AP 118 · No. 11 Section II · Aircraft Plate 167 / 370

Plate 167 of 370 · Second World War · Dive-bomber

Vultee Vengeance Mk II

Vengeance Mk II ‘NH-L’ “Dianne”, No. 12 Squadron RAAF, painted as Vultee Vengeance Mk II ‘NH-L’ “Dianne” of No. 12 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, as photographed flying from Merauke in Dutch New Guinea in December 1943: a two-seat single-engined dive-bomber with a Wright R-2600 Cyclone 14 radial driving a three-bladed propeller, a long glazed canopy over the pilot and rear gunner with twin rear guns, a ‘W’-shaped wing spanning 14.6 m with slatted dive brakes, and a tall fin and rudder, shown tail down on its wheels: dark green upper surfaces and fuselage, light grey-green undersides to the wings and tail, blue-and-white roundels without red, a blue and white fin flash, ‘NH’ and ‘L’ in white either side of the fuselage roundel and “Dianne” in white script on the port cowling (shape from a Vengeance I three-view scaled to the published span and length, checked against an A-35 three-view and wartime photographs; the scheme follows three black-and-white photographs of this aircraft, and the green, yellow propeller tips and starboard codes follow standard practice).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Vultee Vengeance Mk II ‘NH-L’ “Dianne” of No. 12 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, as photographed flying from Merauke in Dutch New Guinea in December 1943: a two-seat single-engined dive-bomber with a Wright R-2600 Cyclone 14 radial driving a three-bladed propeller, a long glazed canopy over the pilot and rear gunner with twin rear guns, a ‘W’-shaped wing spanning 14.6 m with slatted dive brakes, and a tall fin and rudder, shown tail down on its wheels: dark green upper surfaces and fuselage, light grey-green undersides to the wings and tail, blue-and-white roundels without red, a blue and white fin flash, ‘NH’ and ‘L’ in white either side of the fuselage roundel and “Dianne” in white script on the port cowling (shape from a Vengeance I three-view scaled to the published span and length, checked against an A-35 three-view and wartime photographs; the scheme follows three black-and-white photographs of this aircraft, and the green, yellow propeller tips and starboard codes follow standard practice). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (924 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (Vengeance I–IV (A-31 & A-35)); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Vengeance Mk II ‘NH-L’ “Dianne”, No. 12 Squadron RAAF modelled here.

History

The Vengeance II

In 1940 the RAF had no dive-bomber, and the Stuka’s part in the fall of France persuaded the British Purchasing Commission in the United States to buy one. It went to Vultee, which designed a big two-seat, all-metal monoplane with a Wright Cyclone 14 radial, a long glazed canopy over the pilot and a rear gunner, and slatted dive brakes in the wings. Its wing was set at no angle at all to the fuselage, so that in a vertical dive the fuselage pointed straight at the target; the price was that it flew noticeably nose-up in level flight. Seen from the front, the wing’s flat centre section and upswept outer panels, swept back and then forward in plan, gave it a distinctive ‘W’ shape. The prototype first flew on 30 March 1941.

Vultee built the aircraft at Nashville and Northrop built more under licence at Hawthorne in California. After Pearl Harbor the US Army Air Forces took over the contracts, supplying later Vengeances to Britain under Lend-Lease as the A-31 and ordering its own A-35, which raised the wing’s angle and carried heavier guns. The Army found no place for a dive-bomber of its own, and most American Vengeances became trainers and target tugs. In all 1,931 were built.

The Vengeance found its war in Burma. From 1943 Nos. 45, 82, 84 and 110 Squadrons RAF and Nos. 7 and 8 Squadrons of the Indian Air Force used it to bomb Japanese positions in the jungle with great accuracy, diving almost vertically on targets close to Allied troops, until Mosquitoes and fighter-bombers replaced it in 1944. The RAAF took more than 300 and flew them with four squadrons in New Guinea from mid-1943, but withdrew them from combat in March 1944. Most ended their days towing targets, and only one is known to survive, in Australia.

This airframe

Vengeance Mk II ‘NH-L’ “Dianne”, No. 12 Squadron RAAF

NH-LThe airframe modelled

NH-L “Dianne” was a Vengeance Mk II of No. 12 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, flying from Merauke in Dutch New Guinea, where in December 1943 the Australian War Memorial photographed it three times on a single sortie, crewed by Flight Lieutenant C.J.B. McPherson and his observer. The captions record the squadron, code, name and crew but not the serial; No. 12 Squadron flew Mk IIs at the time, so it is modelled as one. The only surviving Vengeance, a Mk IA held privately at the Camden Museum of Aviation in New South Wales, could not be photographed well enough to paint from, and none is in a UK museum. The model shows NH-L as photographed, but parked with its wheels down and its canopy closed: dark green upper surfaces and fuselage, light grey-green undersides to the wings and tail, blue-and-white roundels without the red centre used in the South West Pacific, a blue and white fin flash, ‘NH’ and ‘L’ in white either side of the fuselage roundel and “Dianne” in white script on the port cowling. Its shape comes from a Vengeance I three-view scaled to the published span and length and checked against an A-35 three-view and the photographs. The photographs are black and white and show only the port side, so the green, the yellow propeller tips and the starboard codes follow standard practice.

Where to see one

Not on charge

The only known survivor is at the Camden Museum of Aviation in New South Wales, Australia.

All 370 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.