BtC 3.8 - The Wonderous World of the TBD Devastator

Hey all,

I have returned from my trip and have launched myself into the next project. Some weeks ago I published a video on the Lae-Salamaua raid. It was an organic outcrop of the research viewer and Patreon Mensch1066 had launched me on, as he had suggested a video on the TBD-1 Devastator as part of his reward perk. Now, we will actually be tackling the plane itself.

During my time looking up this aircraft, I found many surprising elements - one was that the TBD was meant to be equipped with smoke canisters to mask fleet movement and torpedo attacks. Used during trials in the 1930s (see the picture above), this idea did not see have any practical application during the Second World War. 

A second issue of slight annoyance was the lack of any pilot manual in the public domain. Usually these are easy to find if you know where to look, but the TBD remained obscure. Finally, I managed to acquire a reprinted version for some $. Interestingly, I found some discrepancies in the manual with some of the data I myself have (mainly with loadouts and range estimations) which hint to the possibility that this manual is perhaps based on a pre-war version. Sadly it does not say. 

The third surprise was how forward thinking the TBD actually was. The premise of the video, like a previous video, was to provide a more indepth account of the plane's design, performance and historical context, rather than focusing on popular memory. I knew the TBD was more than its 'reputation' makes us believe, but I was very intrigued when finding out how 'good' it actually was for a plane developed around the mid-1930s. It sits at the onset of the revolution that saw all air forces switch from bi- to monoplane and Douglas (the designers) did a remarkably good job with the Devastator considering this!

More information to follow. As always, if you have any questions, please let me know below.

o7
Bis