Curtiss SBC
| SBC Helldiver | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| SBC-4 BuNo 1813 was one of the aircraft later sold to France | |
| Role | Dive bomber |
| Manufacturer | Curtiss-Wright |
| First flight | 9 December 1935 |
| Introduction | 1938 |
| Retired | 1943 |
| Primary users |
United States Navy United States Marine Corps Royal Air Force French Navy |
| Number built | 257 |
The Curtiss SBC Helldiver was a two-seat scout bomber and dive bomber built by the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. It was the last military biplane procured by the United States Navy. Delivered in 1937, it became obsolete even before World War II and was kept well away from combat with Axis fighters.
There was controversy in the United States Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) in the early 1930s regarding two-seat fighter planes, monoplanes and the retractable undercarriage In 1931, the Navy issued Design Specification No. 113, which detailed a requirement for a high-performance fighter with fixed undercarriage to be powered by the Wright R-1510 or Pratt & Whitney’s R-1535 radial engine. Seven companies submitted proposals and two companies, the Douglas Aircraft with their XFD-1 and the Chance Vought with their XF3U-1 were given contracts for one prototype each. Both of these aircraft were two-seat biplanes. The Navy then asked Curtiss to supply a prototype of a two-seat monoplane which was technically more advanced.
On 30 June 1932, BuAer signed a contract with Curtiss to design a two-seat monoplane with a parasol wing a retractable undercarriage and powered by a 625 hp (466 kW) Wright R-1510-92 fourteen cylinder, two row, air-cooled radial engine driving a two-blade propeller. This fighter was designated XF12C-1.
The SBC was an all-metal, two-seat scout-bomber biplane with “I”-type interplane struts. It was the last combat biplane the Navy purchased and the last combat biplane manufactured in the United States. The two crewmen, pilot and radio operator/gunner, were housed in tandem cockpits enclosed by a sliding canopy and the turtledeck behind the rear cockpit could be folded down to allow the gunner to use his machine gun. The wings, rudder, elevators and flaps were fabric covered. The main landing gear retracted into wheel wells in the fuselage just forward of the lower wing and the tail wheel retracted into the fuselage.
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