unions it was a nightmare from top to bottom.
Everyone knows and loves planes like the Mustang which did their part to bring Allied victory. That said, I've always had a soft spot for the planes that held the line at the beginning until better platforms could be mass produced. P-40, F4F, the Hurricane, etc. and the pilots who flew during those harrowing early war years are always looked highly upon by me.
The mustang was late enough in the war that it only had to fight second line German pilots. The true hero of the American aircraft in Europe was the Thunderbolt. That was there at the start of American involvement and had to face the last of the first line German pilots. It also was much more durable, had better performance at high altitude, and more range than the mustang when the thunderbolt was fitted with drop tanks.
That's how we got into two world wars. Arming a belligerent while pretending to be neutral and then delivering war material into and through declared war zones so companies could make money. Without guarantees that FDR would eventually bring the USA into the war the UK would have had to face reality and make peace. The extremely easy peace terms offered in July of 1940 wouldn't even have had been noticed by the UK. The terms did NOT include any surrender of the Royal Navy, any occupation of the UK, no reparations and the offer an alliance with Britain which included German divisions should they be required to defend the Empire. Accepting the German offer was a near thing and was so clearly not designed to destroy the British Empire that it also included a withdrawl of German troops from all of western Europe except for previous German territories retaken during the war (Alsace-Lorraine). All the Germans wanted was a free hand to deal with the Soviet Union which was clearly a growing threat to Europe and the world. This is not the entire German offer which was by all standards a very easy peace offer and kept secret until 2008 when the British people were finally permitted to see it. Instead FDR and Churchill got the world war that they wanted that included the total support of the Soviet Union after Stalin had already murdered 20+ million people by June of 1941. By the end of the war 10's of millions of people died that didn't have to. While this offer to the western Allies was on the table it was still possible to make peace with Germany until after Stalingrad (when they were SURE that they would eventually win the war when FDR and Churchill announced that their terms to end the war had changed to "Unconditional Surrender". This bit of genius also contributed to any negotiated peace being unacceptable and insured that millions more people had to die in Asia and Europe because of those two warmongers before the war could be ended. The same thing was going in WW1 when Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty and FDR was Assistant Sec of the US Navy. The ship's manifest of the Luisitania was falisfied and presented to Congress during it's investigation of the sinking of the HMS Luisitania. It denied the presense of munitions being carried by the liner which was in fact a badly kept secret, only officially verified when the ship was finally explored in the 1990's and found to be full of munitions of all types, exposing the Allied lies to the contrary.
Interesting observation . I shall investigate this further. Always been suspect of why the protracted lull in the war prior to the battle for Britain .
In the 90s I met a security guard who at the time was in his 70s working part time at a hospital I was working at. He was a former police officer and before that flew F4F Wildcats, then Hellcats then Corsairs. I talked to him frequently asking a million questions about each aircraft, training and his time in the war. He said he liked the Corsair the best as far as performance. Great guy. Old school no nonsense straight talking guy. A fighter pilot..One day he pulled out pictures of him and his squadron. He said the Hellcat felt like a quantum leap in every aspect. His daughter was involved in aviation but ended up colliding with another aircraft near Chicago and after that I heard he pretty much gave up and passed away 6 months later.
Oh sure. I'd believe a security guard, no problem. One that goes from an officer in the Air Force to hospital security guard. Did he have a bridge to sell you.?
@@otadashi1570 You’re a numnut Lol. He was well known had been a police officer after the war ect. and had been known in the community for years they had pictures of him in the lounge from newspapers dating back to WW2 and after. He was the town hero in Laporte Indiana. What are you like 16 years old? lol🤡
@@otadashi1570 After he retired…Lol. He was a local hero in Laporte Indiana. He lived there his whole life, everyone knew him and they had newspaper articles from the 40s when he served in WW2 and one picture in a Wildcat training at the naval flight training in Michigan. When he was in his 70s they let him serve in security in the hospital. What are you like 16 years old🤡
That "hand to hand" combat of a Wildcat with a bomber must have been the thrill of his life. Just the dogged determination of "I'm going to get you no matter what." or maybe even "Either you or me.".
I've really become a big fan of the Wildcat. While the Hellcat and the Corsair get the glory from the latter stages of the war, it was the Wildcat that fought the hard and critical battles during the first year. It's also great that Eric Brown gave it his seal of approval. I consider him the greatest pilot of all time.
Eric Brown is certainly someone who would be great to run into at a bar and regale one with tales of all of the planes that he was able to fly and contrast performances of. WW2 Stories From An RAF Ace | Captain Brown ua-cam.com/video/8sK0mZnBx94/v-deo.html
The Wildcat is definitely my favorite plane of WWII. While not as nimble as the Zero, the ruggedness, weapons, and the pilots who flew them showed it tenacity at a time the Americans (and British to an extent) needed it. I’m a docent at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo in Michigan and we have an FM-2 Wildcat there. What an amazing aircraft. Salute the F4F and P-40 for soldiering from America’s start to its end.
Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles has quite a thorough one and he delves in a lot of technical data from the period. He even points out that most of the heavy fighting up to Midway was done by the Wildcat rather than the more notorious Hellcat (if i am not mixing my warplane videos) :)).
Great name Potato Phil. Have great interest in the history of potatoes and their great significance for our modern history. Along with the impact of the Columbian age.
@@gusty9053 I like Greg's YT but being a ground pounder my eyes start to glaze over when he gets into a lot of the technical details. But his detail when comparing to other aircraft is very informative.
@@Piper44LMF I admit a lot of the technical stuff runs right over my head also but he does a great job of showing that things were not as cut and dry as we assume. Spitfire beats Bf109 beats P40. Ok... :)) what area, what year, which version, what fuel was available ?. And especially his massive video on the Jug was an eye opener: it had the range, it had the external fuel tanks, it could fight german fighters on an equal footing but when it came to escorting the bombers into Germany the "bomber mafia" chose not to use those capabilities and then lied about it to cover their massive mistake.
A relative that flew F4F’s and F6F’s during the war. He said a very frowned upon work around for the gear lowering issue was to unlock the crank, go into a dive, and then pull out hard. He said the handle would spin like crazy and lock into place really fast. Down side was that there were more than a couple of broken bones that had gotten in the way of the spinning crank.
Had to have been a Marine pilot in that Wildcat melee incident. The urge to engage in a boarding action is uncontrollable for a devil dog even if he's in the air.
When Drach first posted the story everybody just assumed it HAD to be a Marine pilot rather than Navy and that he had his Ka-Bar in his mouth in case it became a boarding action. Would have been more impressive if it was a Navy pilot. His being from the Yorktown would be belivable.
1:05:38 - Fleet Air Arm pilot Capt. Eric 'Wincle' Brown was impressed by the firepower of the Wildcat. He was used to the typical battery of .303" guns of the Fairey Fulmar. He downed a Focke-Wulf FW-200 Condor flying a Martlet (F4F) in a head-on attack and commented on how the nose of the Condor basically disintegrated from the .50 caliber Browning rounds.
@@SlavicCelery you are correct, however with the ever increasing closure speeds of the later fighters, one-second burst mass also became an important factor in combat
@@fletch4813 it was the foremost formidable fighter when it came to carrier operations. P-51s were land based. Comparing the 2 does a disservice to the pilots. They filled very different combat roles.
@@Marin3r101 I am well aware of the roles each aircraft played, but given my preference, it would be the Corsair, without devaluing the Mustang's contribution to the war effort. My position is that the Corsair in particular, and much of the PTO in general is significantly overlooked. Too few know of the role the Corsair had.
