When Technology Deludes; The North American O-47
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- Опубликовано: 3 фев 2025
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These 'forgotten' aircraft are endlessly fascinating. Another great video, Ed, and very well scripted too.
You know a plane is REALLY bad when its own name reads like a losing record
0 for seven?
@@Paladin1873😂
OO, now that's just ALL kinda wrong!😂 but, then again???
😂
The imagery you were able to collect for this video is outstanding!
I have to weigh in here as I actually worked on an O-47 at the Planes of Fame museum in Chino, CA. The middle observer's seat is actually on a vertical track and is hand cranked up and down like an elevator. I have no idea if work continued on it after we realized 1) we didn't have a starboard wing for it and 2) no one else did, either. I think the Smithsonian has the last complete O-47.
A great insight into design and always remembering to ask the right questions when scoping a project. Thank you
Air Corps: "We want a cooler plane. Biplanes are so yesterday."
Requirements Writer: "OK, what is this new plane supposed to do?"
Air Corps: "Oh, you know... fly and stuff. We'll find a use for it."
I knew a guy that found a crashed OA-47B while hiking in the Colorado Rockies. The bodies had been recovered but he found a folder with many of the pilot's drawings and paintings inside- still in perfect shape. He contacted the Air Force and it took a while but they put him in touch with the pilot's relatives and he returned the art to them.
Excellent, well presented ! Thank you, Ed !
Good stuff, do the Westland Lysander sometime please, there's surprisingly little on RUclips about it, and nothing at your level. Thanks for the content.
Thanks Ed. Yet another lemon....and l didn't realise how many Lysanders were lost but l knew the Fairy Battles were pulverised . Cheers 😊
Not many planes can be slated for being too slow AND too fast but you nailed it Ed .... You found one 😋
Thank you Ed Nash......
Shoe🇺🇸
I remember the recollections of a pilot flying the artillery spotting mission on the Piper Cub in Italy for the FAB (Brazilian Air Force), in 1944/45. Surprisingly, they where not shot a lot by the Germans, because that was a case of don't mess with someone who have powerful friends. If the German missed and the Cub was still flying, the retaliation came in form of a salvo from a full artillery division, which were in the other end of the radio waiting for someone to make that mistake.
The early monoplanes which were shoved into the ground attack / army cooperation role such as the Vickers Delta etc. are interesting. The other type which is obscure and forgotten - planes like the Northrop Nomad, which had different names and evolved over time until obsolescence are also interesting.
I kind of like the look of it, even if it look like its pregnant with a P-26 Peashooter on the way.
The O-47A makes an apearance in the 1965 movie 'The Flight of the Phoenix', completing the final flying sequences after the crash of the purpose built Tallmantz Phoenix P-1 and the death of pilot and designer Paul Mantz.
Nice to see a picture of the militarized version of the Heston Racer at the beginning of the video. Very little is available for this aircraft .
That thing looks like someone crashed a Douglas Devastator in a brick wall. Either that or a Dauntless got pregnant.
😂
"Too slow and too fast" also describes the observation versions of the Potez 63.
I don't know about their rough field capability, but they don't seem to have been optimized for that. The original project was for a completely different role.
You should also examine the Curtiss O-52 Owl, designed with the same philosophy in mind, I think.
Video idea: General overview of cooperation aircraft along with the concept itself.
I honestly had to look that term up. I like to think that after learning about military aircraft for decades at this point, I know a thing or two. But I had honestly never heard that term before (or if I did, it didn't stand out in any way).
Great video I enjoy learning about lesser known aircraft with special roles in mind. Can we see one on the Curtis O 52 Owl aircraft. 🇺🇸
It resembles the Lysander at least superficially. 🇬🇧
"Let's come up with requirements in a vacuum! What could go wrong?"
It never works, but, it could work for us.
So, both the most and least advanced aircraft of its type in the world. Hard to achieve standard, there.
So, in the USAAF Far East aircraft inventory for 41/42, I can find no mention of the 0-47, but I can see 11 O-42 Owls. They would have been grounded as soon as the Japanese attacked as most daylight flying was done by the few remaining P 40s, P 35s, and B 17s. During the siege, some slower aircraft may have been used at night to fly supplies into Corregidor and Bataan.
I'm always surprised that they never turned it into a flying ambulance. You'd think that such big belly would have been able to hold -- aside from the pilot -- a couple of stretchered patients or several (four, maybe?) ambulatory patients and an attendant.
