Vultee A-31 & A-35 Vengeance

Vultee A-31 & A-35 Vengeance


Un texte en français sur ce Vultee chez jn.passieux, merci :

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Le Vultee Vengeance (Vultee 72) fut mis en chantier en 1940 pour répondre à une demande urgente de la R.A.F. pour des bombardiers en piqué.

Le premier vol fut effectué en juillet 1941, cet avion fut produit jusqu'à l'automne 1944 à environ 1530 exemplaires dont la majeure partie fut exploitée par les britanniques.

Cet appareil qui resta en service jusqu'en 1945 fut utilisé par la R.A.F. et la Royal Indian Air Force surtout en Inde et
Birmanie.

Le A-31, Vengeance I, II et III était propulsé par un Wright R-2600-A5B5 (R-2600-19) de 1600 CV, l'armement des
machines britanniques comportait quatre mitrailleuses de 7,7 mm dans les ailes, deux défensives de même calibre montées dans le cockpit arrière et une charge de bombes.

Le Vengeance I fut construit par Northrop, les autres modèles furent fabriqués par Consolidated Vultee.

Le A-35, Vengeance IV propulsé par un Wright R-2600-13 de 1700 CV et comportant un armement et des équipements américains, fut fourni à l'U.S.A.A.F. et loué aux britanniques.

L'armement comportait quatre mitrailleuses de 12,7 mm dans les ailes (six pour les derniers modèles), une défensive de même calibre montée dans le cockpit arrière et des bombes stockées sous les ailes ou dans la soute ventrale.

Les A-35 américains furent surtout utilisés comme remorqueurs de cibles rapides.

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Le texte de Wikipedia.EN :


The Vultee A-31 Vengeance was an [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] of [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], built by [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

The Vengeance was not used in combat by US units, however it served with the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] in [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].


Design and development

In 1940, [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] started the design of a single engined [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], the Vultee Model 72 (V-72) to meet the requirements of the French [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

The V-72 was built with private funds and was intended for sale to foreign markets.

The V-72 was a low-wing, single engine powered, [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] with a closed [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and a crew of two.

An air-cooled radial Wright Double Row Cyclone GR-2600-A5B-5 engine rated at 1,600 hp (1,200 kW) powered the V-72.
It was armed with both fixed forward firing and flexible mounted .30 in (7.62 mm) machine guns in the rear cockpit.

The aircraft also carried up to 1,500 lb (680 kg) of bombs in an interior bomb bay and on external wing racks.

The Vengeance was uniquely designed to dive vertically rather than at an angle.

To this end the it had a 0-degree [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] on the wing to prevent the aircraft from "tracking" forward during its dive.

This resulted in the aircraft cruising in a nose-up attitude giving a poor forward view for the pilot, particularly during landing.
It had an unusual, "W" shaped wing planform. This resulted from an error in calculating its centre of gravity.

Moving the wing back by "sweeping" the centre section was a simpler fix than re-designing the wing root.

This gives impression of an inverted [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], like the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], when seen from an angle, when in fact the wing has a more conventional dihedral on the outer wing panels.

France placed an order for 300 V-72s, with deliveries intended to start in October 1940.

The [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] in June 1940 stopped these plans, but at the same time the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], impressed by the performance of the German [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], were shopping for a dive bomber for the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], and as it was the only aircraft available, placed an order for 200 V-72s (named Vengeance by Vultee) on 3 July 1940, with orders for a further 100 being placed in December.

As Vultee's factory at Downey was already busy building [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] trainers, the aircraft were to be built at the[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]
factory at Nashville, and under license by [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] at [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

The first prototype V-72 flew from Vultee's factory at [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] on 30 March 1941.

Additional aircraft were ordered for Britain in June 1941 under the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] scheme, with these being given the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] designation A-31.

Following the United States entry into the war following the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], a number of V-72 and A-31 aircraft were re-possessed for use by the Army Air Corps.

As the Army Air Corps became interested in dive bombing, it decided to order production of an improved version of the Vengeance, designated the A-35, for both its own use and for supply to its allies under Lend-Lease.

It was fitted with a more powerful Wright Cyclone R-2600-19 engine and improved armament.

As US Army test pilots disliked the poor pilot view which resulted from the zero-incidence wing, this was "corrected" in the A-35, giving a better attitude in cruise but losing its accuracy as a dive bomber.

When production of the Vengeance was completed in 1944, a total of 1,528 aircraft had been produced.

The majority were produced at the Vultee plant in [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

Indecision about what aircraft should replace it in production at the Vultee plant led to several "make-work" contracts for Vengeance aircraft to prevent dispersion of the skilled workforce.

This resulted in overproduction of what was considered an obsolete aircraft.

Evaluation


Operational experience with other dive bomber aircraft of the period, such as the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and Curtiss [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], indicated that the Vengeance would be vulnerable to enemy fighters.

To be effective all these aircraft required an environment of local air superiority and fighter escort.

Fighter escort, lack of fighter opposition in the theatres in which it served, combined with its vertical dive capability meant that the Vengeance suffered light combat losses.