Aw yes! Ever since finding Rexs Hangar I always thought you two should collaborate. What I believe most think of as the equivalent channels for naval and aerial history.
What is ignored is that the Fleet Air Arm had Wildcats (then called Martlets on strength in the Autumn of 1940. Eric Brown, then a very junior pilot, was in one of the squadrons to be equipped and recalled the feeling of excited anticipation in the ready room as the Squadron CO picked up the first. He recalled a growing whining sound turning into a scream as the CO dove at their base, with all pilots piling out to see their new mount, abruptly pulled up and roared back into the sky, rolling over and over again. To a man, everyone was elated and eager to get into the cockpit. After working up, they were posted to a field just South of Scapa Flow., where two of their aircraft shot down a German snooper in December, the first kill by American made aircraft in WW2 - a year before Pearl Habor
One of the most underrated and underappreciated American fighters of WWII. The Wildcats took on the best Japan had to offer and more than held their own during the desperate days of 1942.
@@1who4me My Aunt was a US Army Neurosurgical Nurse stationed in Swindon England and her brother my Uncle was a US Army Air Corps Master Sergeant. DON'T KID YOURSELF ABOUT THE US in WWII!!! We were very fortunate to have things turn out well. My aunt told me not to "Buy Into All the Revisionist Trash" being floated around about WWII history. So I asked what she was exactly referring to and she told me she had made it through her time in England and was still young enough and lacking the points to get out sitting on a bench at Ft. Eustis, Va. with new orders to ship out to the Pacific when news of the first Atomic Bomb changed the course of many millions of lives. Within a few days the War was over. Up to that moment either life or death was but a turn of a trifle.
@@1who4me tbf, from 7/12/41 to early 1943, that's quite bad time for allied, especially for Pacific. Usually at bottom of supply lists, industrial advantage not fully kicked in yet (that night battle during Guadalcanal basically dealt serve blow if Japan were more smart) and while Japan would inevitably lost, it for certain gonna be longer war
@@1who4me Yes please tell that to the defenders of Bataan and Corregidor who listened to FDR's fireside chat in February 1942 and realized that no help was coming. One officer wrote in his diary that though "the President means to cheer us up," his talk "tends to weaken morale." "We are not interested in what the production will be in 1943-44 and 1945," he said. Yes Ben, tell them that there was no way the US was going to lose as the "Battling Bastards of Bataan" were short on food, medicine, airplanes, and ever increasingly...hope...and with the ever increasing prospect of death or capture.
I love how a true enthusiast/scholar can take a rather simple question like "tell us about the origins" and just go with a fantastic stream of information that would take me weeks to research myself. Thank you for bringing Rex on, I now have another channel to follow.
The wing is positioned through the middle of the fuselage not to make room for the gear, but rather to minimize the drag caused by the joining of the wing root to the fuselage. This is the same reason the f4u has the wings on an initial anhedral, to keep the joining directly perpendicular.
Excellent video Drach -- it's great to watch your video production skills continue to improve. This was also one of the better documentaries I've seen regarding the Grumman F4F Wildcat (and I've seen quite a few over the years). Rex is a great guest: very knowledgeable, articulate and pleasant to listen to (reasonable audio as well). He has instantly become one of my favorite Drachnifel guests! I hope you have him back again soon. Thank you, and keep up the great work ... your videos are very much appreciated (and continue to be one of the things I look forward to the most each week).
My daughter Jen shared her "Sweet Sixteen " party with Leroy Grumman's granddaughter who lived around the corner from us in Evanston. Her dad was David Grumman also an engineer. This represents our only addition to Grumman historiography. Since I am a lifelong free fighter and aviation enthusiast I wish I had gotten to know our around the corner neighbors more closely.
F4F has that self sealing fuel tank which is vital in stopping rounds from Japanese planes, although they're not that good in mid war time, they literally held their own against the top, elite and experienced Japanese airmen in the early war. Plus I really like Thach's Weave maneuver
Some Wildcat lore - the flaps were vacuum actuated, and there was no max speed for flap deployment, as they would stay up until airspeed dropped, then they'd do their vacuum thing and drop. One trick that was used was, if a Zero was on their tail, to put the flap lever down and pull into a tight turn. As speed bled off, the flaps would go down, causing the turn to suddenly tighten up, hopefully winding up inside the Zero. Maybe.
Always has been a favorite. Short, tubby, anything but cute but tougher than can be imagined. It had respectable performance and when flown by a pilot who knew how to use its strengths (and avoid the fight that the Japanese pilot was trained for) it ruined many a Japanese pilot's day. A version was STILL in use when the war ended. Well done.
Saw one at Kenosha airport that had recently been fished out of Lake Michigan. It had been flown out of Glenview NAS towards the traing carrier Wolverine and lost . Was to be restored.
I've always been very impressed with the Wildcat’s landing gear. it is a double A-frame like extreme off-road vehicles. You never see off road vehicles with a single strut suspension that is so common on other aircraft. Aircraft can hit the runway really hard, but only on an aircraft carrier, and especially a small escort carrier, does the runway also hit the aircraft as it can move vertically considerable amount. In consideration of strength to weight ratio the Wildcats landing gear layout is excellent. The five high stress points of an aircraft: the wing mounts, the landing gear mounts and the engine mount are all in the same small space, so the frame that must connect those high stress points Is minimal in size. The Wildcat and the BF109 are both well designed in that regard.
My two favorite historiographers (for things that float and things that fly) in the same place! It's a good day all around. I've always felt like Rex was basing a lot of how he did his video on Drac's channel. Thanks guys! Job well done.
I'd say one of the two best aviation guys at least from the history aspect. Greg's Planes and Automobiles goes much deeper into the technical details especially on the engine side.
@@mpetersen6 Greg's series on the P47 is a real eye opener. Pretty amazing the performance they squeezed out of it to the point where nothing short of jets could hang with it at certain altitudes.
I'd say the SBD won the Pacific war in '42, but the F4F won Guadalcanal. Sadly, the Wildcats did not make much of a contribution to the survivability of the Dauntlesses, due to numbers and poor communication, but luck was usually with them.
"best" is a rather subjective word. There were many planes that were better in a purely technical sense. The Hellcat was just an all around improvement with its better range, more powerful engine and hydraulic landing gear. You could argue that the F4F was the most important carrier fighter of WW2 holding the line against the Japanese for the first 2 years of the war and seeing the US through some of its most important battles in the Pacific. Hellcat certainly earned its place in annals of aviation history but the Wildcat will always be the plane that saw us through the darkest days of WW2.
About F4F combat tactics that is just brushed on, speed. After the capture and testing of the A6M in Alaska they discovered that about 270 Knots (I think) the forced needed to operate the flight stick of an A6M was about the same as trying to bend a steel bar! So keep you speed about 270 knots, and you can outmaneuver an A6M.
I am honored but please select another. Every bookcase I have is full on books on Aviation history, Naval History, or theology. Including two copies of the Boeing 314.
I'm sure that someone else has likely pointed this out but the F4F was one of TWO fighters that served from 41 to 45. There were other types that served through the same period.
@@donaldstraitiff7827 The video description says one of only two. But I question that if there were any P-40s still in combat units in 45. I'm thinking they may have still been used in the Aleutians
Love the Wildcat, a much under-rated aircraft. It became vital to the Fleet Air Arm, a far more effective fighter than Roc, Fulmar and Sea Hurricane. Once tactics had been established it was more than a match for the Zero. I was lucky to see one flying at Chino - Planes of Fame Museum.
