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| Brewster F2A Buffalo |
Brewster F2A-3 Buffalo
First
Flight: 1937, December
Power: Wright R-1820-40 Cyclone
Radial piston
engine
1200 hp
Armament: 12.7 mm / 0.05 caliber mg x 4
Size
Wingspan: 10.67m / 35 ft
Wing area: 19.41m2 / 208.9 sq ft
Length: 8.03m / 26 ft 4 in
Height: 3.68m / 12 ft 1 in
Weight
Empty: 2146kg / 4723lb
Max.
take-off: 3247kg / 7159lb
Performance
Max. speed: 517kph / 321mph
Ceiling: 10,120m
/ 33,200ft
Range: 1553km / 965 miles
Climb: 935m / 3070ft per minute
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| The Buffalo came with a tail-hook but mishaps happened |
The U.S.
Navy left the biplane era and chose the Brewster F2A Buffalo as its first
monoplane fighter. The stubby plane
designed for carrier duty was to be a disappointment. Introduced in 1939 the Buffalo proved to be
obsolete by late the following year. It
was both underpowered and it lacked the maneuverability of contemporary
fighters built by Germany, Japan and Britain.
The United
States was slow to arrive on the world stage with a world-class fighter or tank
or any one of a number of military weapons.
Why should they be otherwise? Americans
felt comfortably secure with neighbors like Mexico and Canada on their borders and
two oceans separating them from the militaristic societies of Germany and
Japan. There are so many worthwhile
places to invest your money when you don’t feel the need to purchase a gun to
protect your life.
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| Unreliable landing gear was among Navy complaints |
The Wright Cyclone
engine that came with the plane wasn’t half bad so long as the Buffalo was
stripped to its essentials. But then you
need armor to line the pilot’s cockpit and self-sealing fuel tanks and sturdier
landing gear for those brutal carrier landings.
Before you know it your plane has
an asthmatic climb rate and Mitsubishi Zeros and German Messerschmitt’s are
literally flying circles around your gasping craft. To lighten the load you make use fabrics for
your control surfaces and you cut back on those heavy .50 caliber machine guns,
maybe substituting some with .30 calibers.
Now you've wound up with a fighter with less precise maneuvering and armament
that requires both a good deal of luck and skill to knock and opponent from the
sky. The truth is you can’t turn a
poorly designed plane into a great fighter with a few well-considered tweaks. You admit your mistake, write off your
losses, pick a different design and start over.
This is what the Navy did when they switched to the Grumman F4F as the
fighter that would defend their fleet going into World War II. The Brewster isn’t a total loss. It has a forgiving nature so you make it a trainer
to be used by aspiring Navy pilots to cut their teeth on formation flying and dogfight
aerobatics. This is what the Navy did.
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| An F2A-3 Navy training squadron |
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| RAF Buffalo MK 1 overheated in tropical climates |
The RAF
purchased Brewsters to supplement a shortage of aircraft. They were found unacceptable for the European
theater and were sent to the British colonies in the Far East where they did fared
poorly when up against the Japanese Zero and the region’s tropical heat. The Netherlands bought the aircraft to help
defend the Dutch East Indies. Their
experience with it was no different from the British. Only the Finns were happy with their purchase. They developed techniques that made the
Finnish Buffalo quite successful in dogfights with Soviet fighters.
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| Several Finnish pilots made Ace flying the Buffalo |
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