. Brewster Plane Candy .

[aarrggh]

Brewster F2A Buffalo Aircrafts - - ( Midway 1942 ) - abouts .

[Chris Pile]

I remember reading about those.
The fuselage was so short they were unstable.

[Gunslinger]

They also had weak landing gear...lots of accidents when landing on carriers. The Finns used them quite well against the Russians early in the war. After the Battle of Midway the Navy pretty much dumped them in a pile...at Midway a commander said that any pilot should be considered as lost before he left the ground in one of those barrels.

[comatus]

The company's business case reads like a Marx Bros. movie, but I'll offer the classical defense: although "obsolete when adopted," they were design-specified for the theoretical combat of one generation before WWII. As a replacement for [some] biplanes, they weren't too bad. They had speed, altitude and armament on the Boeing Peashooter, for instance. I'm afraid that's some pretty slim praise.

But yes, in Finnish hands they were an ace-maker. Do not mess with the Finns. They are some hard boys.

[Cash]

There was an article I read some years back about the Brewster. It actually had a good climb rate and turned decently., but it's weight ballooned when armor, more guns and self-sealing tanks were added. The Finns lover theirs, they fixed the reliability problems with the Wright Cyclone by inverting a piston ring in each cylinder, it helped with lubrication and cooling, plus the Brewster seemed to like colder weather better..the Finn's planes were known as model B-239's.
The US Navy/Marine Brewster IMHO never really got a chance to really show how well it handled until it was underpowered and overweight, by then it was too late.

[Steve T]

Fittingly, both surviving examples of this much-maligned series are Finnish examples...a B239 recovered from a Karelian lake about four years ago, owned by the USN air museum in Florida but on loan to, and displayed in, a museum in Finland in as-recovered condition (and its condition was remarkable); and the one-off VL Humu, a wooden-winged, Russian-engined variant the Finns once intended to manufacture in series, such had been their success with the B239s. The Humu has been on show in another Finnish museum for decades and was long thought to be the only surviving example of the series. The Finns also possess the only extant "genuine" Bristol Blenheim bomber (all the others remaining being Canadian-built Bolingbrokes), the only extant Blackburn Ripon torpedo bomber, the only extant Gloster Gauntlet, et cetera...And there are some mighty nice Studebakers on the road in Finland as well!

S.

[benaslopoke]

Brewster did get one airplane right !! The F4U Corsair built under license..