That was fantastic Drach. Funnily enough Rex appeared in my sights a while ago because of my aviation interests just like you. Rex, keep doing what you're doing, it's great. I can't remember a channel growing so fast. Nice to see your face. Great explanation of the Wildcat. You kicked into touch a few things I thought about it. Also, you hear about Spitfires, Hurricanes and Swordfish in the UK but the Martlet gets little to no mention. We got them earlier in the war than I expected. Being English I always accepted that the USA had two plus years to practice before being forced into the war by Pearl Harbour. They certainly didn't want to be caught with biplanes by the time war happened. We were just chasing developments from Germany and got the Spitfire just in time.
there was a small-amount of them which who was aboard the royal-navy's aircraft-carriers which who was apart of the Convoy-Pedestal to-do And the Royal-Navy 's FAA which who had really liked them
Two bits; I'd read a way of lowering the hand cranked landing gear was to loosen the lock and put the plane in a slight dive. Viola! the gear would go down. Second, attributed to Joe Foss was the phrase 'If it's a Zero and a Wildcat; run. you're outnumbered.' Thanks for a very interesting show and a new channel to watch.
Watching this video on the Wildcat reminds me of an interview that the Time Life WW2 book series had on dogfights. From a surviving high scoring Japanese Ace, the interview told of an air battle between one WildCat and multiple Zeros over Guadalcanal. During a patrol, the aforementioned Japanese pilot is astonished to find a single American Wildcat diving, weaving and attacking several Japanese Zeros. The Wildcat does this several times, gaining height and diving for an attack before the aforementioned Japanese Ace tangles with him and eventually wins. Makes me wonder if the American pilot was part of that Flying Circus unit.
The reflective gunsights retrofitted to the early F4Fs had an interesting unintended consequence: because of their positioning on the dash, many, many pilots gashed open their foreheads on the sight by hitting it in rough landings or ditchings. There are even reports of pilots knocking themselves out hitting the things. Ouch.
My father trained in the F4F in Pensacola. All he found remarkable about the plane was the hand-crank landing gear. When taking off and trying to crank up, if your hand slipped on the hand crank, the handle would whip around and crack you in the wrist. He LOVED flying the SNJ, and was deployed to the Pacific with VMF-111 anad the F4U. My understanding is that VMF-111 was the first squadron deoplyed to the Pacific with the Corsair.
My two favourite channels in a co-op??? Bonus! Well done. I always had a thing for the F4F ever since I was a kid of 8, when my birthday present was a book called "Wings of Fame" detailing some of the aviation greats. Capt. Joe Foss. MoH, great flyer, First Ace of Aces in WWII.
Who can't love the Wildcat. It's the American Hurricane. Robust, solid performer, not a leader in anything specific but, the definition of yeoman service. Like the Hurricane, it emerged pre war and served all through the war, despite vastly superior aircraft being available. They also both relied on simple pre war construction techniques that kept them flying when more sophisticated aircraft would be at the repair depot.
Loved this one this was another subject my grandpa talked about was Navy Fighters and he always said the Wildcat was the hero of the Pacific it held the line when Japan was an actual threat and as touched on at the end of the video the Wildcat decimated Japan’s experienced pilots so that when the Hellcat snd Corsairs came in to get the “glory” they were doing mop up duty as Japans pilot corps were destroyed and the war was no longer in doubt it was just a matter of how long the Japanese were gonna fight but the final outcome was inevitable.
YES PLEASE for the 6 hour doctrine video !!! It’s truly great when the videos go deep into details, there is enough short scratch the surface stuff out there, so please please go ahead Tex or the both of you together 😊😊
The Thach Weave (or "Beam Defense") took advantage of the US Navy's emphasis on deflection shooting, which was almost (but not quite) unique among the world's air forces and particularly suited to the F4F because of its short nose and high pilot position. The attacking element would have full or partial deflection shots on the enemy behind the defending element (which would, of course, be absorbing .303 rounds from the Zero's MGs the whole time). Even a bastardized version of this with three planes (one without a radio) worked very well at Midway.
Mr Brown did not only have the experience to compare a plane with allied models, he also flew all important german models as well, including the Me 163(powered!)
I stumbled upon Rex's Hangar a few months ago and after watching a couple of videos, I immediately taught, hm... this guy seems to me like a sky oriented version of Drachinifel :o) nice to see a colab ;o) GJ! guys ;o)
Oh it's Rex's Hangar with you! Was already wondering who the fine gentleman was. Love his channel too, really good one here, keep up the good work Drach! Regards
Loved this. Follow both of you regularly. Please do it again. Corsair would be a good one. American purpose designed carrier plane which was difficult to land, on a carrier! Brits figured it out and taught the Yanks. Went on to serve well beyond WW2. I'm in Houston and hope to get down to Galveston next weekend to check out the progress on BB35. Cheers!
The USN had the Hellcat for carrier ops and the Navy and Marine Corps operated Corsairs from land where they could be loaded to the max with bombs for ground support. The RN used Corsairs on carriers because it did not have anything better. According to wiki the first RN Corsair pilots trained in the US.
When the XF4U-1 was originally built, its canopy was much further forward, with the fuselage fuel tank behind the pilot. For weight balance, the cockpit was moved back with the fuel tank in front, which meant it was basically impossible to see the deck when landing. Corsairs were making carrier trials as they officially entered service in the last month of 1942, a solid six months before the Hellcat entered service. Obviously it could be operated from carriers, but not easily, and it was considered too dangerous, particularly under the manpower and training requirements of USN aviators in late 1942. Vought took a number of steps to improve its carrier handling, but the Hellcat was still easier to land with good-enough performance for the Navy, and remained the premier carrier fighter. British Corsair pilots trained with the Americans, who were obviously most familiar with the plane, that's nothing new. What they had done was adapt their typically shorter final approaches and sharper turn onto the fantail to the Corsair, improving visibility and only losing sight of the deck at the last minute. This was about mid-1944, and after finding success with this method, they quickly contacted the US, who adopted the same pattern and finally started to put Corsairs on carriers.
Honorable mention to the Wildcats of VF-9 which participated in operation TORCH on Ranger and shot down several enemy aircraft. VF-9's first victories were in North Africa. (They're also the first squadron to get the F6F)
Good timing, in the middle of the 18 hour Shattered Sword audiobook about Midway and just reached the part about the Thatch Wave. Hopefully in another hour of audiobook we will advance 10 minutes to the SBD Dauntless dive bombing run. Highly recommended if you like long audiobooks. :)
I was really hoping you would mention Leyte, because all of those escort carriers in the area threw up every aircraft they had,loaded with whatever they had to create any kind of threat so the carriers could escape, turns out almost all were wildcats. Some brave men attacking the Yamato with empty machine guns.
Depth charges, if set for shallow detonation could cause some hull damage if dropped just ahead of a surface ship. So the antisub armed wildcats could have done some serious damage.
Terrific video! Excellent film and photos of my favorite underrated plane of WWII. Well researched and informative. If I might say, I believe that the P-38 was in service throughout the war, in addition to the P-40 and the F4F. In any case, Mahalo for the post and Aloha!
So happy you guys went over this! A feature length conversation about my favorite plane? Glad the F4F Wildcat is getting so much exposure on your channel
Not mentioned here is that most Japanese pilots had the HEAVY radios removed , they seldom were of any use , very poor electronics. The U.S. Navy planes radios worked well enough most of the time to enable coordinated operations . A sound advantage lol
All of the radios allied/axis suffered in the Pacific theater. There was a large amount of solar flare/radiation during the primary years of combat. Effectively limiting range and clarity of radio transmissions.
