Warbird Information Exchange

Ever since I built the little french kit of the Vengeance in the mid '70s I have had a soft spot for it. Don't know why, but I do, and agree it wasn't really that bad of an aircraft from what I have read. Anyway, regarding being underpowered, ISTR reading that there was an R-3350 powered version proposed, as well as a naval version.

The BRAZILIAN EXPERIENCE

The below information is a 'very rough' summary of an article published in the AAHS Journal dated Fall 1998 titled "Postscript with a Vengeance" by Dan Hagedorn.

WARNING: THIS IS NOT A PRETTY STORY.

Originally the Brazilians had requested Douglas A-24 Banshees and / or Curtiss A-25 Shrikes. Due to the US 'war needs' these aircraft were not available! (The USAAF didn't have enough A-25's???)

So promptly the USAAF committed to 28 A-31's.The first batch of 12 were dispatched of which two crashed enroute (Guatemala and Mexico) and one simply disappeared.
It's questionable whether the balance of the 28 order (i.e. 16) was ever delivered.

Brazilians had requested NAA B-25H Mitchells so the USAAF responded by providing 50 brand new A-35's! These A/C had been in storage at Nashville as apparently no one wanted them. As they had been in storage for so long the engines had major problems resulting in 80 engine changes to make them worthy of a flight to Brazil. Eighty engine changes for fifty single engine aircraft !!!

To make a long story short 13 aircraft crashed enroute and others were scattered all along the route due to engine problems .

BOTTOM LINE: SEVEN A/C were eventually delivered to the Brazilian AF and were promptly put into ground instructional airframes. One is believed to have still been in existence as late as 1967.

So what was the ultimate fate of the 30 "other" thirty missing A/C ?

Like the Brewster F2A/Model 339 Buffalo series, it would appear that the value of an aircraft often seems to depend on the operational setting o some extent. I wrote a piece for the Journal of the AAHS (Vol.43 No.3, Fall 1998) entitled "Postscript With a Vengeance" describing the woeful history of the Brazilian experience with the A-35B; they did better with the earlier A-31/V-72s.

My primary flight instructor, an elderly WW II veteran loaned me a paperback book 36 years ago. I've forgotten the name but it was about "Stringbags" flying in the North Atlantic from British carriers. A more interesting part of the book was the author had flown many types , and gave a short description about them. Many of the aircraft were the "Duds" or turkeys that were not popular. The A-31/ 35's were called "Chesapeakes" in British service had had the initial nickname of "Cheesecake" as in a hot girlfriend. this nickname was quickly changed to "The flaming coffin" as losses and deaths became quite high.
Many "flaming coffins" were lost in the traffic pattern and some of these on final approach with the engine running fine and then suddenly without explanation they would dive into the ground and explode.
It had some weird and unique systems such as the flaps were operated by an air type system filled with Ether. they had a bad habit of leaking when extended and the gas would fill the front cockpit. Many pilots passed out and died before the Brits could figure out this most fatal of problems.

I don't have a copy of the book , but this is as I remember it.

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Marine Air has commented "The A-31/ 35's were called "Chesapeakes" in British service had had the initial nickname of "Cheesecake" as in a hot girlfriend."

Was not the Vought SB2U Vindicator called "Chesapeake" while in British Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm service, not the A-31/35?

Thank you Stoney. I plan on buying a copy and re-reading it. It will mean a lot more now that I've been flying for a long time. It was quite an interesting read.

The RAAF used the Vengeance (whence the 2 survivors come). A pilot who I talked to, some years ago, said they were a lovely aircraft to fly, rugged - could take a lot of punishment and get you back to base. As someone earlier said - it was like flying a cadillac of the skies.

I read that book too and I thought I remembered they loved the Cheesecakes but it was some other type (Fairey Barracuda?) that had ether in the hydraulic fluid and the gauge could fail, filling the cockpit with anaesthetic.

IIRC that's what happened on the author's last flight before he chained himself to a desk. All in all what I remember most about that book was the de-glorification of war. That author starts out eagerly racing to the recruiter and racing through his training but by the end of the book he's absolutely spent and terrified to go on.

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For a good read on the Vengeance, get a copy of Peter C. Smith's book.

I second the suggestion of "Vengeance!: The Vultee Vengeance Dive Bomber" by Peter C. Smith. I got my copy a couple of years ago from abebooks.com. It seems it was really only the U.S. Army Air Forces that had a distaste for the plane. The British and Commonwealth forces that actually used it as a dive bomber in combat found it very accurate and effective. An interesting point is that the wing structure was specifically developed for a true 90-degree vertical dive. If I remember correctly the wing's angle of incidence was zero in the early versions. My 2 cents.

Randy

RAAF Vultee Vengeance aircraft...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vultee_Ve ... an_service

Within the last couple of months there was an article about Commonwealth use of the type on SE Asia.
As mentioned above, it gave a good account of itself.
Obviously, any dive bomber or torpedo bomber needs to be operated in an area where you have air superiority, otherwise, they'll have losses.

I think it's another case of people not really familiar with a type giving it a bad name, which is perpetrated 75 years later by "enthusiasts" parroting what they read (and wanting to sound like they know what they're talking about) and probably applying revisionist history (if you look at it, virtually all Pre-1942 warbirds had performance or armament issues) comparing the prewar state of the art with mid or late-war designs.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

A quick search for "Stringbag British Aircraft Carrier" on Google Books limited to books from the 20th century found me a book called Bring Back My Stringbag: Swordfish Pilot at War 1940-45. Could this be it? The author was a British naval pilot, it dates from 1980, which is just about 36 years ago, and a quick search of the book itself reveals the author even has a chapter labeled "Cheesecake Days".

EDIT: I just noticed the earlier post where someone identified it as the book To War in a Stringbag that also came out in 1980. However, it appears to be a different book from the one I found as it was written by a different author. Could they be related somehow?

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