And world war ii. We toured the world war ii hangar with Mike Spalding and learned how palace prepared for combat. This is the second of a twopart program. Pilot forthe chief the Military Aviation Museum in virginia beach, virginia. Im in charge of all of the airplanes and the training for the museum and the pilots. And today, we are going to talk deerman. Boeing they had different numbers depending on the service it was in, whether it was in the navy or whether it was in the air force. It could be a pt13 or pt17 if it was in the Army Air Corps back then. Ydet. Nt by the name of ka the navy called them the yellow il, because it can be a handful airplane for the first airplane you are learning to fly, but it sets you up for your progression into more complicated airplanes. But this airplane, among a couple other types, basically taught all the military aviators how to fly. And many guys never even saw an airplane coming from the farms and anywhere you can think of. The first airplane he saw was the boeing stearman. The reason they use this airplane is very basic. It is mostly made out of wood. And held together by steel flying wires and then covered in a fabric back then which was a cotton fabric and with like a material they used to stiffen it up. There is more modern stuff they use on them today to make them last longer, but a lot of the reason they made tens of thousands of them, and there are only several hundred left today, is because they were not meant to last. They were made of wood and fabric and set out in the elements and pretty much if they did not get the training, they rotted away. And were just scrapped. The first airplane that they all flew, and were going to take a flight in it today. Then we will tell you a couple things about it, so that when we fly you know what youre looking at. It is a very basic airplane. It basically has jst the basic estimates to fly that you need to fly an airplane. An airspeed indicator, and altimater. R an you are just learning how to get the airplane off the ground, do coordinated turns and come back in and landed and do that continually successfully. In the program that both the Army Air Corps and the navy had not everybody was able to get the hang of it and do it. So, what happened then as you washed out. At any point in the whole Training Program, in the beginning, washout basically means that instead of flying l carry a gun in the infantry or something are cutting potatoes, who knows . But anyway, you do not get to fly. So, many of them made it, but there was always a certain level and percentage that didnt. Many of them might even get to solo. And then they cannot just seem to get beyond that without tearing something up. But in any case, they all learn to fly in it. Then they went from this, which was a basic trainer, which means you learn the basics applying till you move on to an advanced trainer where you have a lot more control in the airplane and it is lot more fighter like. From there, everyone goes to wherever they go, in a bomb or a fighter. It did not matter where you were going to read you went to that progression as a basic trainer and then the advanced trainer. The student sits in the back. Gets harder to see. Of these old types conventional dear airplanes, you cannot see out the front. You have to kind of you s turns when you are taxing out. Look out the site to make sure youre not going to run into anything. The instructor sits in the front. Of its a pretty crude type inner calm back then. Tercom back then that basically was a too. A little bit more modern than the canon and the string but the tube do not have to be tell you the can and the string. You talk to the mask and they can hear you to the backside. That is how they communicated. Sometimes with hand signals. There is also a mirror would you other and at each they would communicate with hand signals. It first go out, take off and learn how to fly the airplane, deterrence, maneuvers and do them in a coordinated fashion and do turns. There is a needle and the ball in there. The ball in your turns, you want to keep senate. If you do that, it is a coordinated turn for it otherwise the airplane is skidding around. When you learn to fly the airplane in the air, and you can maneuver it around the pattern, that is when we come back in and you start learning how to take off and when. The landing is always the last thing you get. And that is the last part of the progression. Because it is the hardest part. You do it continuously and over and over again. When you do that, the instructor solos you. That is when he gets out and you do your first flight by yourself. And that is quite a mark in your aviation, something you never forget. So, after they do that, they will do many hours of just solo flights, and then they will do startrosscountrys, learning how to navigate across country and go from one airport to another and get where they are going and back safely. And this whole progression takes about a year. And they have a couple hundred hours in primary and the advanced traders by the time they are ready to move onto the airplane they will fly when they get out. They are open cockpit airplanes. That was kind of the normal thing back then. They had training bases all over the country. It was the north and the south. If you were lucky you got to train down in florida and mississippi. Its not so lucky, you trained in minnesota and you wore bigger coats. But they all wore helmets and goggles entrained yearround. So they dress for it. There was a war on, so you have to do what you had to do. It was probably the most comfortable you were going to be by the time you ended up going overseas. So, everybody was exposed to the elements. Hot can be as bad as cold when you are down in southern florida with the humidity and 95 degrees and you got a flight suit and everything