FAIRCHILD AT-21 GUNNER BOMBER CREW TRAINER PROMOTIONAL FILM 87594
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- Опубликовано: 23 июн 2017
- Made during WWII, this promotional film from Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation showcases the AT-21 Gunner, an ill-fated design that failed to perform its original mission -- to train bomber crews for combat service. The film starts out by mentioning the success of the Fairchild C-82 Packet cargo aircraft, and briefly shows that airplane at the 1:30 mark, before starting to focus on the Gunner. The film was directed by Robert Elwyn and produced by Gordon Knox and his Princeton Film Center. The film details the building of the plane using modern techniques including veneer sheets of wood as shown at 5:20, which are later coated with rubber and glue that is then autoclaved at 6:10.
The process, known as Duramold, is identical to that used with the famed H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" aircraft. Duramold is a composite material process developed by Virginius E. Clark. Birch plies are impregnated with phenolic resin, such as Haskelite and laminated together in a mold under heat (280 °F, 138 °C) and pressure for use as a lightweight structural material. Similar to plywood, Duramold and other lightweight composite materials were considered critical during periods of material shortage in World War II, replacing scarce materials like aluminum alloys and steel.
Metal working on the Ranger 12 engines is also shown, with many modern procedures utilized. At 13:30, aluminum fins are shown bonded to steel cylinder fins using the Alfin Process.
The Fairchild AT-21 was an American World War II specialized bomber crew trainer, intended to train crews in the use of power gun turrets or a gun on a flexible mount, as well as learn to function as a member of a crew. It had a brief career as a training aircraft before modified bombers took over this role.
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) laid out a specification for a specialized bomber trainer, ordering two prototypes from Fairchild Aircraft. The XAT-13 powered by two 450 hp (336 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-1340-AN-1 radial engines, emerged as a "scaled down" bomber with a single machine gun in the glazed nose and a top turret with twin machine guns and fitted with tricycle landing gear. The concept was to have a single type that was able to duplicate the bomber crew positions from piloting, navigation, bomb aiming/dropping to aerial gunnery.
The second prototype, designated the XAT-14 was similar in layout but was powered by two 520 hp (388 kW) Ranger V-770 inline inverted 12-cylinder vee-type engines. A further refinement to suit the aircraft for bombardier training with the nose gun and turret removed, led to a new designation, the XAT-14A. Both prototypes featured an unusual construction, being built from "Duramold" plastic-bonded plywood.[4] At the end of the testing period, the USAAC ordered the inline version as the AT-21 Gunner, specialized for gunnery training. The AT-21 had a crew of five, pilot, co-pilot/gunnery instructor and three pupils.
Fairchild Aircraft Company built one aircraft in Hagerstown and 106 aircraft at their Burlington, North Carolina plant in 1943 and 1944, while Bellanca Aircraft built 39 at New Castle, Delaware, and McDonnell built 30 aircraft at their St. Louis plant. Both companies were enlisted to speed production and delivery to training units.
The AT-21 proved to be unsuitable for use as a trainer due to vibration and oscillation tendencies as well as an inherent instability caused by the short distance between the rudders and the gull wing resulting in unacceptable yaw even when slight rudder movements were made.
Not deemed suitable for its original purpose, The AT-21 was evaluated as an advanced pilot trainer. This did not work out well, due to poor single-engine performance and multiple landing gear problems. The aircraft was withdrawn from service in 1944 and was replaced by training examples of the actual aircraft in which the gunners would eventually serve. Many of the AT-21s were then relegated to target-tow duties.
A small number of AT-21s survived as civilian examples, with one (s/n 42-48053 owned by Craig Cantwell) still in existence in North Texas as a "basket case" awaiting restoration.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFilm.com
I live right down the street from where those aircraft were built
In Burlington NC
It's amazing how many people ride by there and have no idea of what happened in that building. I'm 60 and remember the airfield. It has a Walmart on it now. Sad.
The first use of a pressure molded plywood laminate structure in an airplane was the 1919 Loughead S-1 Sport biplane. The molding process and design of the plane, including folding wings, were the creation of a brilliant young engineer hired by the Loughead brothers, and it was his first design to be built; John Knudsen Northrop. Sadly it failed to sell in a market flooded with surplus Curtis JN-4 Jennies selling for as little as fifty dollars. After that, Jack went to work for Douglas Aircraft and gave them their first major success, the Douglas World Cruiser (folding wings and all).
Truth be told, Jack Northrop was the greatest design innovator in the early history of American aviation. If not for corrupt politicians, he would have been the Elon Musk of his time.