Excellent episode! I subscribe to both this channel and Rex's Hanger and think this collaboration was very good. Thanks to both of you for doing this and I look forward to future collaborations when the Venn Diagram of ships and aircraft overlap!
I've always loved the Wildcat. This is the fighter that held the line in the first year of the Pacific war when Japan still had her best trained and most experienced pilots.
A great collaboration by both of you. I enjoyed it and it covered one of my favorite aircraft. Well done and thank you both for the effort. It was a pleasant surprise to hear you mention VMA-121 and Joe Foss. I believe I saw some 121 Wildcat photos early in the video also. A great unit with a great historty and aircraft lineage to this very day. Now, I may show a little favoritism to 121 since I was in the unit during another Ironworks aircraft tenure in the unit. The A-6E Intruder. Humbly
Great Vid! Drach on the naval side and Rex on the aerial side. Fantastic! and, in the middle, the legendary Wildcat! Too interesting and illuminating! Great Vid!!!!!!"!
I remember reading a book about the Battle of Midway and I wish I could remember the author that didn't mince words by stating that the Grumman Wildcat was proving to be a "turkey" in combat with Japanese fighters. However it's ability to take punishment alleviated some of it's shortcomings. A Japanese Zero pilot's after action report stated that he'd used up all of his ammunition after pumping nearly 500 rounds into a Wildcat but it kept flying and he had to let it go. He knew a Zero would have disintegrated taking abuse like that.
Look at the two First Team books on naval aircraft at war from Pearl Harbor to the end of Guadalcanal. He looks into both Japanese and American reports to document just about every naval fighter action, counting up actual losses documented by both sides, and my memory is that carrier Wildcats and Zeroes were something like 94-93 in kills.
@6:44 ? One of the types employed by the USN in airship service- being launched & received in the dirigable's hangars. Astounding in many ways, those 1930s..... 🚬😎
Germany had problems creating self sealing fuel tanks. When they did, there was about a year where engines were blowing up for no known reason. It was eventually discovered the self sealing liners were depleting the fuel octane value leading to engine knock and holed pistons.
Fantastic coverage - brought back questions I pondered as a kid building the Revell and Monogram plastic models. I recall my dad mentioning the landing gear being narrow, I wish he was still around to get the history on why.
Recently discovered Kermit Weeks. an aircraft collector in Florida. He has the Wildcat in his collection. He also has a Sunderland flying boat among a large number of other examples. Many planes are flyable.
Pinned post for Q&A :) (Re-uploaded due to audio/play issues with the first version)
Speaking of collaborations, have you heard of Oceanliner Designs? They recently did a video on the SS Malolo; it's a very interesting story on a ship with highly unique safety systems that were well ahead of their time that saved the ship on its maiden voyage. You should give them a look and see if a collaboration is worth it!
Anyway, the question: Has any Navy ever build a ship with automated containment systems, such as automatically closing watertight doors (such as the SS Malolo), automatic pumps, etc?
Has any battleship/big gun ship experimented with putting HEVT fuzes on their main guns? Seems like they would be devastating against formations.
I think for pure tech, Gregs aircraft and autos is the best for specs and aerodynamic info and a worthy reference from a engineer/pilot.
Drach I cant tell you how you have changed my entire perspective on ships.
Been here since the robo guides. Thank you, I have also been watching Rex,
Semper Fi.
Still no sound
I hope you will do more collaborations with Rex I'd love to see a video on German WW2 seaplanes they are an often underestimated and underrated group
I have a friend of 101 years who flew Wildcats and Hellcats. He flew Wildcats at Guadalcanal off the small carriers. He is very sharp and alert and talks about the Wildcat like he just flew it yesterday.
Do a video interview with him while you still can. Irreplaceable memories.
Please, interview and get as much info from him written down as possible, if it's not a hassle. Very rare opportunity to get the firsthand account of a hero
Friends for 101 years - that's an accomplishment in itself! 😜
Talk and record, please! Living memory is priceless...
If you don't feel capable contact the National WW2 Museum, they will find someone who can do the interview.
Thanks for having me on! Was fun to talk about this flying barrel of a plane :D
(Hopefully youtube doesn't break this one lol)
Ah yes, both my favorite military historical UA-cam channels! 😊
Thanks for playing along ...
@@Hiznogood i've got 4; Drach, Rex, C&Rsenal, and Mark Novak (the guy behind the Anvil Episodes that were on the C&Rsenal channel)
A correction to your presentation. At the Battle of Midway, all the carrier-based fighters were F4F-4 models. The only F4F-3's were the few in the Marine Corp fighter squadron based on Midway.
Probably should add Greg’s airplanes and automobiles.
I worked at Grumman when some WW2 era employees were till around. Grumman's design philosophy was always that you were designing a family of aircraft not an individual airplane. This allowed them to iterate changes quicker than some competitors like Brewster. Also as a Former Naval Pilot himself Leroy Grumman placed pilot safety high and sought out feed back from people flying the planes.
Likely we were neighbors then....my folks lived in Plainview from the 60s on. I drove past the Grumman plant in Bethpage on a regular basis!
That's a really good philosophy tbh.
@@f1b0nacc1sequence7 I lived in Suffolk County, but worked for Grumman in Bethpage, Great River, and Bohemia, a few times. Last time was on the MQ4C and E2D.
My Grandmother worked at Grumman during WWII.
As far as Brewster goes they couldn't build anything well. Between the management and the unions it was a nightmare from top to bottom.
That's why Grumman was called the Iron Works by naval pilots.
Everyone knows and loves planes like the Mustang which did their part to bring Allied victory. That said, I've always had a soft spot for the planes that held the line at the beginning until better platforms could be mass produced. P-40, F4F, the Hurricane, etc. and the pilots who flew during those harrowing early war years are always looked highly upon by me.
The mustang was late enough in the war that it only had to fight second line German pilots. The true hero of the American aircraft in Europe was the Thunderbolt. That was there at the start of American involvement and had to face the last of the first line German pilots. It also was much more durable, had better performance at high altitude, and more range than the mustang when the thunderbolt was fitted with drop tanks.
That's how we got into two world wars. Arming a belligerent while pretending to be neutral and then delivering war material into and through declared war zones so companies could make money. Without guarantees that FDR would eventually bring the USA into the war the UK would have had to face reality and make peace. The extremely easy peace terms offered in July of 1940 wouldn't even have had been noticed by the UK. The terms did NOT include any surrender of the Royal Navy, any occupation of the UK, no reparations and the offer an alliance with Britain which included German divisions should they be required to defend the Empire. Accepting the German offer was a near thing and was so clearly not designed to destroy the British Empire that it also included a withdrawl of German troops from all of western Europe except for previous German territories retaken during the war (Alsace-Lorraine). All the Germans wanted was a free hand to deal with the Soviet Union which was clearly a growing threat to Europe and the world. This is not the entire German offer which was by all standards a very easy peace offer and kept secret until 2008 when the British people were finally permitted to see it. Instead FDR and Churchill got the world war that they wanted that included the total support of the Soviet Union after Stalin had already murdered 20+ million people by June of 1941. By the end of the war 10's of millions of people died that didn't have to. While this offer to the western Allies was on the table it was still possible to make peace with Germany until after Stalingrad (when they were SURE that they would eventually win the war when FDR and Churchill announced that their terms to end the war had changed to "Unconditional Surrender". This bit of genius also contributed to any negotiated peace being unacceptable and insured that millions more people had to die in Asia and Europe because of those two warmongers before the war could be ended.