on. So, it wasnt easy. Be pretty grueling just on you physically, not to mention mentally. But we had the best trained pilots in the world. We did have a very regimented Pilot Training program that was in line with some of our allies, axis aircrafte and countries did not have the type of Training Program we had and they kind of rush them into it, which is what helped us is the quality of our pilots and their abilities. And sometimes they did not even have the best machine, they could out fly better enemy machines just because of their abilities. This model trainer carries 46 gallons of fuel. So he could stay up there you know close to four hours with no problem. And that is good for crosscountry stuff, but its mostly designed just for the local area and the short crosscountry type thing. But again, you have to take it crosscountry in minnesota in january an open cockpit you want them to be short. Kids, glycoside, have never seen an airplane. They do not know what to expect, these kids, like i said, had never seen an airplane. Very, it is not windy in the airplane but you stick your hand out there and you can feel what the, makes the wings work. And that is part of the aerodynamics of them learning. You can feel the elements outside where in the closed fightersr even the they went to, or even the advanced trainer when they had closing cockpits, you kind of lose that other sense of your speed and that youre moving. A north american at6. A. T. Meaning advanced trainer. We started out with the primary trainer which is what you learned to fly in. And after you learned to fly, you went to the advanced trainer. The navy called it an snj. They had their own name for it for all their airplanes, but it is the same thing as the at6. Whats basically different issue can see it has a canopy on it. Closes up just like a fighter word, or the bomber youre going to fly. Much bigger engine. Retractable landing gear. All these advanced features that the primary trainers dont have. So, that is what you are learning here. It goes a lot faster. You are learning to put the gear up and down. Manipulate the engine differently, depending on your flight characteristics that you are in at the time. About asression is long as the other because you are learning a lot more about the aerodynamics and the speed not just the basic flying. Youre taking everything you learn there applying it here, and expanding it. The air force and the navy had them, as i said. The navy had some with tale looks on them. So, if you would end up going to it karyotyping, you would do carrier training in this first before you went in your fighter if you were going to two carrier training. To do carrier training. They had a lot more instruments. They use them to train, to do your strafing runs, machine gun work, some bombing. So, the advanced part of the training could go in all different directions. It was used for a lot of things after you learn how to fly. Teachlly to learn then to you how to fly something much faster and much more advanced that you would be getting into a few left here. After you left here. Primarily used for training. Later in the war, they did use some for combat. Not very many. They did arm some up and use them, it had specific purposes for that, some kind of short range, low altitude bombing and strafing type things for a specific need they had, but in general, it was used for training. Again, the instructor at this time sits in the back in the student sits up front. It was like he was sitting in the fighter upfront by himself and flying the fighter type airplane. But you learned everything you were going to do in the fighter in this. Your aerobatics, also. They would be more fighter like. So you could learn how to do combat and be very comfortable doing whatever you needed to do with the airplane to get a kill or keep from getting killed. With every hour you flew, there were many hours of classroom training and studying the books. That is why it took so long. It was not just the flying part. There were as a lot of classrooms in groups. And the manuals you had to study yourself and to keep from getting washed out. Because you could get washed out at any point in this program pretty much until you got up to the fighters where they felt they had spent enough effort are you youre going to make this at this point. At any point in training, you could get washed out. You notice, the trainers were brightly colored. All the training bases had their own markings and their own ways of identifying where they were from, but they were all really brightly colored. They could find you. If you had an issue or your landed somewhere you are not supposed to be, it was very easy to spot from the air, because a lot of times they did not have radios. They had to go out and look for you if you did not come back. It was much easier to find you if you had an incident somewhere were your off by yourself. By yourself. Ff progressing on, after you got out of Flight Training and now you have got your wings and you are going out to either a fighter or a bomber or something, wherever they put you, one of the early modern fighters we had was the p40 which most people recognize with the sharks teeth. It was a very good airplane. Very instrumental. We used it, the chinese used it. Are familiar with the flying tigers which is what this paint scheme is for. Varied paint schemes depending on where they were in the world to match to lay of the land, basically. Most of them are camouflaged or green so that enemy aircraft above it would have a hard time finding you. A lot of times they were like so iflored underneath they were below you, they could not see you. There was a reason they are painted on a lot of times the colors they are painted, but and things markings on the side, some of them are personalized by the specific pilot and