MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
Interesting 1939 ad from Curtiss. Note how they envision multiple roles and armament packages for the airplane, which I think was quite innovative for the time.
Hawk 75 Advertisement 1939
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Can I still buy one?
I'd put in an offer with you!
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Love that vintage ad - the mention of a 37mm option is curious, as they tested a P-36A with two Madsen 23mm cannons (one in each wing) and found that the cannon's weight and fairing caused a performance penalty and dropped the option.
Classic bait and switch!
Bad-Karma
Airman 1st Class
Interesting that canon armed bomber interceptors was on their radar in 1939. All kinds of foreshadowing in this add: the multi-role success of the p40 and the luftwaffes need for up arming when our bombers showed up.
Did the US ever have trouble taking down bombers with their .50s? It's interesting to me that canons were perceived to be better against bombers this early on but never really materialized outside of the p38 and in a limited effectiveness with the p39. I guess availability vs actual need probably had something to do with that as well.
Did the US ever have trouble taking down bombers with their .50s? It's interesting to me that canons were perceived to be better against bombers this early on but never really materialized outside of the p38 and in a limited effectiveness with the p39. I guess availability vs actual need probably had something to do with that as well.
In the inter war years many had visions of huge bombers with massive defensive armament and huge payloads laying waste to cities in a day. The reality took a long time to achieve, for cannons on fighters they needed to be smaller, more reliable and planes needed much more power to get them in the air.
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MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
The Bell YFM-1 Airacuda first flew in 1937 and was armed with two 37MM cannon which were sighted manually by gunners in two gondolas. Even before that in WWI a Spad was equipped with a manually loaded 37MM gun and used in combat; aside from the very slow single-shot rate of fire, the gun gasses that escaped when the breech opened under the pilot tended to asphyxiate him. Another Spad was equipped with 20MM cannon in WWII, reportedly three rounds fired brought down two enemy aircraft.
So the use of cannon was not new. For the US, we pretty much did not have to shoot down heavy bombers, and the .50 cal gun did fine, especially once the API ammo came out and we got 6 or 8 of them, and with better reliability than anything else we had.
In the book Top Guns, edited by Joe Foss, one Marine pilot described how he was trying to stop three Zeros from shooting down a PBY. All he wanted to do was scare them off, and just dove on them, spraying ammo at them. The Zeros broke off, so he was successful. It was not until well after the war that he found out he had shot all three of them down. Probably only a single .50 cal round hit one Zero, punctured a fuel tank, and it ran out of gas on the way back to its base. Another probable single .50 cal round nicked an oil line on the Zero and it ran out of oil on the way home. The third Zero suffered damage to the engine and it did not make it home, either.
In contrast, I read of a USN attack on Formosa where four SB2C's each attacked a Betty bomber with their two 20MM guns and it took all four of them to shoot it down.
So the use of cannon was not new. For the US, we pretty much did not have to shoot down heavy bombers, and the .50 cal gun did fine, especially once the API ammo came out and we got 6 or 8 of them, and with better reliability than anything else we had.
In the book Top Guns, edited by Joe Foss, one Marine pilot described how he was trying to stop three Zeros from shooting down a PBY. All he wanted to do was scare them off, and just dove on them, spraying ammo at them. The Zeros broke off, so he was successful. It was not until well after the war that he found out he had shot all three of them down. Probably only a single .50 cal round hit one Zero, punctured a fuel tank, and it ran out of gas on the way back to its base. Another probable single .50 cal round nicked an oil line on the Zero and it ran out of oil on the way home. The third Zero suffered damage to the engine and it did not make it home, either.
In contrast, I read of a USN attack on Formosa where four SB2C's each attacked a Betty bomber with their two 20MM guns and it took all four of them to shoot it down.
Bad-Karma
Airman 1st Class
It seems curious that they would see canon armed fighters as a solution to intercepting bombers yet still be of the mentality that the bomber will always get through and not need escorts. Maybe I'm just reading too much into the ad.
Very interesting! I'm not very knowledgable about WWI and didn't know they had put any canons on aircraft.
The inter war years are full of these contradictions. The British send Wellingtons and Hampdens out in daylight as if the Bf109 didn't exist. E
one overestimated the effects of bombing on infrastructure and morale.
No way! Awesome! Where is this?
British had been developing a 37 mm automatic gun for aircraft use during the WWI but it missed that war. The end result COW 37 mm cannon was installed onto few flying boats but also a few fighters were designed around it, in early 30s Vickers Type 161 (one proto) and Westland C.O.W. gun fighter (also one proto). Even if at least Type 161 was a reasonable succesful design the concept was dropped and no series production was initiated. Already in mid 20s Bristol Bagshot (also one proto and it was outright failure even as a flying machine) was designed around it. During 1940 RAF find out some use of its COW guns, they were installed to ad hog Armadillo III armoured cars, planned use was to shoot down LWs landing gliders and Ju 52s in case of German air landing attacks on airfields.
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vikingBerserker
Lieutenant General
I think its at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre
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- #15
MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
Color Schemes
Yeah, its at the new WW2 exhibit.
There's also a Hawk 75 undergoing restoration here privately, which this fin originally came off. Given the markings, the decision was made to not include this part in the resto job.
Gumbyk,
Any idea where this plane came from or any history? Seems pretty unique.
Cheers,
Biff
I's like to say it came out of PNG, but I can't remember anything definitely.
And that doesn't tie in with the Finnish flash...
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
The Finns didn't use a Swastika emblem on the vertical stabilizer, but the Germans did.
And it looks very close to regulation, too.
Is it possible that this may have been one of the French Hawk 75s either used at their flight school or with III./JG77?
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MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
Good Point! The Luftwaffe swastikas on the tail were cocked, like that one. The Finnish swastikas are horizontal.
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