One for Buffnut

[GregP]

Hey Buffnut,

Found this and thought of you. While it isn't my all-time favorite, this IS the best cutaway I've found of a Buffalo.

View attachment 222829

 

[mike siggins]

one of my favorite ww2 turds its amazing what the finns did with her im sure a couple other pilots liked her too

 

[meatloaf109]

IIRC, Greg Boyington once said that it was the best stunt flyer he had ever flown.

 

[GregP]

Hadn't heard that one, meatloaf, but I wouldn't doubt it.

I like the Curtiss-Wright CW-21 ... especially the power to weight ratio, but apparently it wasn't very good in combat.

There is a WONDERFUL Curtiss-Wright CW-22 in the Evergreen Museum in McMinnville, Oregon. When I look at it I want to commit aviation in the cockpit. But, truth be known, it wasn't exactly popular since they apparently only built about 442 of them. Someone else may think it is ugly, but I still like it a LOT.

Liking the Buffalo seems like that to me ... you either DO or DON'T with very few on the fence.

However, for those that DO, the cutaway above may be the best I have seen ... for those who care about cutaways, that is.

 

[Wildcat]

Very nice Greg! I'm a Buffalo fan myself.

 

[Njaco]

A beer keg with wings!

 

[GregP]

What great visual! Now we have to debate about the identity of the Keg ...

I think it was a keg of Old Frothingslosh, the pale, stale Ale with the head on the bottom.

 

[Njaco]

or a keg of Fosters.....

 

[GregP]

Mehtinks it would have been an American beer from around Buffalo, New York, U.S.A. assuning the beer was from the city of name. If not, then any New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania beer would do just fine.

 

[buffnut453]

Hi Greg,

Thanks for sharing. That is a pretty cool cutaway.

Incidentally, the Boyington's opinions on the Buffalo can be found here (with provenance):

http://www.warbirdforum.com/pappy.htm

Cheers,
B-N

 

[Marcel]

A beer keg with wings!

What do you mean?

 

[GregP]

ROTFL ...

 

[buffnut453]

Apart from the fact that Heineken isn't beer...

 

[Marcel]

Apart from the fact that Heineken isn't beer...

Oh, allright, Actuall we call Heineken in Dutch "slootwater" you can translate yourself
Maybe the following is more "van uw goesting" as they would say...

 

[buffnut453]

Leffe...now that's more like it!

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Hey Buffnut,

Found this and thought of you. While it isn't my all-time favorite, this IS the best cutaway I've found of a Buffalo.

View attachment 222829

one of my favorite ww2 turds its amazing what the finns did with her im sure a couple other pilots liked her too

IIRC, Greg Boyington once said that it was the best stunt flyer he had ever flown.

Here we go again... To be specific, it looks like the cutaway of an F2A-3 depicted in Green and Swanborough (US Navy and Marine Corps Fighters). That being the case, it richly deserves the appellation "turd", although on paper it appears to possess performance not significantly different than the contemporary F4F-3A that was in about equally frequent USN and USMC use at the time (late 1941 and early 1942). However, the point has been frequently made in prior posts that this is NOT the aircraft, lauded by Boyington and many other USN and USMC pilots. That was the Brewster's F2A-1 and -2. Especially the -2, which never saw combat but certainly as FlyboyJ has pointed out, flew combat missions from the CVE Long Island in early 1942. Either aircraft was reported by pilots to be a superb fighter, much preferred by pilots to the later F4F-4 despite the apparently poorer high altitude performance. The -1 (flown by the Finns) and the -2 flown by the USN USMC deserve respect, unlike its derivative related cousins, the B-339 B-439 and the F2A-3 which, appear to have been overweight and underpowered for their time.

I am pretty sure Marcel's post #11 the Heineken "Buffalo" is F2A-2 Bureau number 1412 which was delived to the USN on 10/10/1940 and first served in VF-2 assigned to CV-2 the USS Lexington in 10/21/1940. It later was assigned to VF-3 on the Sara (CV-3) 5/16/41 and then sent to VMF-221 in 8/22/41. It bounced around various fleet pools before being overhauled and assigned to Mag-11 on 4/25/42 and then VMF-112 on 5/16/42. It was sent to NAS Miami on 8/28/42. It was struck from the inventory 2/28/43, after being involved in two midair collisions about 4 months apart (one in September 42 and the second on 2/7/42, while assigned to NAS Miami which I believe was used as a feet advanced training base at the time.

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Oh, allright, Actuall we call Heineken in Dutch "slootwater" you can translate yourself
Maybe the following is more "van uw goesting" as they would say...

View attachment 223060

I was operating with my crew out of Lajes Field in the late 80s and had the pleasure of meeting the legendary smuggler and anti-communist rebel-entrepreneur George the Crook at his equally famous Crook-Bar in Praia da Vitoria. He served us so many samples of Portuguese rose wine we quickly became hammered. He was no fool, he knew that every P-3 leaving the island would be crammed with cases of whatever he had to sell. We emptied his cellar on the occasions of our many visits. But he always had another cellar somewhere in town. Since it was popular in the states we of course asked him if he could procure us cases of Mateus Rose. He immediately assumed an expression of utmost scorn and retorted NEVER! Mateus is Horse-p*ss! Not associated with VP-64, I did find this tidbit on the web among many references to the Crook Bar (I believe officially the Cafe Azores (?))

VPNAVY - VP-64 History Summary Page - VP Patrol Squadron

 

[Marcel]

Of the B339 there were many different version. The E (GB) was an overweight version with not enough power. The C version was Dutch and was much lighter, climbing and flying much better than the Britisch E. However the B339D had 100 hp more at aprox. the same weight, making it the best performing one of the 3. It was generally like, apart from the fact that the engines were old KLM ones, with technical difficulties. Anyway, none of these models performed well against the Japanese, although one might argue that circumstances were generally against the type and other types like the Hurricane hardly fared better. I've got a book on Dutch Buffalo's and also Buffalos over Singapore is a good read.

 

[CobberKane]

Maybe the 'keg with wings' thing is a reference to the buffs low ceiling. As the Pythons said: American beer is like making love in a canoe - f$@ng near water!

Dissing another countries beer - this could get ugly...

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Thanks Marcel, I was not sensitive to the difference and lumped all export buffs into the same bilge-bucket as the F2A-3. As you here and others have pointed out, the reputation of virtually all Buffs may have suffered as much by the circumstances of their use as by actual deficiencies in its performance.