basically called nose art. This airplane is in the markings of tex hill flying tigers. Over in china. The big thing about these airplanes as now they have moved to a much faster airplane, a lot more horsepower. Much bigger engine. It was a very good fighter. The only thing that came with this thing, it ended up being under powered to help out the bombers. Itcould not go high because did not have a second stage of supercharger. They had a single stage. So we did very well down low and strafing at all, but the bombers flew high. It could not get itself out of another fighters way. When the p51, came along, had the same engine, but the british in the p51 put the merlin engine in it, which had the second stage supercharger. Then they could fly really high and fast and a long way. You go reallyen fast and go down and get right on the ground and you start shooting your guns and just shooting at whatever needs to be shot at. Of vehiclesconvoy or buildings. But youre basically right of the treetops and unloading the guns. Then pack up and go and do it again or when youre out of ammo, save a bit to get back. Basically strafing is just dived down, get right on the ground, shoot everything you intended to shoot and then back up. Not even always planned. You are supporting your ground crew and the infantry down there. You may be able to see things they cant. You clear the way for them by strafing and blowing up tanks or Armored Vehicles or the other infantry. So, you may see nothing or you may have the mission you could be out there are couple hours. Before run out of ammo you run out of fuel. If youre out there just strictly strafing. P51. Re we have the almost everyone recognizes that p51, because it looks like it is going fast just sitting here. Very sleek, fast airplane. ,t almost didnt come to be however, because it had the same engine in it as the p40. And this is a much heavier airplane. So it really was not doing the job and it couldnt really get out of its own way. It was good for lowlevel strafing and bombing and stuff, but that is not what they wanted. They really needed support for the bombers to help the bombers out. It took the british to say, hey, lets put our merlin supercharged in the airplane and see what we can do with it. And that is what saves the airplane and made the airplane what it was. As in most airplanes, the guns were in the wings. Not all of them. Early ones, they had them in the nose. And they would time it with the engine so it would go through the propeller and not hit the propeller. But it was much easier to put them in the wings. The guns would sit right here, in this door would come up. They laid all the ammo out and in a nest fashion so it would feed properly and it comes out in the chutes in the bottom. This is where all the guns any ammo were. When they pulled the trigger, when you pull the trigger, it shot guns on both sides at the same time because it would give you some yar if you did one side of the other. Any kind of be hard to aim. So, they shot together so you would stay straight. Usually about every fifthround or luminescence so you could see it. It would kind of heat up so you could see where your bullets were going at otherwise you had no idea where they were going. And youll see that in some of the footage when you look at ii footage. Most of them had gone cameras so they could monitor the kills and document the kills. All the Fighter Pilots were trying to become an ace. To be an ace you had to have five kills. And oddly enough, some guys never got there. And some got there on their first day out. Not many of those, but there were some that just had that ski ll level or luck level to get them all five write it once. It took five kills to be an ace. And every kill you got the flag of the adversary on your airplane to mark your kill. Parachute ore a had it available to them. In a fighter of course youre going to war it. A lot of wear it. A lot of the bombers may or may not wear them. So you had to maneuver around the airplane. Either had it available to you or usually wasnt a splitsecond thing. If you were going to have to jump out of that, you did not have time to put in on or waited for the captain to call bail out, because he gave the command wasail out unless it obvious Something Else was going on. But here you are pretty much by yourself. In most of these airplanes and fighter airplanes. So you have it on. Your parachute is also your seat cushion. Youre sitting on it. So, you do not have a behind you and it is not constraining you but there are a lot of straps that go around to tie it to you. To bail out, all the canopy said emergency release. So the canopy would go away. There are various ways of getting out. Sometimes had to be whatever it took. But you would normally just kind of get up on your knees and lean over the side and you would go down below the horizontal stabilizer and out. The lower the better, but sometimes you had to get out. If it is on fire, you wanted to get out of it. As most army airplanes were used, not specifically but mostly all in the european theater, because it was mostly land over there. You took off from europe somewhere and went over to germany or from the allied side. It was basically river in between the battles. The navy stuff was a little different. There was a lot of water. They were on boats. Was mostly intuff the european theater or landbased operations. Just like we talked about before being very early of the modern fighters that we had, for world war ii, this was the navy version of a very early fighter. These are grummond built. Back during the war, there were trying to produce so many airplanes that grummon in this them alld not build themselves, so they contracted out to General Motors or other companies, in this case, General Motors. General motors built a lot of the grumman airplanes