The same thing was going in WW1 when Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty and FDR was Assistant Sec of the US Navy. The ship's manifest of the Luisitania was falisfied and presented to Congress during it's investigation of the sinking of the HMS Luisitania. It denied the presense of munitions being carried by the liner which was in fact a badly kept secret, only officially verified when the ship was finally explored in the 1990's and found to be full of munitions of all types, exposing the Allied lies to the contrary.
@@karlheinzvonkroemann2217 TLDR Nazi troll.
Interesting observation . I shall investigate this further. Always been suspect of why the protracted lull in the war prior to the battle for Britain .
Sir, this is a Wendy's.
In the 90s I met a security guard who at the time was in his 70s working part time at a hospital I was working at. He was a former police officer and before that flew F4F Wildcats, then Hellcats then Corsairs. I talked to him frequently asking a million questions about each aircraft, training and his time in the war. He said he liked the Corsair the best as far as performance. Great guy. Old school no nonsense straight talking guy. A fighter pilot..One day he pulled out pictures of him and his squadron. He said the Hellcat felt like a quantum leap in every aspect. His daughter was involved in aviation but ended up colliding with another aircraft near Chicago and after that I heard he pretty much gave up and passed away 6 months later.
Oh sure. I'd believe a security guard, no problem. One that goes from an officer in the Air Force to hospital security guard. Did he have a bridge to sell you.?
@@otadashi1570 You’re a numnut Lol. He was well known had been a police officer after the war ect. and had been known in the community for years they had pictures of him in the lounge from newspapers dating back to WW2 and after. He was the town hero in Laporte Indiana. What are you like 16 years old? lol🤡
@@otadashi1570 After he retired…Lol. He was a local hero in Laporte Indiana. He lived there his whole life, everyone knew him and they had newspaper articles from the 40s when he served in WW2 and one picture in a Wildcat training at the naval flight training in Michigan. When he was in his 70s they let him serve in security in the hospital. What are you like 16 years old🤡
That "hand to hand" combat of a Wildcat with a bomber must have been the thrill of his life. Just the dogged determination of "I'm going to get you no matter what." or maybe even "Either you or me.".
Imagine being the guys in the bomber.
@@adambielen8996 when you realize your warrior spirit isn't about to save Japan from these dudes
@@theamericanpotatonamedphil4306 Wildcat pilot taking a tantrum after his ammo runs out, "YOU. WILL.GO.DOWN!!!" STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!
"I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me." determination!
I've really become a big fan of the Wildcat. While the Hellcat and the Corsair get the glory from the latter stages of the war, it was the Wildcat that fought the hard and critical battles during the first year. It's also great that Eric Brown gave it his seal of approval. I consider him the greatest pilot of all time.
Eric Brown is certainly someone who would be great to run into at a bar and regale one with tales of all of the planes that he was able to fly and contrast performances of. WW2 Stories From An RAF Ace | Captain Brown ua-cam.com/video/8sK0mZnBx94/v-deo.html
The Wildcat is definitely my favorite plane of WWII. While not as nimble as the Zero, the ruggedness, weapons, and the pilots who flew them showed it tenacity at a time the Americans (and British to an extent) needed it. I’m a docent at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo in Michigan and we have an FM-2 Wildcat there. What an amazing aircraft. Salute the F4F and P-40 for soldiering from America’s start to its end.
Lucky to have your favorite confirmed. Now I can get on with things. Greatest relief.
I've always thought that the Lunar Module (built by Grumman) should have been called the Moon Cat.😇
Actually. It was Norhtrop design that Grumman reverted to, after winning the contract with their shitty design.
And the USPS delivery cars should be called the Mail Cat
This is the video I've been wanting the wildcat doesn't get enough love
TAPNP..................help rehab the O'hare name in Chicago !!!!!
Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles has quite a thorough one and he delves in a lot of technical data from the period. He even points out that most of the heavy fighting up to Midway was done by the Wildcat rather than the more notorious Hellcat (if i am not mixing my warplane videos) :)).
Great name Potato Phil. Have great interest in the history of potatoes and their great significance for our modern history. Along with the impact of the Columbian age.
@@gusty9053 I like Greg's YT but being a ground pounder my eyes start to glaze over when he gets into a lot of the technical details. But his detail when comparing to other aircraft is very informative.
@@Piper44LMF I admit a lot of the technical stuff runs right over my head also but he does a great job of showing that things were not as cut and dry as we assume. Spitfire beats Bf109 beats P40. Ok... :)) what area, what year, which version, what fuel was available ?. And especially his massive video on the Jug was an eye opener: it had the range, it had the external fuel tanks, it could fight german fighters on an equal footing but when it came to escorting the bombers into Germany the "bomber mafia" chose not to use those capabilities and then lied about it to cover their massive mistake.
A relative that flew F4F’s and F6F’s during the war. He said a very frowned upon work around for the gear lowering issue was to unlock the crank, go into a dive, and then pull out hard. He said the handle would spin like crazy and lock into place really fast. Down side was that there were more than a couple of broken bones that had gotten in the way of the spinning crank.
I do like this pragmatic procedure 😂
I recall Capt Brown also advocating this in one of his interview s
@Drachinifel0 Congrats Packer, a Drach invitation is one of a kind!! Would not miss it for a fortune 😉
Had to have been a Marine pilot in that Wildcat melee incident. The urge to engage in a boarding action is uncontrollable for a devil dog even if he's in the air.
FIX LANDING GEAR! CHARRRRRGE!!
"Fly closer! I want to hit them with my plane!"
It does fit with the Marine mentality that is for sure.
When Drach first posted the story everybody just assumed it HAD to be a Marine pilot rather than Navy and that he had his Ka-Bar in his mouth in case it became a boarding action. Would have been more impressive if it was a Navy pilot. His being from the Yorktown would be belivable.
@@hokutoulrik7345 Marine Mentality - Dumber than a pile of rocks
1:05:38 - Fleet Air Arm pilot Capt. Eric 'Wincle' Brown was impressed by the firepower of the Wildcat. He was used to the typical battery of .303" guns of the Fairey Fulmar.
He downed a Focke-Wulf FW-200 Condor flying a Martlet (F4F) in a head-on attack and commented on how the nose of the Condor basically disintegrated from the .50 caliber Browning rounds.
People want to crap on the .50 cal Browning MG not being a cannon. Those people have not witnessed the hate/freedom 4-8 of those can throw down range
@@SlavicCelery you are correct, however with the ever increasing closure speeds of the later fighters, one-second burst mass also became an important factor in combat
@@starliner2498 And that's where the increased ROF of the late war M2 for air combat came into play.
The late war M2 ironically was still the AN/M2 used on pretty much all american aircraft. The AN/M3 was introduced after the war
@@justinebautista1383 Bingo bango bongo. There you go. Not exactly a slow firing gun by any measurement.
I will impatiently await for the story of the F4U Corsair. Very interesting aircraft.
For all the respect the Mustang gets, I will take the Corsair every time. The Hog was a beast in 2 wars
@@fletch4813 it was the foremost formidable fighter when it came to carrier operations. P-51s were land based. Comparing the 2 does a disservice to the pilots. They filled very different combat roles.
@@Marin3r101 I am well aware of the roles each aircraft played, but given my preference, it would be the Corsair, without devaluing the Mustang's contribution to the war effort. My position is that the Corsair in particular, and much of the PTO in general is significantly overlooked. Too few know of the role the Corsair had.
