mikehallam,
Where to start ? This is wonderful stuff, although I don't know Middleton's "Tests of Character" (and am certainly buying no more books, as they're piled up all over the place as it is !) Peter C. Smith's earlier (1986) "Vengeance!" covers the same ground very well (and has the same publisher) but there's much more here.
My experiences with the Vengeance are in Pages 128/#2552 (when I first set eyes on them) and 129/#2577 (when I first strapped one on)
et seq for the next three years. I had 400 hours on Mks. I-III, but never saw a Mk.IV They didn't come out to India while I was there (or at all ?).
A few minor cavils:
"The Vengeance, as the British version was called, a name also used by the USAAF, reverted to a single fin and rudder and had a 1,700 h.p. Wright Cyclone 18 cylinder twin row radial engine"
Vultee called it the V-72; the USAAC # called it the A-31; we called it the "Vengeance"; it had a 14 cylinder Wright Double Cyclone of 1600 hp to start with. (Wright GR 2600 A5-B 1193kW).
Note # : The US Army Air Corps became the US Air Force only in September 1947. They went into blues but kept their Army ranks. We'd done the same in 1918, but invented new ranks for ourselves.
"It required several hundred stalls from 1 G to 6 G to cover all the permutations".
Our experience was that it was very difficult to get a Vengeance to stall
at all , for the combination of weight and the enormous drag (even without airbrakes) of its tail-down flight attitude (zero AoI) caused it to "mush" rather than stall cleanly. In fact, there was a sort of seamless progression from flying to non-flying without any point you could call a proper stall. (Might that have tied in with their finding that:
"...although the stall was fairly innoccuous and aileron control held it laterally stable throughout...")
??? - I'm no Test Pilot, but the little I can remember is that in a stall you try to keep level with
rudder (as aileron may only make it worse).
I note that the Test Pilots say nothing about spins: I couldn't spin a Vengeance (nor could anyone else
AFAIK, and I've never heard of an accidental one - the "mush" factor again ?).
This "mush" also made glide landings inadvisable at normal "over the fence" speeds, for although you'd rounded-out correctly, it would just keep going down even though your attitude was correct - and you'd thump down with an almighty bang! The answer was to stick an extra 20-30mph on (and risk going off the other end). Better, drag it in low 'n slow with a fair amount of power, and roll it onto the strip.
With no "G" suits or anything else to help, people pulled as hard as they could on pull-outs from a dive (wouldn't you ?), until "grey-out". I suppose that might have been around 4½ G. How they recorded 6 G, I don't know (they must have been supermen !)
"The Americans realised that they would need many more aircraft so delivery schedules were completely altered, but that is another story".
Not much of a story ! They tried the A-31 and turned it down #. Then they asked for a 4 degree Angle of Incidence, Vultee obliged; they called that the A-35 (our Mk.IV) - turned that down too, and lost interest in it (except for training and odd jobs).
Note #: They decided that all the A-31s (our Mks.1-II-III) should go to Britain, as their pilots couldn't see over the nose and wanted nothing to do with them. Neither could we, but beggars can't be choosers (and we'd already paid in advance for most of the things !)
"The 1,200 which were delivered to the RAF gave extremely good service. mainly in Burma, with Hurricanes giving top cover to their attacks".
Very seldom ! In my 53 sorties, I can only recall three or four occasions when we were escorted in the Arakan. Two Hurricanes gave top cover to our "box", another pair weaved a mile or so behind us to guard our tails. As I have said in some Post or other: "It was a kind thought, but as the Nakajima "Oscar" was so superior to the Hurricane in all respects save firepower and solidity of build, the poor things would have their work cut out to defend themselves - never mind us ! (the bottom pair would often creep up closer to us - to get a little protection from our 12 rear Brownings ?)" As it happened, we were never attacked (which was as well).
But, with these minor quibbles, your quote has been very useful, Mike, and I've learned a lot I didn't know before.
Cheers, Danny.