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The only Curtiss airplane I have personal experience with is the P-40. It has a very robust landing gear rotating mechanism that almost cannot fail to work unless the gear itself fails to retract. I haven't heard of ANY P-40 landing gear issues in the last 18+ years of warbirds every weekend.The CW-21 had more issues with it's landing gear than anything else.
This was something that plagued many Curtiss types, too.
Nope.But nothing on CW-21 tails falling off?
CAF's P-40 ad a gear failure about five years ago.The only Curtiss airplane I have personal experience with is the P-40. It has a very robust landing gear rotating mechanism that almost cannot fail to work unless the gear itself fails to retract. I haven't heard of ANY P-40 landing gear issues in the last 18+ years of warbirds every weekend.
That's not to say SOMEONE hasn't had an issue. Undoubtedly, they have.
Beautiful.There's one of these at the Evergreen Museum in MacMinville, OR. Makes you want to get ina fly it.
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The BF2C looks like it SHOULD have gear problems. That does not excuse actual gear issues, and I am not aware of the significant gear issues on it. That is, I KNOW it had gear issues, but I do not know what the issue was. Did it fail to lock up or down? Did it fail to retract or extend properly? I know it was manually-operated, but do not know the mechanics of the actual gear issue. Was it chain-and-sprocket, worm-and-roller, or what? They only made 164 production airplanes and 2 prototypes. So, I'd guess the issue made itself known decently early.CAF's P-40 ad a gear failure about five years ago.
The BF2C had gear problems, so did the P-36 (which the P-40 inherited).
The XP-55 "ass ender" also suffered gear issues and even the C-46 experienced maingear failures.
So, the issue might be the down-lock?
That DOES seem annoying.The gear for the earlier versions (Mohawk and Tomahawk) were operated by a pushbutton that had to be held down the entire time you were operating the gear. I don't see a lowering time listed but one British trial mentioned 40-45 seconds to raise the gear and understandably described this process as 'annoying'.
The Tomahawk pilot's notes also say 'In order to ensure positive engagement of the locks the push button must remain depressed for a few seconds after checking the indicator. The hand pump should then be operated until it goes solid as a second check for locking, and the selector lever then returned to NEUTRAL.'
Considering this, I could definitely see pilots transitioning from Hurricanes running into trouble while learning to fly the new type (while on combat operations no less).