Hobby Master Archive

The Curtiss SB2C Helldiver was designed to replace the Douglas SBD Dauntless as a shipboard dive bomber. However the original couple of variants were very deficient according to pilots. It took hundreds of changes and modifications such as a bigger engine, perforated dive flaps to obtain more accurate dive aiming. It wasn’t until the summer of 1944 when the SB2C-3 and October that year when the SB2C-4 arrived; that pilots were pleased with the performance. The Helldiver went on to destroy the more Japanese targets than any other USN dive bomber.