Clay_Allison
Staff Sergeant
- 1,154
- Dec 24, 2008
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Agree and I too would have to go with the Boomerang. There seems to have been a lot of engineering issues with the Buffalo, probably because of Brewster's lack of foresight and inexperience in producing modern fighters of the period.To be fair, the Boomerang, despite the speed of its development, had the benefit of being four years younger than the Buffalo, and 6 years younger than the Wildcat. This gave it a lots of detail advantages IMO, like armour distribution, armament, and comms. I have heard bad stories about the fuel pumps in the buffaloes, but nothing comparable about the Boomernag. I recal some story about pilots having to use a hand pump in the Buffalo to keep the fuel up to it, and stoies about RAAF pilots ripping out guns and armour to get the performace up to some decent level. AFAIK, none of that occurred with the Boomerang. However, I dont believe the Boomerang shot down even a single enemy fighter during its career......
There seemed to be something really really broken about Brewster's quality control. At least with a Boomerang you probably know what you are getting.
Doesn't installing the wrong fuel pumps speak to poor quality?From reading Bloody Shambles it wasn't so much quality, but the way the aircraft was engineered and operated. Ammo feeds were poorly designed along with other systems. The aircraft was actually "built" well, designed poorly.
Now when Brewster built Corsairs, entirely different story. I read the quality of workmanship was poor and it seemed some of the assemblers were poorly trained and managed.
I have an obvious parochial bias here, but I honestly believe the Boomerang was the superior ride.
Wing Commander Peter Jeffery, who with others, flew approximately 400 hours in the Boomerang during the trials had this to say…At no time was the Boomerang able to gain the initiative in the combat.
"It is considered by this Unit, that the Boomerang, as an operational fighter, has no feature to recommend."
Not really - "production quality" involves how the aircraft is built - how the rivets look after installation, how the fabric surfaces are finished, how the paint looks (runs), if the aircraft is built per the blueprints developed by engineers, how many repairs had to be undertaken because of mistakes by assembly personnel - for examples. Equipment that is to design but don't function with the rest of the aircraft "system" is an engineering problem - poor design. The assembly folks and mechanics who install these components just follow a blue print - the folks who dictate things like pumps and electric motors are engineers.Doesn't installing the wrong fuel pumps speak to poor quality?
I think the variance between the Buffalo models was pretty wide.
Interestingly, according to Australia in the War of 1939-1945, The Role of Science and Industry:
"At 10,000 ft, the Boomerang was more maneuverable then the Kittyhawk and could turn inside of it."
It is correct however, the the Boomerang never scored an aerial victory.
All true. According to the reports it was more maneuverable than the Kittyhawk (A29-129) from 10,000 to 25,000ft. The trials between the Airacobra and Kittyhawk showed the advantage was with the former.
Parsifal, do you have a copy of Stewart Wilson's "Wirraway, Boomerang and CA-15?" There's a good summary of comparative handling trials between the Boomerang, Kittyhawk, Airacobra and the Buffalo on pages 114 to 119. The trials were conducted at Mildura late 1942 by the No.2 Operational Training Unit.
The Boomerang was outmanoeuvred by the Buffalo.
Hi
Though the Boomerang was not successful as a fighter (in the sense that there were no aircraft in the locality that it was deployed).
I see the difference, but it seemed like from at least one account I read that it wasn't the airframe design but the use of a ton of substandard parts (remanufactured airliner engines, wrong fuel pumps) that made a lot of them perform way below expectations. Seems like it isn't the design's fault when it was designed to use good parts and gets built with bad ones.Not really - "production quality" involves how the aircraft is built - how the rivets look after installation, how the fabric surfaces are finished, how the paint looks (runs), if the aircraft is built per the blueprints developed by engineers, how many repairs had to be undertaken because of mistakes by assembly personnel - for examples. Equipment that is to design but don't function with the rest of the aircraft "system" is an engineering problem - poor design. The assembly folks and mechanics who install these components just follow a blue print - the folks who dictate things like pumps and electric motors are engineers.
The overall quality of the aircraft is affected by poor design, but the aircraft could be built perfectly - 100% per the engineering drawings. At the same time you could have a top fighter built like crap, poor workmanship.
Engineering Quality
Production Quality
See the difference?