G/Capt ‘George’ Darley DSO:
“I had tested the Buffalo, used by the Australians, shortly after I arrived in Singapore. I found it to be a pretty useless heap of ironmongery to heave around the sky, with R/T limited to about 10 miles. In combat its guns were most unreliable, being operated by solenoids which were scarce. More often than not an aircraft which could fly had guns which could not fire. No wonder more were destroyed on the ground rather than in the air. After WW2 I read that the Brewster Buffalo was issued to the Eagle Squadrons in the UK who deliberately ground-looped them on landing, resulting in write-offs. In any event, the agile Japanese Navy Zero fighter and later its Air Force equivalent amply showed the Buffalo as a useless fighter.”
Not a fan then…
By: RMAllnutt - 5th December 2005 at 03:42
The fuselage of the Finnish example (a Humu) is actually an original Brewster-built aircraft. Only the wing (a wooden one) is of Finnish design and manufacture. The reason they didn’t continue building Buffalos was only in part because of the management problems. The landing gear of the Brewster was pretty fragile, and didn’t do well in carrier landings, however more significantly, when the aircraft was updated with all of the Navy requirements for armor, self-sealing fuel tanks etc. (the -3 version) it was pretty underpowered. Apparently they could not upgrade to a bigger engine (unlike the F4F), so it was easy meat for zeros (at Midway). That was a very big reason they didn’t carry on building buffaloes.
cheers,
Richard
By: hawkdriver05 - 4th December 2005 at 21:05
Thanks. I’v read that the reason the F2A wasn’t continued was that the Brewster managment was not really up to the task of making airplanes in large numbers for Govt contracts..
By: steve_p - 4th December 2005 at 17:37
Here’s a link to the Finnish copy:
http://www.warbirdforum.com/humu.htm
Best wishes
Steve P
By: EHVB - 4th December 2005 at 17:23
There is one in Finland, but this is a Finnish version, with a different wing construction. However, it looks for 99% like a standard Buffalo. BW Roger
By: steve_p - 4th December 2005 at 17:16
I dont think so. I think I read that the remains of the last surviving Finnish one ended up in the US, much to the dismay of many Finns.
Best wishes
Steve P
By: hawkdriver05 - 4th December 2005 at 17:04
Are there any in Finnland?
By: mike currill - 4th December 2005 at 14:59
Well the chanches of seeing one of the Dutch ones at Legends are even more slim than seeing the RAF museums Halifax doing one enigined loopings over Duxford during the show! BW Roger
😀 😀
By: EHVB - 4th December 2005 at 14:52
Well the chanches of seeing one of the Dutch ones at Legends are even more slim than seeing the RAF museums Halifax making one enigined loopings over Duxford during the show! BW Roger
By: mike currill - 4th December 2005 at 13:49
What a pity. It would certainly be something different for them to surprise us with. I think that is one thing people have come to expect at Flying Legends as they have done a good job of springing a surprise aircraft on us over the years.
By: EHVB - 4th December 2005 at 12:01
No, the MLM one is a static recreation, and the other three (parts mostly) if ever used in a restauration, will never fly. BW Roger
By: mike currill - 4th December 2005 at 11:55
Hey that’s good news. I’ll be the first to ask – will it be at Leg… On second thoughts, no I won’t but it would be nice to see
By: EHVB - 4th December 2005 at 11:23
In Holland are the remains of 3 of the type (2 of them former Dutch ones) in long term storage. We are talking about remains, not complete machines or wrecks, but in the future these remains might be incorporated into a partly new, partly original reconstruction. The MLM at Soesterberg expect a full scale ‘new one’ during 2006 or 2007, it is currently being made in the USA.
BW Roger
By: mike currill - 4th December 2005 at 09:24
Considering the age of the design it would appear to have been quite a handy machine in its day, certainly on a par with its contemporaries
By: hawkdriver05 - 4th December 2005 at 01:16
And the ONE time it was used by US in combat, most of the Marine pilots were pretty green going up against the absolute BEST the Japanese Navy had.
By: grounded - 3rd December 2005 at 21:50
Squadron leader Frank Carey evaluated one with a hurricane and found at 16ooo ft they were eqally matched, over and below this height the Hurricane had the edge. I freely admit I have forgotten which marks of aircraft were used in the test. Don’t knock an aircraft until you know what specification was required from it, or what power plant was available at the time, etc etc.
By: hawkdriver05 - 2nd December 2005 at 10:47
Indeed! It was certainly as good, if not better, than the early Wildcat. The Finns did very well with it. Yet everything I read bout it says it was junk!
By: Eric Mc - 2nd December 2005 at 07:43
“Mismaligned” surely must mean “highly praised”? 🙂
Just done a Google search and the US Navy have one for restoration for their museum at Pensacola.
By: DaveM2 - 2nd December 2005 at 03:55
Do a google for BW372
Dave
By: trumper - 31st July 2005 at 09:42
I recently read a book called Buffaloes over Singapore, http://www.warbirdforum.com/buffsing.htm
Well worth a read,it seems the Buffaloes were a lovely plane to fly but ladened up with guns/armour/ammo/Radio it became cumbersome and slow.
Maintainance and few spares were a major problem as well.They always seemed to be fighting off the back foot [well in Singapore].
Maybe in different theatres of ops and against different types of opposition it fared better.
By: JoeinTX - 31st July 2005 at 06:48
In response the questtion about the undercarriage, they were known to have gear failures during carrier landings. The odd guide link (oleo?) extending from the well to the main gear bottom was a source of problems where it jammed or broke out of track on hard landings. I don’t know that much of trouble on conventional surface landings though….
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July 23, 2005 at 4:49 pm