The WWII Plane That Wouldn't Fly

[TuFun]

I was listening to this broadcast this morning of Dave Bowman recalling his flights in SO3C.

91-year-old Dave Bowman appears on the November 26, 2011 edition of Hometown Heroes, recalling his adventures - and misadventures - with "the plane that wouldn't fly," the Curtiss Wright SO3C Seamew.

"That's the title of Bowman's memoirs, detailing how he and the other pilots of the USS Columbia's Vee Division burned through 16 of those planes before Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey put an end to the poorly-conceived aircraft's involvement in the Pacific War."

Broadcast link: http://wpc.309d.edgecastcdn.net/8030.../174/42096.mp3

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[X_eidos2]

If I remember correctly, the Seamew was built here in Columbus, OH at the large Curtiss-Wright plant which would later build the Helldiver. My uncle's experience with the Seamew seemed to be similar to Mr. Bowman's in that it was so dis-liked by it's crews that it wasn't used. My uncle was in the Royal Navy and he had been assigned to the Naval Air Station at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia during WW2. The floats on the Seamew had been replaced with landing gear so that they could be flown from the base instead of being catapulted from ships. Apparently the landing gear were place in such a way that the wheels lined up exactly with the plane's center of gravity. As a result, the plane would nose over with the least amount of braking. My uncle said that the entire group of Seamews that had been assigned to the base were parked on the far side of the base, where they were out of the way and were never flown.