Douglas A-20 Havoc

[evangilder]

Beautiful! Nice shots!

 

[syscom3]

Heres what the RAF Turbinlite A20's looked like.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

WOW!!!

 

[pbfoot]

thats a little overkill for a landing light did the crew have special goggles? and any cloud would certainly be a hoot

 

[FLYBOYJ]

You shot down your enemy by blinding them!!!

 

[Gnomey]

Wouldn't surprise me if it did, they had something like half a ton of batteries in the bomb bay to power it as well...

 

[Wildcat]

Apparently the search light was 2700million candlepower!!

 

[mosquitoman]

It was used to illuminate targets found with the on-board radar so that Hurrican night-fighters could see them to shoot at them, not the biggest success story

 

[evangilder]

I could imagine that light would make you an instant target for the nightfighters and the flak gunners. "Here I am!"

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Holly crap talk about High beams.

 

[the lancaster kicks ass]

a mossie was also experimentally fitted with the system for use over germany.......

 

[Canaris]

Great shots of the Turbinlite!

I've been looking for pictures of one of those for years now.

 

[Marshall_Stack]

The P-70 (the USAAF night fighter version of the A-20) may have had a decent chance of being successful if they would have put turbo-superchargers on them. Same thing for the Navy's Venturas. The P-61A and B also didn't have turbo-superchargers and it was finally put on for the P61-C. I don't understand why they didn't install the turbo-superchargers on earlier aircraft.

 

[davparlr]

Yep, and although Northrop and Douglas work on a lot of projects together (Jack Northrop worked for Douglas at one time) by the time the P-61 was on the scene they were competitors. As a matter of fact the A-20 was one of the first Ed Heinerman designs.

My reference indicate that the Douglas 7B (Prototype of the A-20) was originally a Northrop design which was finished by Heinemann.

 

[hermancl3]

I met a gentleman over the weekend who flew A20 his plane was called
The Belle Of Bells.

 

[Negative Creep]

Always struck me as an odd system. In the time it would take you to line up a bomber with the light you could've fired hundreds of rounds into it with the regular nose

 

[Freebird]

Don't forget that the A-20 was an important part of the Soviet AF too, I think we sent about 3,000+ to Russia. I was on a trip to Russia last summer, I looked for any of the Bostons that were sent over there, but they don't keep lend-lease on display, only Russian stuff

 

[comiso90]

I always thought the A-20 was UGLY...

Not near the beauty of the A-26 or B-26!

.

 

[Freebird]

I always thought the A-20 was UGLY...

Not near the beauty of the A-26 or B-26!

.

Yah but neither of them were available in '41! They did very well in the desert too. I kinda like the aircraft, I didn't think it was ugly

 

[maxs75]

The P-70 (the USAAF night fighter version of the A-20) may have had a decent chance of being successful if they would have put turbo-superchargers on them. Same thing for the Navy's Venturas. The P-61A and B also didn't have turbo-superchargers and it was finally put on for the P61-C. I don't understand why they didn't install the turbo-superchargers on earlier aircraft.

The original P-70 was derived from the A-20 (without letter) that was to be the turbosupercharged high-altitude version of A-20 (vs A-20A medium altitude). The engines had cooling troubles, I don't know if they were deployed in combat zones.
The later versions P-70A and P-70B were derived from A-20C and G, and I believe that they didn't have turbosupercharged engines.
Any info about engine types of P-70A/B and early P-70?

Max