in the General Motors factories. The automotive General Motors. This is an fm2 wildcat. It is a very simple airplane. It derived from a biplane. That was fixed gear. Before world war ii, but it was a carrierbased airplane. Basically, they took it, modernize it, to the took the top win goff. G off. Is soason the wings fold they can get on the carrier and then make them small. And make them smaller or down the elevator and park them underneath. At this airplane was really very basic. Everything on it is mechanical. Au crank the gear up with hand crank and there is a chain and it pulls the landing gear up and put them back down that way. Flaps used air off the engine to put them down. Everything else on it is all the flaps is cranks and handles and things like that. Iishlmost world worar in the transition. The wildcat was very successful when it started flying. And flew against the japanese zero. The zero was very nimble, which this is also, but the zero is very light and when they were trying to do escape maneuvers could outp, the zero climate and we get them. What came after the wildcat was that turned, and the tables on the japanese and the zero. This is the grumman pbm. Tbm. Rpedostands for to bea bomber. M stands for General Motors. It was built by General Motors, much like studebaker built engines for the b17. So, many of them got into the war effort. It was everything towards trying to win the war. A lot of production of cars and airplanes for recreation and things like that. Didnt go necessarily by the wayside that was severely cut back in an effort to win the war. The tbm, again, another carrierbased airplane. As you can see, much bigger. Everything on it is hydraulic. You could not do anything by hand in these airplanes. By bombay doors, the wings hydraulics, the landing gear is hydraulic. Everything in there is hydraulic. It took a crew of three. You had a bombardier and you had a gunner. In the back. And in the top. And, of course, the pilot. They basically operated off carriers and would go out and torpedo bomb japanese ships in the pacific and that sort of thing. The cow flaps, i mentioned before, they are more noticeable, like gills on the cowling. To control the temperature of the engine, so you can control how much air flows the front and out. T, you opents too ho him up and you can control the temperature on the engine or close them if it is getting too cold to regulate the engine temperature. Most all the airplanes were assigned it to a specific pilot. They very rarely interchange. I will not say they never did, but that is why you see even today the militate her fighters have the name of the pilot on airplane. That is the airplane. The military fighters have the name of the pilot on airplane. It has a crew chief on it, they are responsible for it or the bombardiers flu with a crew flew with a crew. This was their plan. Unless somebody was sick or had an issue or was shipped home, it had the same crew, same pilot, same crew. That was standard throughout the military whichever side you were on. Bombardiers had their own training. They used what a a lot of people know as the navy call them snds. Had various other airplanes that they used that they did specifically to train them to use the bomb sites and the drop torpedoes and drop the bombs and do whatever else they did. But they had their own specific Training Program. They call came together they all came together when they were signed to their airplane or their unit. Involved in a lot of the pacific, the turkey shoot. This particular airplane was the type that george h. W. Bush ditched and was fly when he was rescued out of the pacific. So that is what kind of help make this airplane famous as well. This was the premier navy fighter, as everyone knows, the corsair. F4u is what the official designation was, but this particular model was an fg1d. Meaning fire and fighter, and g means it was made by goodyear. It was into aircraft making just like General Motors and studebaker. This one has folding wings, also, just like all the other navy airplanes. Engine, navy fighter, an which is very big, almost 3000 horsepower engine. Most people recognize this airplane because of its bent wings. That is its own look. Nothing else of a fighter type it really has that that you would recognize. The reason you do that is so the landing gear does not have to be so long. It did not have anything to do with aerodynamics or anything like that. So, they could keep the landing gear shorter. It would fold up in the wheel wells. And the reason they needed to do that is because the propeller right here, it has got such a long propeller, it comes close to the ground or you can see it was handing down. It would only be that far off. It was hanging down. The prop would be close to the ground or it was for propeller clearance was the only reason it was designed like that. For comingthank you by and taking a small tour of the Military Aviation Museum caret we have many more airplanes, about 50 flying airplanes. Again, that was just a small sampling. Come by and see us. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our website at cspan. Org history. Of december 7, 19 41, japanese planes attacked the u. S. Fleet at pearl harbor. Almost 2400 americans were killed. History tv marks the 75th anniversary of the surprise attack on saturday, december 10, beginning at 8 a. M. Eastern. We will show archival films, firstperson accounts from veterans and civilians and the 75th anniversary ceremonies at pearl harbor and at the world war ii memorial in washington. And well take your calls. That is saturday, december 10, beginning at 8 a. M. Eastern here on American History tv, only on cspan 3. Follow the transition of government on cspan, as donald trump becomes the 45th president of the United States and republicans maintain control of