Warbird Information Exchange

...

Thank you kindly, RHenry.

_________________
Cheers,
Kurt Maurer
League City, Texas

PIC, Ford 6600 pulling Rhino batwing up and down the runway

The Tradewind had about 2 years of service with VR-2 out of Alameda NAS, so I would say yes, operartional. Likely limited availability. They took over on the Alameda to Hawaii route the Mars had been doing. I would call a run of 13 "production" (they only made 5 Mars and we seem to accept them as operational/production). It all came to an end in 1958 when a Tradewind starting having engine/gearbox issues (quite common with the T-40 engine) on a return from Hawaii. She was unable to disengage an engine and ended up on the breakwall with her belly torn open. Last flight of the type.

This is what Contra-rotating propellers look like when messed up ...

A bit of 'stuff' on the Curtiss_XBTC below.

"The first Curtiss attacker proposal was the XBTC. The XBTC was a complicated design, using contra-rotating propellers and full-span duplex flaps. As originally designed, it had a payload of just 2,000lb, allowing for the carriage of a single torpedo. Testing began in January 1945, with tests finding that it had “first-class performance and weapon-carrying capacity.” Despite glowing reviews, it would not be selected for production, likely due to its technical complexity and the fact that the AM and BT2D (AD Skyraider) had already been ordered into production. Curtiss looked into de-navalizing the design under the designation A-40 for the USAAF, but these plans fell through after the USAAF announced that it would no longer acquire any more single-engined attackers."

_________________
[Thread title is ridiculous btw]

[quote="JohnB]

BTW: The Navy did pi$$ away a lot of money in the late 40s-50s (by that I mean it seems they had more unsuccessful types than the AF) Cutlass, Demon (some built were never flown because of bad engines), Tiger and Guardian (maybe not a bad planes but few built with a short service life), Tradewind, Seamaster, Bell HSL and probably a few more .[/quote]

I don't think any of those aircraft mentioned deserve to be labeled as pi$$ed away money or opportunity......each served its purpose in providing the stepping stone to the next generation of aircraft which followed, in an era that was not able to take advantage of computer test analysis.

Most of these aircraft suffered due to the Navy's insistence on simultaneous engine/airframe contracts which put airframe manufacturers at the mercy of fledgling engine development promises. The F7U was built around a 20,000 lb static thrust promise..... It ended up with 9600lbs ...... Not the aircraft's fault......

_________________
Al Casby
Project Cutlass

Cutlass Aeronautics, LLC
4863 E. Falcon Drive
Mesa, AZ 85215


“Restoring Aviation’s Cutting Edge” ™

Alcasby@projectcutlass.com
602-684-9371