Flight Characteristics of the Douglas A-20 Havoc 1944 US Army Air Forces Pilot Training Film TF1-3332

more at http://quickfound.net/

Originally a public domain film, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_A-20_Havoc

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The Douglas A-20 Havoc (company designation DB-7) is an American medium bomber, attack aircraft, night intruder, night fighter, and reconnaissance aircraft of World War II.

It served with several Allied air forces, principally the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), the Soviet Air Forces (VVS), Soviet Naval Aviation (AVMF), and the Royal Air Force (RAF) of the United Kingdom. A total of 7,478 aircraft were built, of which more than a third served with Soviet units.

It was also used by the air forces of Australia, South Africa, France, and the Netherlands during the war, and by Brazil afterwards.

In most British Commonwealth air forces, the bomber variants were named Boston, while the night fighter and intruder variants were named Havoc. The exception was the Royal Australian Air Force, which used the name Boston for all variants. The USAAF used the P-70 designation to refer to the night fighter variants...

Design and development

In March 1937, a design team headed by Donald Douglas, Jack Northrop, and Ed Heinemann produced a proposal for a bomber powered by a pair of 450 hp (340 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior radial engines mounted on a shoulder wing. It was estimated to be capable of 250 mph (400 km/h) with a 1,000 lb (450 kg) bomb load. Reports of aircraft performance from the Spanish Civil War indicated that this design would be seriously underpowered, and it was canceled.

Later the same year, the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) issued its own specification for an attack aircraft. The Douglas team, now headed by Heinemann, took the Model 7A design, upgraded with 1,100 hp (820 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp engines, and submitted the design as the Model 7B. It faced competition from the North American NA-40, Stearman X-100, and Martin 167F. The Model 7B was maneuverable and fast, but did not attract any US orders.

The model attracted the attention of a French Purchasing Commission visiting the United States seeking aircraft for the modernization of the Armée de l'Air in the wake of the Munich Crisis. The French discreetly participated in the flight trials, so as not to attract criticism from American isolationists. The Air Corps, which controlled the aircraft's development, but had been excluded from negotiations between the French, the Production Division, and the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics, was directed by the White House on 19 January 1939 to release the DB-7 for assessment in contradiction of its own regulations. The "secret" was revealed when the Model 7B crashed on 23 January while demonstrating single-engine performance. The French were still impressed enough to order 100 production aircraft, with the order increased to 270 when the war began. Sixteen of those had been ordered by Belgium for its Belgian Air Force.

In a report to the British Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (AAEE) at RAF Boscombe Down, test pilots summed it up as: "has no vices and is very easy to take off and land ... The aeroplane represents a definite advantage in the design of flying controls ... extremely pleasant to fly and manoeuvre." Ex-pilots often consider it their favorite aircraft of the war due to the ability to toss it around like a fighter. The Douglas bomber/night fighter was found to be extremely adaptable and found a role in every combat theater of the war, and excelled as a true "pilot's aeroplane"...