Mee too
P-51 also flew in the USAF and RoKAF in Korea…
Aw yes! Ever since finding Rexs Hangar I always thought you two should collaborate. What I believe most think of as the equivalent channels for naval and aerial history.
And Rex recently did a video on "Ugliest French Aircraft" that's a great companion piece to Drach's "When Hotels go to War"!
@@Jimorian you are all jealous of our natural sense for fashion 😜
What is ignored is that the Fleet Air Arm had Wildcats (then called Martlets on strength in the Autumn of 1940. Eric Brown, then a very junior pilot, was in one of the squadrons to be equipped and recalled the feeling of excited anticipation in the ready room as the Squadron CO picked up the first. He recalled a growing whining sound turning into a scream as the CO dove at their base, with all pilots piling out to see their new mount, abruptly pulled up and roared back into the sky, rolling over and over again. To a man, everyone was elated and eager to get into the cockpit. After working up, they were posted to a field just South of Scapa Flow., where two of their aircraft shot down a German snooper in December, the first kill by American made aircraft in WW2 - a year before Pearl Habor
One of the most underrated and underappreciated American fighters of WWII. The Wildcats took on the best Japan had to offer and more than held their own during the desperate days of 1942.
Desperate? Hardly. There’s no way we were losing the war
@@1who4me My Aunt was a US Army Neurosurgical Nurse stationed in Swindon England and her brother my Uncle was a US Army Air Corps Master Sergeant. DON'T KID YOURSELF ABOUT THE US in WWII!!! We were very fortunate to have things turn out well. My aunt told me not to "Buy Into All the Revisionist Trash" being floated around about WWII history. So I asked what she was exactly referring to and she told me she had made it through her time in England and was still young enough and lacking the points to get out sitting on a bench at Ft. Eustis, Va. with new orders to ship out to the Pacific when news of the first Atomic Bomb changed the course of many millions of lives. Within a few days the War was over. Up to that moment either life or death was but a turn of a trifle.
@@1who4me tbf, from 7/12/41 to early 1943, that's quite bad time for allied, especially for Pacific. Usually at bottom of supply lists, industrial advantage not fully kicked in yet (that night battle during Guadalcanal basically dealt serve blow if Japan were more smart) and while Japan would inevitably lost, it for certain gonna be longer war
@@1who4me Yes please tell that to the defenders of Bataan and Corregidor who listened to FDR's fireside chat in February 1942 and realized that no help was coming. One officer wrote in his diary that though "the President means to cheer us up," his talk "tends to weaken morale." "We are not interested in what the production will be in 1943-44 and 1945," he said.
Yes Ben, tell them that there was no way the US was going to lose as the "Battling Bastards of Bataan" were short on food, medicine, airplanes, and ever increasingly...hope...and with the ever increasing prospect of death or capture.
I love how a true enthusiast/scholar can take a rather simple question like "tell us about the origins" and just go with a fantastic stream of information that would take me weeks to research myself. Thank you for bringing Rex on, I now have another channel to follow.
The wing is positioned through the middle of the fuselage not to make room for the gear, but rather to minimize the drag caused by the joining of the wing root to the fuselage. This is the same reason the f4u has the wings on an initial anhedral, to keep the joining directly perpendicular.
Excellent video Drach -- it's great to watch your video production skills continue to improve. This was also one of the better documentaries I've seen regarding the Grumman F4F Wildcat (and I've seen quite a few over the years). Rex is a great guest: very knowledgeable, articulate and pleasant to listen to (reasonable audio as well). He has instantly become one of my favorite Drachnifel guests! I hope you have him back again soon. Thank you, and keep up the great work ... your videos are very much appreciated (and continue to be one of the things I look forward to the most each week).
If your hobby becomes your full time job you are doing very well!
My daughter Jen shared her "Sweet Sixteen " party with Leroy Grumman's granddaughter who lived around the corner from us in Evanston. Her dad was David Grumman also an engineer. This represents our only addition to Grumman historiography. Since I am a lifelong free fighter and aviation enthusiast I wish I had gotten to know our around the corner neighbors more closely.
The title on this video is NEXT LEVEL! Great video as always.
F4F has that self sealing fuel tank which is vital in stopping rounds from Japanese planes, although they're not that good in mid war time, they literally held their own against the top, elite and experienced Japanese airmen in the early war. Plus I really like Thach's Weave maneuver
Some Wildcat lore - the flaps were vacuum actuated, and there was no max speed for flap deployment, as they would stay up until airspeed dropped, then they'd do their vacuum thing and drop. One trick that was used was, if a Zero was on their tail, to put the flap lever down and pull into a tight turn. As speed bled off, the flaps would go down, causing the turn to suddenly tighten up, hopefully winding up inside the Zero. Maybe.
Ayo Rex's first major collab and its with drach, lets go!
Always has been a favorite. Short, tubby, anything but cute but tougher than can be imagined. It had respectable performance and when flown by a pilot who knew how to use its strengths (and avoid the fight that the Japanese pilot was trained for) it ruined many a Japanese pilot's day. A version was STILL in use when the war ended. Well done.
I'm a fan of Rex's videos, so great to see him on Drac's channel.
Saw one at Kenosha airport that had recently been fished out of Lake Michigan. It had been flown out of Glenview NAS towards the traing carrier Wolverine and lost . Was to be restored.
I've always been very impressed with the Wildcat’s landing gear. it is a double A-frame like extreme off-road vehicles. You never see off road vehicles with a single strut suspension that is so common on other aircraft. Aircraft can hit the runway really hard, but only on an aircraft carrier, and especially a small escort carrier, does the runway also hit the aircraft as it can move vertically considerable amount. In consideration of strength to weight ratio the Wildcats landing gear layout is excellent. The five high stress points of an aircraft: the wing mounts, the landing gear mounts and the engine mount are all in the same small space, so the frame that must connect those high stress points Is minimal in size. The Wildcat and the BF109 are both well designed in that regard.
Rex's Hangar and Drachinifel. And it's not yet Christmas.
My two favorite historiographers (for things that float and things that fly) in the same place! It's a good day all around. I've always felt like Rex was basing a lot of how he did his video on Drac's channel. Thanks guys! Job well done.
Best naval guy in YT, with best aircraft guy, with best plane of WWII (its easy to be better in 44 vs noobs in old zeros... But F4F won the war in 42)
I'd say one of the two best aviation guys at least from the history aspect. Greg's Planes and Automobiles goes much deeper into the technical details especially on the engine side.
@@mpetersen6 Greg's series on the P47 is a real eye opener. Pretty amazing the performance they squeezed out of it to the point where nothing short of jets could hang with it at certain altitudes.
I'd say the SBD won the Pacific war in '42, but the F4F won Guadalcanal. Sadly, the Wildcats did not make much of a contribution to the survivability of the Dauntlesses, due to numbers and poor communication, but luck was usually with them.
@@mpetersen6 His P47 vids were so informative. I learned a ton.
"best" is a rather subjective word. There were many planes that were better in a purely technical sense. The Hellcat was just an all around improvement with its better range, more powerful engine and hydraulic landing gear. You could argue that the F4F was the most important carrier fighter of WW2 holding the line against the Japanese for the first 2 years of the war and seeing the US through some of its most important battles in the Pacific. Hellcat certainly earned its place in annals of aviation history but the Wildcat will always be the plane that saw us through the darkest days of WW2.
