Friday, September 30, 2005
Friday Night Airplane Blogging
The Douglas SBD Dauntless was based on a Jack Northrup pre-war design. During the first half of the war, it was the mainstay dive bomber of the US Navy and Marine Corp aviation. The high point of its service life was undoubtedly the Battle of Midway, when dive bombers sank 4 Japanese carriers and inflicted irreperable damage on Japanese naval aviation. With a cruising speed of 185 mph, it was vulnerably slow to fast fighters and well handled AA fire. It was aable to take battle damage and still fly. And most important for its task, it was very steady in a dive. Of the almost 6000 built, the are 3 still flying today.
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