Brewster F2A Buffalo - USA
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The first monoplane fighter to enter service with the U.S.Navy was designed and built by a company which had only ventured into the aviation industry in 1932. Nevertheless, the company's two design engineers, Dayton T. Brown and R.D. MacCart proved that their ideas on monoplane design were better thought out than some. When the contract for a carrier-based fighter, capable of 300 mph (483km/h) was put out to competition on November 15,1935, there were only three entrants: Seversky (with a monoplane, a navalized P-35 designated XFN-1), Grumman (with yet another biplane, designated XF4F-1, a derivant of the F3F) and Brewster, with the only original design. on February 2,1936 the Navy ordered a prototype of the reliable biplane from Grumman and the following June requested Brewster to start work on a prototype of the Model B-139 which it designated F2A, assigning to the fledgling company the letter A, which had previously denoted General Aviation (ex Atlantic). Brewster's new airplane was a cantilever mid-wing monoplane with a stubby, all-metal fuselage and a riveted metal skin for the fuselage and the trapezoid wings. only the ailerons, rudder and flaps were fabric-covered. The cockpit was enclosed and the landing gear was completely retractable; the aircraft was also fitted with a tail wheel and arrester hook for flight deck landing. During early test flights the Model B-139 did not arouse much enthusiasm but after the aircraft had undergone wind tunnel tests and certain faults which this had revealed were corrected, the plane managed not only to reach the required 300 mph speed but actually exceeded it and won approval for its maneuverability. The Navy therefore ordered a first series production run of 54 aircraft, on June 11, 1938, while reserving judgment on Grumman's XF4F-2 fighter, a monoplane development of that company's 1936 biplane submission.

In June 1940 VF-3 Fighter Squadron aboard the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga became the first squadron to receive the Navy's first carrier-borne monoplane fighters. In the event, however, the U.S.Navy only kept 11 of these F2A-1s in service, the remaining being ceded to the Finnish Air Force which was fighting a desperate defensive battle against the Soviet Union. During the course of 1939, 43 F2A-2s with a more powerful engine and a few minor changes were ordered to replace the F2A-1s. In 1940, orders started to reach Brewster from European purchasers: 40 B-339s for Belgium; 170 B-339Es series for Great Britain; 72 B-339Ds and 20 of the B-439 variant (with the more powerful 1,200 hp engine instead Of the 1,100 hp model) for the Netherlands East Indies Air Force. Brewster's factory was working at full stretch during the early months of 1940 but serious problems arose during the second half of that year. The most alarming was the U.S.Navy's discovery that the F2A's landing gear was not strong enough to stand up to flight deck landings, even when these were smooth and slow. The second came when the RAF reported from Britain that the Buffalo, as it had been called, fell short of contemporary European fighter performance; the third set. back stemmed from requests for more armor protection from European buyers and from the U.S.Navy (for the F2A-3). This led to an increase in weight and adversely affected the plane's performance: it now suffered from instability and was difficult to handle. There was no easy way of solving these faults: the landing gear had its two weaker struts strengthened but no further improvement was possible without completely redesigning the whole aircraft.

A more powerful Pratt Whitney engine could not be substituted for the Wright engine as it was much larger and longer, making a rebuild necessary. While all this was going on, the Grumman F4F-3 was scoring top marks and it was obvious that once the current production run had ended (making a total of 507 F2As built), no more would follow. one other U.S.Navy Squadron, apart from VF-3 aboard USS Saratoga received F2A-2s: VF-2 of USS Lexington which only flew them from September 1941 until January 1942. All the Navy's F2A-2s and F2A-3s were accordingly ceded to the Marine Corps, where they saw service with VFM-221 Squadron from land bases and first saw action in the Battle of Midway on June 4,1942, suffering very heavy losses indeed. of the 25 air- craft which went into action (19 F2As and 6 F4Fs) only 7 survived (6 F2As and 1 F4F). These little F2As were simply no match for the Japanese Zero fighters; other pilots, of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Corps and Royal Air Force had already paid the price for the Buffalo's shortcomings well before this in the Far East. The first F2As to arrive in Britain were aircraft which should have gone to Belgium, by then occupied; these were flown by 805th and 885th Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm and took part in the defense of Crete, but not as front line aircraft. once 71st Squadron of the RAF found how inferior their B-339Es were to the Spitfires and Hurricanes, the Buffaloes were shipped off to Squadrons serving in the Far East: 67th (Burma) and 243rd (Singapore), both RAF; 21st (Malaya) and 453rd (Singapore), Royal Australian Air Force and 488th Squadron of the Royal New Zealander Air Force based in Singapore. All these bases were overwhelmed in the tidal wave of the Japanese invasion and the Brewsters were literally blown to bits.

In March 1941 the few remaining serviceable aircraft were being flown by 146th Squadron and the American Volunteer Group in Burma, but not for long. other Buffalo users stationed in the Far East fared no better: the B-339Ds of 1-VLG V, 2-VLG V, 3-VLG V and 3-VLG IV of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Corps were decimated as they tried to defend Java, Sumatra, Malaya and Borneo. By the time Java fell, only four, unserviceable B-339Ds were left on the airfield, all the others had been destroyed, although they had managed to score SS victories against Japanese aircraft. When the Brewster fighter engaged the Japanese fighters it was out of its league but it was outclassed rather than a really bad basic design: this was proved by the fact that the 44 Brewsters (43 F2A-1s and the plane which had been the XF2A-1) which served with the Finnish Ilmavoimien (flown by LLv21, LLv22, LLv24 and LLv26 Squadrons) held their own against the Soviet warplanes until 1944, when they were replaced by Messerschmitt Bf-lO9s. Einno Lunkkanen, the Finnish ace, achieved most of his "kills" in his F2A. Fin- nish Air Force records show 41 victories to a single F2A credit before it was shot down. The Soviet Air Force was equipped with second-rate fighters and gave the F2A a chance to shine; when compared with the German, British and Japanese combat planes the Brewster came out badly. The last surviving Brewster F2A in Finland made its final flight on September 14, 1948, but by then the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation itself was no more.
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