Two of my very favorite military historians with one click, for almost 2 hours? Brilliant!
Just need to get gregs airplanes and automobiles into the mix aswell for the perfect trifector 👌
Yes. Absolute bliss! 🙂
Made my wife go to sleep…great - all my attention on the terrific film and photos.
About F4F combat tactics that is just brushed on, speed. After the capture and testing of the A6M in Alaska they discovered that about 270 Knots (I think) the forced needed to operate the flight stick of an A6M was about the same as trying to bend a steel bar! So keep you speed about 270 knots, and you can outmaneuver an A6M.
I am honored but please select another. Every bookcase I have is full on books on Aviation history, Naval History, or theology. Including two copies of the Boeing 314.
I'm sure that someone else has likely pointed this out but the F4F was one of TWO fighters that served from 41 to 45. There were other types that served through the same period.
Lol, Rex points it out in the video
They did specify that the P40 was serving the same time period.
@@donaldstraitiff7827
The video description says one of only two. But I question that if there were any P-40s still in combat units in 45. I'm thinking they may have still been used in the Aleutians
The P-38 was in pre-war service and brand-new examples were being delivered straight into the scrap pile in the summer of '45.
@@BogeyTheBear P38 was an interceptor though.
Love the Wildcat, a much under-rated aircraft. It became vital to the Fleet Air Arm, a far more effective fighter than Roc, Fulmar and Sea Hurricane. Once tactics had been established it was more than a match for the Zero. I was lucky to see one flying at Chino - Planes of Fame Museum.
Great timing, I've just got back from seeing the USE Gerald R Ford in Southampton water. Great colab. I enjoy both your channels.
Excellent news.
A video with two of my favourite creators.
Wonderful, thanks guys.
That was fantastic Drach. Funnily enough Rex appeared in my sights a while ago because of my aviation interests just like you. Rex, keep doing what you're doing, it's great. I can't remember a channel growing so fast. Nice to see your face. Great explanation of the Wildcat. You kicked into touch a few things I thought about it. Also, you hear about Spitfires, Hurricanes and Swordfish in the UK but the Martlet gets little to no mention. We got them earlier in the war than I expected. Being English I always accepted that the USA had two plus years to practice before being forced into the war by Pearl Harbour. They certainly didn't want to be caught with biplanes by the time war happened. We were just chasing developments from Germany and got the Spitfire just in time.
there was a small-amount of them which who was aboard the royal-navy's aircraft-carriers which who was apart of the Convoy-Pedestal to-do And the Royal-Navy 's FAA which who had really liked them
@@jonathanstrong4812 Cheers mate. I rather guessed they'd be in the Fleet Air Arm. Great show though.
Two bits; I'd read a way of lowering the hand cranked landing gear was to loosen the lock and put the plane in a slight dive. Viola! the gear would go down.
Second, attributed to Joe Foss was the phrase 'If it's a Zero and a Wildcat; run. you're outnumbered.' Thanks for a very interesting show and a new channel to watch.
Thx for fixing audio issues. Very good presentation 😊👍
Thank you Drach, I love these interviews! Good job getting such well informed and eloquent guests!
This and the zero video are masterpieces. Hopefully an F6F and F4U vid in the future
Watching this video on the Wildcat reminds me of an interview that the Time Life WW2 book series had on dogfights.
From a surviving high scoring Japanese Ace, the interview told of an air battle between one WildCat and multiple Zeros over Guadalcanal.
During a patrol, the aforementioned Japanese pilot is astonished to find a single American Wildcat diving, weaving and attacking several Japanese Zeros.
The Wildcat does this several times, gaining height and diving for an attack before the aforementioned Japanese Ace tangles with him and eventually wins.
Makes me wonder if the American pilot was part of that Flying Circus unit.
The reflective gunsights retrofitted to the early F4Fs had an interesting unintended consequence: because of their positioning on the dash, many, many pilots gashed open their foreheads on the sight by hitting it in rough landings or ditchings. There are even reports of pilots knocking themselves out hitting the things. Ouch.
My father trained in the F4F in Pensacola. All he found remarkable about the plane was the hand-crank landing gear. When taking off and trying to crank up, if your hand slipped on the hand crank, the handle would whip around and crack you in the wrist. He LOVED flying the SNJ, and was deployed to the Pacific with VMF-111 anad the F4U. My understanding is that VMF-111 was the first squadron deoplyed to the Pacific with the Corsair.
My two favourite channels in a co-op??? Bonus! Well done. I always had a thing for the F4F ever since I was a kid of 8, when my birthday present was a book called "Wings of Fame" detailing some of the aviation greats. Capt. Joe Foss. MoH, great flyer, First Ace of Aces in WWII.
Who can't love the Wildcat. It's the American Hurricane. Robust, solid performer, not a leader in anything specific but, the definition of yeoman service. Like the Hurricane, it emerged pre war and served all through the war, despite vastly superior aircraft being available. They also both relied on simple pre war construction techniques that kept them flying when more sophisticated aircraft would be at the repair depot.
It’s also adorable.
Hurries were made of steel and wood and doped fabric, Wildcats were not.
@@nickdanger3802 Ahh, here comes the rivet counters. I think you're missing my point.
Loved this one this was another subject my grandpa talked about was Navy Fighters and he always said the Wildcat was the hero of the Pacific it held the line when Japan was an actual threat and as touched on at the end of the video the Wildcat decimated Japan’s experienced pilots so that when the Hellcat snd Corsairs came in to get the “glory” they were doing mop up duty as Japans pilot corps were destroyed and the war was no longer in doubt it was just a matter of how long the Japanese were gonna fight but the final outcome was inevitable.
My two favorite UA-cam channels put together! I’m a pilot and a history nerd. You guys are awesome!
Excellent rendition of this rugged bird. Thanks very much.
YES PLEASE for the 6 hour doctrine video !!! It’s truly great when the videos go deep into details, there is enough short scratch the surface stuff out there, so please please go ahead Tex or the both of you together 😊😊
Thanks for the quality content guys!
Thanks for both your military history channels! I watch them a lot!
The Thach Weave (or "Beam Defense") took advantage of the US Navy's emphasis on deflection shooting, which was almost (but not quite) unique among the world's air forces and particularly suited to the F4F because of its short nose and high pilot position. The attacking element would have full or partial deflection shots on the enemy behind the defending element (which would, of course, be absorbing .303 rounds from the Zero's MGs the whole time). Even a bastardized version of this with three planes (one without a radio) worked very well at Midway.
Outstanding Lads!
An incredible aircraft. It was one of the first WWII planes I read about and built as a model. Just looking at makes me smile. Thank you, Drach!
Mr Brown did not only have the experience to compare a plane with allied models, he also flew all important german models as well, including the Me 163(powered!)
I was just having trouble loading the original version so thanks for re-upload!
Was it the whole video? Or just parts of it? I had no issues on my end.
@@TheEDFLegacy I couldn’t load the video at all. I think it was a problem with mobile.
This video finally gave me the reasons behind the iterative changes to my Wildcats while playing IL-2 1946 Career Mode.
I stumbled upon Rex's Hangar a few months ago and after watching a couple of videos, I immediately taught, hm... this guy seems to me like a sky oriented version of Drachinifel :o) nice to see a colab ;o) GJ! guys ;o)
Oh it's Rex's Hangar with you! Was already wondering who the fine gentleman was. Love his channel too, really good one here, keep up the good work Drach!