The Ranger V-770 had low power output and overheating problems in pretty much every aircraft in which it was tried. This was almost certainly due to the bureaucracy of wartime Pentagon resource allocation idiocy. The engine and the cowling were designed forated a particular turbocharger which was the most common one in use by proven operational aircraft. During developmental testing of a new engine and/or new aircraft, the generals reasoned that those turbochargers were too valuable to the war effort to "waste" on unproven equipment, so they instead provided some turbochargers that were laying around because they had proven to be too small and inefficient to be useful in the war effort. The result was not enough boost for the engine to produce its intended power output, and therefore planes that were too slow to produce the designed volume of airflow through the cowling, so the engines overheated.
My father trained in something made of wood that they called, "The bamboo bomber". He couldn't remember the aircraft model, but I bet it was the AT-21.
The Bamboo Bomber was the Cessna AT-17 Bobcat, derived from the civilian Cessna T-50, which can be seen on RUclips in the earlier Sky King tv series episodes. Later series eps featured the Cessna 310B.
Actually, the greatest rival(s) to the AT-21 were the AT-7 and AT-11 (derived from the C-45, a version of the Beech 18). This was the initial career-track trainer for many bomber-crew officers (pilots, navigators and bombardiers), who would move to the larger planes after getting experience in the smaller, cheaper to operate planes. The AT-21 attempted to improve on this role by being more capable and versatile than the AT-45, but just didn't cut it.
Interesting video and film find. I understand it had a quite short service life. I believe I saw a couple of these in a scrap yard on the west side of Wichita, Ks when I was a boy.
Great post PF.
neat lil' plane! Looks like a Lockheed Ventura and a N. american B-25 put together!The Ranger Engines and its' lightweight made it very nimble...the US could AFFORD to build ships like this just for training while our enemies could BARELY produce combat planes PERIOD!(when ya don't get bombed, it's ez to make 'em!)
I wonder how that Al-Fin process worked out over the long haul. There is a similar process being used these days, called Nikasil cylinders. Used by one of the companies who convert VW air-cooled engines into Experimental Aircraft engines. The word on the street is that the process does not hold up and the steel liner comes loose from the aluminum after a while.
Carbon fiber forerunner.
A really interesting and informative documentary once again PF, glad that they keep coming up in my recommend box. Thanks for sharing this with us all. 👍
If anything, it was a good looking plane
These from-the-ground-up crew trainers (AT-7 & '21) fascinated me as a kid, like maybe they were meant 4 kids 2 learn how 2 run bombers.
Thanks a lot for the video. It's not unlike a Hudson is it ?
The Duramold process wasn't well suited for aircraft. Early models of the AT-21 had significant cracking problems due to vibration and delamination when used in humid environments. Howard Hughes was a great believed in laminated wood being the aircraft composite structure of the future, and it was the only easily available material to use for his famous HC-4, better known as the Spruce Goose. Even the lightness of Duramold wood wasn't enough to make the HC-4 a military or commercial load carrier due to its great size and underpowered engines. It was also a seaplane at a time that seaplanes were already becoming obsolescent.
Interesting. I have seen similar construction techniques used in this era, very successfully, with other forms of transport. For instance many buses in the 1950s had a laminated wood body with layers of wood and aluminum or steel. Not many of them survive (for all sorts of reasons) but one key reason is that once water penetrated the initial wood layer, the metal layer would rust and it would catastrophically fail.
It was a tricky process for the 1940's. They developed better glue and better methods of getting the glue between the layers in the 1950's but that came as aluminum and aluminium composites were also developed, and aluminum was cheaper than the wood composite because of improvements in aluminum smelting techniques.Of course, carbon fiber and other materials make better and lighter composites now, and they have gotten cheaper and better ways have been found to make those materials.
I'm 71 years old and it's fascinating to watch some of the old films on your channel since I was alive through many of the events in those films. I've seen the changes in life, mostly for the better, in person, and we are generally a lot better off today than when I was born in 1946.
Didn't they do wind tunnel testing? There were a good handful of WW2 types that were purpose-built that turned out to be relatively useless.
this plane was FAR from useless! it was a trainer for more powerful combat aircraft
That's why it was retired from service a year after its introduction.
Pity there weren't many of the C- 82s in the Berlin Airlift. These could have broken the Soviets' back in short time.
Had a bunch of these at Ponca city all gone now.
Epic bust.
This aircraft was deemed unsuitable for its mission by US Army Air Corps. Not Fairchild's finest hour.
Kinda like "The Wooden Wonder," a.k.a. The Dehavaland Mosquito ( so I can't spell) the British WW 2 light/medium fighter bomber.
So that is how they made ,"The Ames Chair."
Eames?
Thank you for the correction.
Also it's super unstable....
Damn is that a b-35?
looks a good bit like a C-119.......
The Flying Boxcar.
This was not what came to be called the "Flying Boxcar". The FB was a C-119, made by a different company. The plane shown in the beginning of this video looks very similar to the FB, but is not it.
C to.