Early experience with the aircraft showed there were problems with engine cooling.

In service the British managed to solve these problems, but [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] aircraft that did not have these problems remedied were declared uneconomical and unreliable to operate and were grounded.

The aircraft was described as being stable in flight and in a dive, with heavy elevator and rudder control, but with light aileron control.
Forward visibility was considered poor due to the large radial engine.

There were a number of fatal accidents with the Vengeance due to improper dive procedures and a center of gravity problem when the aircraft was flown with the rear cockpit canopy open, but without a rear gunner.

In combat the type was considered rugged, reliable, stable, and generally well-behaved.

Commonwealth forces operated the type from May 1942 to July 1944.

Burma tended to be a low priority for Allied air planners, and forces in that theater got what was left over.

Aircraft such as the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] spent their last days in Burma.

The Vengeance saw considerable action attacking Japanese supply, communications and troop concentrations in Burma.
Its service in that theater has been described as sterling.

At best the Vengeance was a qualified success in Burma, doing much to hold the line against Japanese advances.

Peter Smith "Jungle Dive Bombers at War" [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] recorded that

"Their pilots had difficulty in getting them off the ground with a full load. At Newton Field they were using the full length of the 6,000 feet runway before
becoming airborne. Kittyhawk aircraft could carry the same bomb load and in addition carry out ground-strafing.

In contrast many crew spoke well of the Vengeance."

"I certainly didn't have that experience of the Vultee. I can recall no incidents of pilots having difficulty in taking off with full bomb loads, and the Kittyhawk could not carry the same bomb load even after their undercarriage had been strengthened.
I remember the Vultee as a lovely aircraft to fly, an aircraft that was hard to stall and was fully aerobatic.

You could do anything in them, rolls, loops, stall turns, and there was enough room in the cockpit to hold a ball.
I used to like flying them, although a lot of blokes thought that they were too cumbersome."

< Australian War Memorial MSS1514/ref>

Operational history


By the time Britain had received large numbers of Vengeances, its opinions on the usefulness of specialised dive-bombers had changed, as the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and operations over North Africa had shown the dive-bomber to be vulnerable to fighter attack, so rejected the Vengeance for use over Western Europe or the Mediterranean.

It was decided to use the Vengeance in the[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] to carry out dive-bombing operations in [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] of British and Indian troops in the jungles of Burma.

The first RAF squadrons ([Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]) received Vengeances in October 1942.

The first dive bombing missions against Japanese forces were flown on 19 March 1943.

A further two RAF squadrons in Burma received Vengeances, ([Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]), together with two squadrons of the Indian
Air Force (IAF) ([Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]).

Vengeances were heavily deployed in support of the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] of 1943/44, and defending against the Japanese attacks on [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] of April—July 1944.

Following the successful defeat of the Japanese attack, the RAF and IAF started to phase out the Vengeance in
favour of more versatile fighter bombers and twin engined light bombers, with the last Vengeance operations over Burma being caried out on 16 July 1944.

Although phased out of front line service with the RAF, it continued to receive large numbers of Vengeances, with bulk deliveries of Lend Lease aircraft (as opposed to those purchased directly by Britain) having only just started.

Many of these surplus aircraft, including most Vengeance Mk IVs, were delivered to the United Kingdom and modified as [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], being used in this role both by the RAF and the Royal Navy's [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] (FAA).

In these roles all [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] was removed from the aircraft.

which was met by a mixture of LendAustralia placed an order for 400 Vengeances as an emergency measure following the outbreak of war in the Pacific, Lease and diversions from the original British orders.

While the first Vengeance was delivered to the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] (RAAF) in May 1942, the aircraft did not arrive in substantial numbers until April 1943.

The RAAF's first Vengeance squadron, [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] flew its first operational mission against [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] in the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

Squadrons equipped with the Vengeance included Nos. 12, 21, 23, 24 and 25 Squadrons. Of these, Nos. 12, 21
23 and 24 Squadrons served briefly in the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

Australian Vengeances flew their last operational sorties on 8 March 1944, as they were considered less efficient than fighter bombers, having a short range and requiring a long runway, and were withdrawn to allow more effective fighter bombers to move into the forward area.

The view of the Vengeance's limitation is disputed by Peter Smith in Jungle Dive Bombers at War.
Smith observed;

"The precision and skill of the dive-bombing method ..... and its clear superiority over most other means of air attack when it came to destroying small and well-hidden targets in difficult country, was proven over and over again in the Asian jungle campaigns.
Yet the men who achieved these excellent results, for such economy of effort and comparatively small loss, were but a handful of pilots who have been forgotten in the overwhelming mass of the heavy-and medium bomber fleets that were pounding both Europe and Asia by 1945."

Jungle Dive Bombers at War, Peter C. Smith, John Murray (Publishers) Limited, London, 1987, p.160.

This capacity was exemplified in the raid by RAAF 21 and 23 squadrons on Hansay Bay.

As Smith said in Jungle Dive Bombers at War,

"...the jungle-clad hills and islands of forgotten or unknown lands would become the major stage for the ultimate expression of the dive-bombers' skill."

