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Glass panels in lower fuselage on Grumman Wildcats?


Neil.C

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I making a model of an F4F at the moment (don't ask! :o) and there are couple of small glass panels in the lower fuselage in line with the cockpit.

 

I assume they are so the pilot can view underneath for some reason, but why?

 

Just interested really. 

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Just to be able to look straight down, I believe.  The fuel tank was in between them, and there was no "floor" on the sides of the cockpit.  The windows remained until deleted on the FM-2, but I believe that there was still a rivet outline where they had been.

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Bomb-aiming ventral windows were present on the F4F, F2A-1 and 2 (and all export versions, but not the F2A-3), early F4U-1's and the Grumman XF5F.  Then the problems (keeping clean, repairing broken glass, need for the space for tankage, etc.) caused the enthusiasm for the idea to wane.

 

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2 hours ago, Neil.C said:

Thanks for your replies.

 

I guess bomb aiming windows would make the most sense. 

I seem to remember reading somewhere that they were simply to improve downward visibility but in practice weren't very useful. I imagine they would collected every bit of dirt and grit that came into the cockpit. Can't see how useful they'd be for bombing either. In level bombing, by the time the pilot saw the target through them. It would be too late to drop. 

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According to local vets and the book The Cactus Air Force those windows are to make sure the landing gear has been fully retracted. Unlike most fighters from that era, the Wildcat had manual landing gear. There was a handle on the side wall, not unlike what you find on older cars windows, that you had to manually turn over and over again to retract the gear. The faster the fighter went, the harder the gear was to retract. So you needed to retract the gear as quickly as possible.  The manual had a set number of revolutions needed to retract the gear, but in the field the actual number needed was often way off. Mostly due to parts being worn out or damged during day to day operating.  

 

There are some humorous stories in the Cactus book about Wildcats getting jumped on take off.  One guy claimed to have set the world record for RPMs by a human and another claimed to have slammed his throttle forward while trying to retract the gear and almost breaking the handle off its mounts.

Edited by Thud4444
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On 12/30/2017 at 11:18 AM, Kari Lumppio said:

Hello!

 

In the  Finnish Brewster (F2A-1 / model 239) equipment list they were "bombing windows". I believe bomb aiming windows for level bombing.

 

Cheers,

Karn

 

 

The Buffalo had powered landing gear. If I had to guess,  I would assume that those windows are a hold over from the requirements on the older biplanes that had manual gear. I'm not sure why they were deleted on the GM built planes either. 

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I don't know that you'd even be able to see the wheels through those windows.  The F4F-4 manual says,

"Position of Wheels

The crank is rotated as far as it will go in the desired direction - either to raise or lower the wheels.  The wheels should then be in the desired position.  A mechanical position indicator is located forward of the handcrank."

 

Slightly after: "Warning Indicators

Mechanical- Small arrow head pointer in slot on right hand shelf just forward of the handcrank."

 

(I didn't see any mention of the lower windows.)

Edited by gingerbob
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I didn't say they worked, thats just what they where designed for.  There was a video on YouTube that showed how it all worked that I can't find anymore.  But there is one that showed how the windows worked on the early F4Us still on there.

 

It was what was "in style" in America at the time.

 

If they where not for landing gear purposes why are they on the purely interceptor model early P-38s?  

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3 hours ago, Thud4444 said:

Unlike most fighters from that era, the Wildcat had manual landing gear. There was a handle on the side wall, not unlike what you find on older cars windows, that you had to manually turn over and over again to retract the gear. The faster the fighter went, the harder the gear was to retract. So you needed to retract the gear as quickly as possible.  The manual had a set number of revolutions needed to retract the gear, but in the field the actual number needed was often way off.

I've read accounts by veteran pilots that aviators new to the Wildcat could be easily recognized on takeoff---their a/c would have a distinctive side-to-side 'wobble' as they tried to maintain flight control while simultaneously (and awkwardly) hand-cranking the landing gear up.

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Just now, thorfinn said:

I've read accounts by veteran pilots that aviators new to the Wildcat could be easily recognized on takeoff---their a/c would have a distinctive side-to-side 'wobble' as they tried to maintain flight control while simultaneously (and awkwardly) hand-cranking the landing gear up.

Not to mention the 'Popeye' triceps on the right arm from cranking that landing gear up and down!

Mike

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Where is your source on this? 

 

 

According to Wildcat pilots and books written where they interviewed those pilots those windows are for landing purposes.  While not practical they did allow a view of the gear illustrated here by a pic from the O'Hare display.

 

blog-f4f-ohare-exhibit_mg_4922.jpg

 

The windows on the F4U and P38 where for the same purpose. BTW there where no way to even hang bombs on an early P38. And the F4U had some kind of weird "red line" system that showed when the gear was fully retracted. I have no idea what the windows were for on the Buffalos. 

