AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 116 / 312

Plate 116 of 312 · Second World War · Carrier scout and dive-bomber

Douglas SBD Dauntless

SBD-2 BuNo 2106, painted as Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless, US Navy BuNo 2106, the oldest surviving Dauntless and the only known survivor of the Battle of Midway, where it bombed the carrier Hiryū with Marine squadron VMSB-241 on 4 June 1942; lost in Lake Michigan in 1943, raised in 1994 and restored at the National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida: a two-seat carrier dive-bomber with a Wright Cyclone radial in a NACA cowl, a long greenhouse canopy, a tapered low wing with perforated split dive flaps, a tall fin and a 500 lb bomb on the centre-line crutch: Blue Gray upper surfaces over Light Gray, the blue-and-white star on the fuselage sides and wings, a white ‘6’ ahead of the fuselage star, the lower flaps lowered and twin guns raised in the rear cockpit, as photographed at Pensacola (no Dauntless is preserved in a UK museum; shape from an SBD-3 three-view drawing checked against the BuAer drawing and photographs).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless, US Navy BuNo 2106, the oldest surviving Dauntless and the only known survivor of the Battle of Midway, where it bombed the carrier Hiryū with Marine squadron VMSB-241 on 4 June 1942; lost in Lake Michigan in 1943, raised in 1994 and restored at the National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida: a two-seat carrier dive-bomber with a Wright Cyclone radial in a NACA cowl, a long greenhouse canopy, a tapered low wing with perforated split dive flaps, a tall fin and a 500 lb bomb on the centre-line crutch: Blue Gray upper surfaces over Light Gray, the blue-and-white star on the fuselage sides and wings, a white ‘6’ ahead of the fuselage star, the lower flaps lowered and twin guns raised in the rear cockpit, as photographed at Pensacola (no Dauntless is preserved in a UK museum; shape from an SBD-3 three-view drawing checked against the BuAer drawing and photographs). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.5 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (SBD-3 & SBD-5); engine, crew and dimensions are for the SBD-2 BuNo 2106 modelled here.

History

The SBD-2 Dauntless

The Dauntless began as the Northrop BT-1, a carrier dive-bomber designed by Ed Heinemann’s team at Northrop’s El Segundo works, which became part of Douglas in 1937. A reworked BT-1 with a new tail, inward-retracting main wheels and a more powerful Wright Cyclone flew as the XBT-2 in April 1938, and the US Navy ordered it as the SBD, for Scout Bomber Douglas. Like the BT-1 it had split flaps above and below the trailing edge of the wing, perforated with rows of holes so that they could be opened together in a near-vertical dive to hold the speed down without the tail buffeting. A crutch under the fuselage swung the centre-line bomb clear of the propeller as it was released.

The first SBD-1s went to the Marine Corps in 1940, and the SBD-2, with more fuel, followed for the Navy’s carrier squadrons; 87 were built. By the attack on Pearl Harbor the SBD-3, with self-sealing tanks and armour, was coming into service, and in the first half of 1942 the Dauntless did more than any other aircraft to stop the Japanese advance. At the Coral Sea in May SBDs and Devastator torpedo-bombers sank the light carrier Shōhō, and at Midway on 4 June Dauntlesses from Enterprise and Yorktown wrecked the carriers Akagi, Kaga and Sōryū in a few minutes, and Hiryū that afternoon.

Slow and lightly armed by 1943, the SBD was nonetheless steady in a dive and forgiving to fly, and crews said the initials stood for ‘Slow But Deadly’. It fought on through Guadalcanal and the Solomons until the Curtiss Helldiver replaced it on the fast carriers in 1944, while Marine squadrons flew it to the end of the war. The US Army flew it as the A-24 Banshee, and France, New Zealand and Mexico used it too. In all 5,936 were built. The Fleet Air Arm tested nine SBD-5s in 1944 but did not adopt it, and no Dauntless is in a UK museum.

This airframe

SBD-2 BuNo 2106

2106The airframe modelled

BuNo 2106, Douglas constructor’s number 632, was delivered to the US Navy on 31 December 1940 and joined Bombing Squadron 2 aboard USS Lexington. It was parked on Ford Island during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and came through undamaged, and on 10 March 1942 it dive-bombed Japanese shipping off Lae, New Guinea. In May 1942 it was handed to Marine squadron VMSB-241 on Midway, and on 4 June 1st Lt Daniel Iverson flew it in Major Lofton Henderson’s attack on the carrier Hiryū, bringing it back with more than 200 holes, a wounded gunner and only one main wheel working. Repaired, it became a carrier-qualification trainer on Lake Michigan, and on 11 June 1943 it went into the lake while trying to land aboard the training carrier USS Sable. It was raised in January 1994 and restored at the National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida, where it is displayed as the oldest surviving Dauntless and the only known survivor of Midway. The model shows it as photographs of it there do: Blue Gray upper surfaces over Light Gray, the blue-and-white star on the fuselage sides and both wings, a white ‘6’ ahead of the fuselage star, the lower dive flaps lowered with their red inner faces, the canopy open, twin guns raised in the rear cockpit and a bomb on the centre-line crutch. Its shape comes from an SBD-3 three-view drawing, checked against the BuAer drawing and the photographs; the starboard wing walkway, hidden in the photographs, is assumed to match the port one.

Where to see one

Not on charge

Survivors are in the United States, several of them raised from Lake Michigan, where they were lost during carrier training; the National Naval Aviation Museum at Pensacola holds the most. None is in a UK museum.

All 312 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.