The Vengeance squadrons were re-equipped with [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] heavy bombers.
While the RAAF still had 58 Vengeances on order in March 1944, this order was cancelled and the aircraft were never delivered.
Small numbers of Vengeances remained in service with support and trials units until 1946.

33 V-72s and A-35s were supplied to [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] from 1943, carrying out a few anti-submarine patrols.

They were withdrawn by April 1948.

The [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] received 67 A-35A and -Bs in 1943, being used to equip three bomb groups in North Africa.

The French, however, keen to get their aircraft operational as soon as possible did not incorporate improvements found necessary by Britain and Australia, and proved to be unreliable and suffering extremely high oil consumption.

As such they were restricted to training operations, being finally withdrawn in September 1944.

One nearly complete Vengeance that did not see squadron service is displayed at the Camden Air Museum, New
South Wales, [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

While the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] received 243 V-72s and A31s diverted from the RAF orders together with large numbers of A-35s specifically built for it, these saw no combat, being used as initial equipment for light bomber squadrons that re-equipped with twin-engined aircraft before deploying overseas, and as trainers or target tugs.

From April 1944, a number of Vengeance Mk IV series I's were made available to the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and assigned to tow-target flights and Combat Crew Replacement Centers (CCRC) stations.

All armament was removed and a light cable winch fitted in the rear fuselage for sleeve towing. Some of these aircraft continued to be flown with British [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and serial numbers.

By late June 1944 there were seven A-35Bs at Cluntoe, seven at Greencastle, ten at Sutton Bridge and six at East Wretham. When the CCRCs were dissolved in the autumn the A-35Bs were transferred to combat groups, most
fighter and several bomber groups having one charge at some time during 1945.

A-35Bs did not show a high state of serviceability and were generally considered troublesome to maintain.

Also designated RA-35B (R for Restricted)

Variants


RAF Variants


Vengeance I

Vultee V-72 license built by Northrop and ordered directly for Britain, powered by 1,600 hp (1,200 kW) R-2600-A5B engine. 200 built.

Vengeance IA

Northrop built aircraft purchased under Lend-Lease, powered by 1,600 hp (1,200 kW) R-2600-19 engine, otherwise similar to Vengeance I. USAAF designation A-31A-NO. 200 built.

Vengeance II

Vultee built aircraft directly purchased by Britain. Small differences from Vengeance I. 501 built.

Vengeance III

Vultee built Lend-Lease aircraft. Similar to IA. USAAF designation A-31A-VN. 200 built.


Vengeance IV

A-35B supplied under Lend-Lease to RAF and RAAF. 458 supplied to RAF and 121 to RAAF.

USAAF Variants


XA-31A

Redesignated prototype Vengeance accepted by USAAF in June 1942. Vultee designation V-88.

XA-31B

XA-31A modified as testbed for 3,000 hp (2,240 kW) [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].


XA-31C

Vengeance III modified as testbed for 2,200 hp (1,640 kW) [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]-18 Turbo Cyclone engine. One converted.


YA-31C

Vengeance IIIs modified as testbeds for R-3350-17 engines for [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]. Five built.


A-35A

Redesigned version for USAAF and Lend-Lease. Four degree wing incidence. Powered by 1,700 hp (1,70 kW) R-2600-13 or-8 engine. Four forward firing [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] (12.7 mm) caliber [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and one in rear cockpit. Vultee designation V-88. 99 aircraft built.


A-35B

Modified aircraft with six forward firing 0.50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns and additional bomb racks. 831 built.

Specifications (Vengeance I)

Data from British Warplanes of World War II

General characteristics

• Crew: 2 (pilot, navigator/gunner)
  
• Length: 39 ft 9 in (12.12 m)
  
• [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]: 48 ft 0 in (14.63 m)
  
• Height: 15 ft 4 in (4.67 m)
  
• Wing area: 332 ft² (30.84 m²)
  
• Empty weight: 9,725 lb (4,411 kg)
  
• [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]: 14,300 lb (6,486 kg)
  
• Powerplant: 1× [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]-A5B-5 Cyclone twin row 14 cylinder radial air-cooled engine, 1,600 hp (1,193 kW)
  

Performance

• [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]: 275 mph (239 kn, 443 km/h) at 11,000 ft (3,350 m)
  
• [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]: 235 mph (204 kn, 378 km/h)
  
• [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]: 1,400 miles (1,220[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], 2,253 km)
  
• [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]: 22,500 ft (6,860 m)
  
• [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]: 43.1 lb/ft² (210 kg/m²)
  
• [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]: 0.11 hp/lb (0.18 kW/kg)
  

Armament

• Guns:
  
  
  
  • 4 × fixed forward firing .30 in (7.6 mm) [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] in the wing
    
  • 2 × flexible mount .30 in (7.6 mm) or .303 in (7.7 mm) machine guns in rear cockpit^{[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]}
    


• Bombs:
  
  
  
  • 2 × internal 500 lb (230 kg) bombs
    
  • 2 × 250 lb (110 kg) bomb on wing racks