 

 All these planes were designed back when retractable gear was still a brand-new innovation. According to the book "The Forked Tailed Devil" the windows where installed in the 38 because Lockheed was certain that older pilots would forget to lower the gear.  Ironically according to Vought, they added the windows because of the problems the RAF was having out of the Blenheim. 

 

Again it was the style of the day.

 

 

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Good question - these downward viewing windows in Navy airplanes were introduced with the first monoplanes, the SBD, TBD, F2A, F4F, SB2A (but not the SBA), and maybe the very first SB2Cs. My guess is that they were primarily intended to somewhat make up for the reduction in downward visibility resulting from the larger wing of a monoplane (note that the SBA pilot was located well forward, almost at the leading edge of the wing). The bombing-window purpose was obvious in the TBD, because there was a crawl space forward for the bombardier to access the bomb sight that utilized the window beneath the pilot. The TBF had a similar window in the aft end of its bomb bay for level bombing. The Grumman general-arrangement drawing for the F4F, by the way, clearly shows that the pilot can't quite see the extended landing gear through the "bombing" windows.

 

The purpose of the window on the F4U, F5F, and FL is more readily explainable. See http://thanlont.blogspot.com/2008/06/antiaircraft-bombs.html

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If you look at a full side on view of the aircraft and imagine a line from the pilots head through the windows, in practice I doubt the wheels would be visible.  

 

Better still play around with this:

https://www.airspacemag.com/panoramas/f4f-wildcat-180954042/

Given the limited view out of those windows, I can see why they later deleted them.

 

Mart

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Well understood by every pilot (and by me), but I was wondering, maybe not by the theoretician designing the airplane!

 

Admittedly a lame guess on my part. The earlier discussion on “bombing windows” is, I suspect, closer to the truth.

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I think the windows are like many innovations in that they seemed like a good idea at the time but the reality of in service use rendered them pointless and useless. That extended to whole aircraft at times. 

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I have just short of a 1000 hours on Grob 109 motorgliders which have a window down by the pilot's feet. As a pilot can't ever recall looking through them whilst in the air, but they were useful for looking from the outside in when doing pre flight inspections.

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13 hours ago, Thud4444 said:

Where is your source on this? 

 

 

According to Wildcat pilots and books written where they interviewed those pilots those windows are for landing purposes.  While not practical they did allow a view of the gear illustrated here by a pic from the O'Hare display.

 

blog-f4f-ohare-exhibit_mg_4922.jpg

 

The windows on the F4U and P38 where for the same purpose. BTW there where no way to even hang bombs on an early P38. And the F4U had some kind of weird "red line" system that showed when the gear was fully retracted. I have no idea what the windows were for on the Buffalos. 

 

 All these planes were designed back when retractable gear was still a brand-new innovation. According to the book "The Forked Tailed Devil" the windows where installed in the 38 because Lockheed was certain that older pilots would forget to lower the gear.  Ironically according to Vought, they added the windows because of the problems the RAF was having out of the Blenheim. 

 

Again it was the style of the day.

 

 

Hi Thud4444,

 

My favorite secondary source is the Aircraft Pictorial book: https://www.amazon.com/Aircraft-Pictorial-No-F4F-Wildcat/dp/B007RXXGZE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1514828982&sr=8-1&keywords=dana+bell+f4f

 

To be honest, I have a love-hate relationship with the author, but he seemed to do his homework on that one.

 

Despite the memories of a pilot or two, it was impossible to see the landing gear from the Wildcat cockpit.  With his head fully aft, the pilot had a 13-degree view of the world below him.  If his vision was extended an additional 5 degrees forward, he would - at best - be able to see the aftermost tread of the tires on fully extended gear.  Didn't happen because it couldn't happen...

 

I admit that I haven't done as much work on the P-38, but I've yet to see any downward windows in that aircraft.  Martin Caiden tended to play a bit loose with the facts; I suspect that in Fork-Tailed Devil he was confusing the reflective mirrors set inboard of the nacelles to check on the gear retraction/extension.

 

I spent two years researching the Corsair at the US National Archives - every document referred to the ventral window as the bombing window.  (Because of the problems with carbon monoxide leaks, there were a LOT of documents referring to that window.)  Having sat in a Corsair or two, I can assure you that there was no way to see the landing gear through the bombing window.

 

Tom Wildenberg's well researched Destined for Glory describes the Navy's mid-1930s decision to hang bombs on all its fighters to suppress the anti-aircraft guns on enemy ships, giving dive bombers and torpedo planes a better chance of hitting their targets.  The bombing window gave the pilot a better view when deciding to attack.

 

Cheers,

 

 

Dana

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15 hours ago, Dana Bell said:

To be honest, I have a love-hate relationship with the author, but he seemed to do his homework on that one.

 

Oh, he's not so bad, just too slow getting stuff out there.  Compare to Bill Gunston, for example ;)

 

Best wishes for the new year, Dana,

bob

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