Vultee A-31/A-35 Vengeance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vultee_A-31_Vengeance

The Vultee A-31 Vengeance was an American dive bomber of World War II, built by
Vultee Aircraft. A modified version was designated A-35. The Vengeance was not
used operationally by the United States, but was operated as a front-line
aircraft by the British Royal Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, and the
Indian Air Force in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific. The A-31 remained
in service with U.S. units until 1945, primarily in a target-tug role.

In 1940, Vultee Aircraft started the design of a single engined dive-bomber, the
Vultee Model 72 (V-72) to meet the requirements of the French Armée de l'Air.
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 monoplane with a closed cockpit
and a crew of two. An air-cooled radial Wright Twin 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 without lift from the
wing pulling the aircraft off target. To this end, it had a 0° angle of
incidence on the wing to better align the nose of the aircraft with the target
during the 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 the impression of an
inverted gull wing when seen from an angle, when in fact the wing has a more
conventional dihedral on the outer wing panels.

After the U.S. entered the war following the attack on Pearl Harbor, a number of
V-72 and A-31 aircraft were repossessed for use by the USAAF. As the USAAF
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
Twin Cyclone R-2600-19 engine and improved armament. As US Army test pilots
disliked the poor pilot view resulting 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 1,931
aircraft had been produced. The majority were produced at the Vultee plant in
Nashville, Tennessee.

Indecision about which aircraft type 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.

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 Vickers Wellington and
Hawker Hurricane 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 "...very effective..."

Peter Smith, author of Jungle Dive Bombers at War, wrote 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.


Role
Dive bomber

National origin
United States

Manufacturer
Vultee Aircraft

First flight
30 March 1941

Retired
April 1948

Primary users
United States
United Kingdom
Australia

Number built
1,931

UK & India

By the time that Britain had received large numbers of Vengeances, its opinion
on the usefulness of specialised dive bombers had changed. As the Battle of
Britain and operations over North Africa had shown the dive bomber to be
vulnerable to fighter attack, it rejected the Vengeance for use over Western
Europe or the Mediterranean. It was decided to use the Vengeance in the Burma
Theatre to carry out dive-bombing operations in close support of British and
Indian troops in the jungles.

Australia

Australia placed an order for 400 Vengeances as an emergency measure following
the outbreak of war in the Pacific, which was met by a mixture of Lend Lease and
diversions from the original British orders. While the first Vengeance was
delivered to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in May 1942, the aircraft did
not arrive in substantial numbers until April 1943. The RAAF's first Vengeance
squadron, No. 12 Squadron flew its first operational mission against Selaru
Island in the Dutch East Indies. Squadrons equipped with the Vengeance included
Nos. 12, 21, 23, 24 and 25 Squadrons. Of these, all but 25 Squadron served
briefly in the New Guinea campaign. 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 Vengeance squadrons were re-equipped with Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy
bomber.

United States

While the U.S. 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-engine aircraft before deploying overseas, and as trainers or target tugs.

Specifications (Vengeance I)

General characteristics
Crew: 2 (pilot, navigator/gunner)
Length: 39 ft 9 in (12.12 m)
Wingspan: 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)
Max. takeoff weight: 14,300 lb (6,486 kg)
Powerplant: 1 × Wright R-2600-A5B-5 Twin Cyclone 14 cylinder radial air-cooled
engine, 1,600 hp (1,193 kW)

Performance
Maximum speed: 275 mph (239 kn, 443 km/h) at 11,000 ft (3,350 m)
Cruise speed: 235 mph (204 kn, 378 km/h)
Range: 1,400 miles (1,220 nmi, 2,253 km)
Service ceiling: 22,500 ft (6,860 m)
Wing loading: 43.1 lb/ft² (210 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.11 hp/lb (0.18 kW/kg)

Armament

Guns:
4 × fixed forward-firing .30 in (7.6 mm) Browning machine guns in the wing
2 × flexible mount .30 in (7.6 mm) or .303 in (7.7 mm) machine guns in rear
cockpit

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




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