How would you get the patient, especially a litter, in and out?
Plus, it needed an airfield, couldn't take off from rough terrain, so it wasn't possible use it on the frontlines.
Hard to believe that the same company that built the P-51 built this. Lessened learned I guess.
While perhaps the Lysander was a sitting duck , to enemy fighters, it's still an iconic British WW2 aircraft.
Not to mention it was a STOVL and didn't need an airstrip and could still be used for artillery spotting and pick up secret agents.
I was 5 ............ My Dad bought me an Airfix Lysander
He seemed puzzled he needed to assemble and glue it for me (well he was an ex-RAF Flight Engineer)
Lysanders still have a special place in my heart (But I fly a C42 Ikarus occasionally )
If Lysanders were sitting ducks for enemy fighters, why weren't Piper Cubs?
I guess you could put the Curtis O-52 owl in the same category🤔
"O" for "observation". "P" for "pursuit" etc. How many role codes did America have, and what were/ are they?
O-47 / Battle pilots " whats with the crappy single gun for the pilot
Defiant/ Roc Pilots - looks on enviously
To slow to survive but to fast to get a good close look, thankfully the L19 bird dog was waiting in the wings.
And the L-19 wasn't too slow to survive? It was much slower and more flimsy than the O-47, which was hardly too fast to get a close look. You go low and slow you take hits, in any airplane.
It appears that the 047 would have worked OK with a double waspnd a stretched tail as an attacker without the beer belly or recon aircraft.
Great video and information. I wonder how much this first AI radar set-up weighed? Also, type of ammo used in the .303's, and if they had effective incendiary-rounds for this calibre?
The Browning 1919 used .30-06 ammunition.
Much money to be had building bigger, better, more complex.
I can see how North American finally got wrong things right and developed the T-6.
...so the engineering embodiment of rolling a one?
Eerily familiar to multiple other failed designs , almost but not quite a good idea.
Interesting enough, the Germans and Russians used low altitude reconnaissance aircraft of comparable performance with some success.
I always thought that a third member of a crew for a plane like this was very unnecessary. I mean are you really going to be observing anything while the enemy is shooting at you ? I suggest it's just an extra weight and moreover the "stuff" you need to keep this third guy comfortable is also extra weight. Crew down to two and maybe some armour instead of the gunner which could be handled by the observer better yet the single .30 cal could be upgraded to pair of .30 browning or better yet a mounting for a .50 cal !
Agreed that 3 crewmembers is too many. In the long the military did away with the the rear facing guns and kept the observer. I'm thinking O-1 Mohawk, OV-10 Bronco and the like. Slow observation aircraft can only operate used under conditions of local air superiority anyway, because a rear gunner is a feel-good measure that can't really protect a singleton observation aircraft from fighter attack.
Big ramble coming on as usual....I always thought that a third member of a crew for a plane like this was very unnecessary. I mean are you really going to be observing anything while the enemy is shooting at you ? I suggest it's just an extra weight and moreover the "stuff" you need to keep this third guy comfortable is also extra weight. Crew down to two and maybe some armour instead of the gunner which could be handled by the observer better yet the single .30 cal could be upgraded to pair of .30 browning or better yet a mounting for a .50 cal !
Agreed that 3 crewmembers is too many. In the long the military did away with the the rear facing guns and kept the observer. I'm thinking O-1 Mohawk, OV-10 Bronco and the like. Slow observation aircraft can only operate used under conditions of local air superiority anyway, because a rear gunner is a feel-good measure that can't really protect a singleton observation aircraft from fighter attack.
Airplane with a Beer Belly
Echos precisely my feelings on the Lysander: too slow for ground attack, too big for Army co-op & artillery spotting, and the agent drop/pickup job could have been done by any number of obsolete biplanes fitted with an enclosed canopy. Huge waste of time and resources, especially when you consider that part of the delay in getting the Whirlwind into service was because Wesland was too busy with the Lysander.
First of the Petter Pigs!!!
:)
I've never been first ---
Its the F35 of his era...
The F-35 has proven to be a rather capable F-117 replacement for night bombing in contested airspace. It also has some impressive beyond visual range capabilities in the air to air role.
It's that combination that makes it successful on the export market because smaller airforces prefer a jack of all trades despite the limitations that result from the universal design.
LOL comparing the most potent and versatile combat aircraft yet with this turkey.
I thought I had seen everything, but this video proved that the world can still surprise me💞