Regards
Loved this. Follow both of you regularly. Please do it again. Corsair would be a good one. American purpose designed carrier plane which was difficult to land, on a carrier! Brits figured it out and taught the Yanks. Went on to serve well beyond WW2. I'm in Houston and hope to get down to Galveston next weekend to check out the progress on BB35. Cheers!
The USN had the Hellcat for carrier ops and the Navy and Marine Corps operated Corsairs from land where they could be loaded to the max with bombs for ground support.
The RN used Corsairs on carriers because it did not have anything better.
According to wiki the first RN Corsair pilots trained in the US.
@@nickdanger3802 All true. Let me get my references in a row and I'll get back to you regarding what I was referring to.
When the XF4U-1 was originally built, its canopy was much further forward, with the fuselage fuel tank behind the pilot. For weight balance, the cockpit was moved back with the fuel tank in front, which meant it was basically impossible to see the deck when landing.
Corsairs were making carrier trials as they officially entered service in the last month of 1942, a solid six months before the Hellcat entered service. Obviously it could be operated from carriers, but not easily, and it was considered too dangerous, particularly under the manpower and training requirements of USN aviators in late 1942. Vought took a number of steps to improve its carrier handling, but the Hellcat was still easier to land with good-enough performance for the Navy, and remained the premier carrier fighter.
British Corsair pilots trained with the Americans, who were obviously most familiar with the plane, that's nothing new. What they had done was adapt their typically shorter final approaches and sharper turn onto the fantail to the Corsair, improving visibility and only losing sight of the deck at the last minute. This was about mid-1944, and after finding success with this method, they quickly contacted the US, who adopted the same pattern and finally started to put Corsairs on carriers.
Thank you both for this! I love visiting the F4F and SBD aboard CV-10.
Honorable mention to the Wildcats of VF-9 which participated in operation TORCH on Ranger and shot down several enemy aircraft. VF-9's first victories were in North Africa. (They're also the first squadron to get the F6F)
Rex has a superb channel: well researched and deftly delivered. Good show, Rex.
Good timing, in the middle of the 18 hour Shattered Sword audiobook about Midway and just reached the part about the Thatch Wave. Hopefully in another hour of audiobook we will advance 10 minutes to the SBD Dauntless dive bombing run.
Highly recommended if you like long audiobooks. :)
"Please rest assured, however, that the bombing will commence presently thereafter."
So glad you guys made this video, Rex’s channel is amazing and I don’t k ow if I would’ve found it otherwise.
I was really hoping you would mention Leyte, because all of those escort carriers in the area threw up every aircraft they had,loaded with whatever they had to create any kind of threat so the carriers could escape, turns out almost all were wildcats. Some brave men attacking the Yamato with empty machine guns.
IIRC one pilot even dropped a Coke bottle on Yamato
And not one of them attacking was British.
I think one guy strafed the Japanese with his pistol.
Depth charges, if set for shallow detonation could cause some hull damage if dropped just ahead of a surface ship. So the antisub armed wildcats could have done some serious damage.
Terrific video! Excellent film and photos of my favorite underrated plane of WWII.
Well researched and informative. If I might say, I believe that the P-38 was in service throughout the war, in addition to the P-40 and the F4F.
In any case, Mahalo for the post and Aloha!
Very interesting and in-depth.
Good video. Lots of interesting photos and film footage!
Hell yeah!
My two favorite guys!
So happy you guys went over this! A feature length conversation about my favorite plane? Glad the F4F Wildcat is getting so much exposure on your channel
Love Rex's channel
Man, have subbed to these 2 for a while, great collaboration here, very good, hopefully some more going forward...THANX!!!!!
Not mentioned here is that most Japanese pilots had the HEAVY radios removed , they seldom were of any use , very poor electronics. The U.S. Navy planes radios worked well enough most of the time to enable coordinated operations . A sound advantage lol
All of the radios allied/axis suffered in the Pacific theater. There was a large amount of solar flare/radiation during the primary years of combat. Effectively limiting range and clarity of radio transmissions.
Excellent episode! I subscribe to both this channel and Rex's Hanger and think this collaboration was very good. Thanks to both of you for doing this and I look forward to future collaborations when the Venn Diagram of ships and aircraft overlap!
I've always loved the Wildcat. This is the fighter that held the line in the first year of the Pacific war when Japan still had her best trained and most experienced pilots.
Great video. Seems like you both were enjoying a chat. Thanks to both.
It is no nice to listen to Rex without an afvert every 3 minutes. Love this video one of the best!
Why is it not nice?
@@Marin3r101 even if the adverts were every 5 minutes that would be a lot better. It is just annoying when it is every 2 and a half or 3 minutes.
@@Marin3r101 Personally it’s probably an error caused by AUTOCORRECT….Which is neither automatic or correct. Just my view.
A great collaboration by both of you. I enjoyed it and it covered one of my favorite aircraft. Well done and thank you both for the effort.
It was a pleasant surprise to hear you mention VMA-121 and Joe Foss. I believe I saw some 121 Wildcat photos early in the video also. A great unit with a great historty and aircraft lineage to this very day.
Now, I may show a little favoritism to 121 since I was in the unit during another Ironworks aircraft tenure in the unit. The A-6E Intruder.
Humbly
The last carrier-based F4F-4's to see action were in VF-4 aboard the USS RANGER in October 1943 off Norway during Operation LEADER.
Brilliant, been watching Rex's videos for a while now always informative and entertaining.
Excellent! Loved it. I learned a lot.
Great treatment. Super thorough. I'd love to see him back with the wildcat.
Great video on one of my favorite aircraft! Also a big fan of Rex's Hanger's channel! Great job you two!
Great Vid! Drach on the naval side and Rex on the aerial side. Fantastic! and, in the middle, the legendary Wildcat! Too interesting and illuminating! Great Vid!!!!!!"!
I remember reading a book about the Battle of Midway and I wish I could remember the author that didn't mince words by stating that the Grumman Wildcat was proving to be a "turkey" in combat with Japanese fighters. However it's ability to take punishment alleviated some of it's shortcomings. A Japanese Zero pilot's after action report stated that he'd used up all of his ammunition after pumping nearly 500 rounds into a Wildcat but it kept flying and he had to let it go. He knew a Zero would have disintegrated taking abuse like that.
Look at the two First Team books on naval aircraft at war from Pearl Harbor to the end of Guadalcanal. He looks into both Japanese and American reports to document just about every naval fighter action, counting up actual losses documented by both sides, and my memory is that carrier Wildcats and Zeroes were something like 94-93 in kills.
@@grizwoldphantasia5005just ordered those two books. Thanks
Thanks for the quick reupload
@6:44 ? One of the types employed by the USN in airship service- being launched & received in the dirigable's hangars.
Astounding in many ways, those 1930s.....
🚬😎
Audio works now, thanks Drach!
Germany had problems creating self sealing fuel tanks. When they did, there was about a year where engines were blowing up for no known reason. It was eventually discovered the self sealing liners were depleting the fuel octane value leading to engine knock and holed pistons.
Fantastic coverage - brought back questions I pondered as a kid building the Revell and Monogram plastic models. I recall my dad mentioning the landing gear being narrow, I wish he was still around to get the history on why.
This one is working great. Thanks for the reupload. Great work.
Saw one in person on the Yorktown in SC. The scale of these planes is really mind boggling when you see them in person.
Recently discovered Kermit Weeks. an aircraft collector in Florida. He has the Wildcat in his collection. He also has a Sunderland flying boat among a large number of other examples. Many planes are flyable.
Great guest...very knowledgeable fellow. Big thanks!