Aircraft Characteristics Archive
What Are All These? These are Air Force/Navy Documents designed to provide a level of standardized detail needed by planners and policy makers on aircraft specifications and performance.
But Why? In an ideal world, every Air Force Headquarters would have a type-rated pilot for every aircraft with the 400 page aircraft manual and a slide ruler to do calculations when you needed planning questions answered. In the real world, military planners didn't have people or paper handy. Even if they did; they didn't have the time to dig through hundreds of pages of specifications and calculations to find the information they needed.
A very good example of this happening in real life was on 10 May 1944, when General Laurence S. Kuter, then Assistant Chief of Air Staff for Plans and Combat Operations (AAF HQ) sent a letter to various AAF theater commanders asking:
At a meeting of the AAF Aircraft Requirements Committee yesterday, the people from OC&R presented a strong case for washing out B-24s as B-32s and B-29s become available. They maintained that the B-17 should be retained in the heavy bombardment groups which will remain as the VHB transition is completed. Their argument was based on the present superior fighting qualities of the B-17 due primarily to the excess weight of the latest B-24s. The Plans Division’s view was that range is the factor which must be given by far the greatest consideration in deciding such questions, insofar as the defeat of Japan is concerned. The same principles advanced when OC&R recommended the elimination of a 900 mile radius of action P-75 and the retention of 650 mile radius of action P-51s and P-38s. Your views on this subject would be appreciated, with particular reference to the B-17 and B-24.
General George E. Stratemeyer, then commanding AAF Headquarters, India-Burma Sector, China Burma-India – effectively the “boss” of 10th Air Force and 14th Air Force (in theory) replied on 25 May 1944 with:
I am inclined to agree with OC&R in the desirability for washing out B-24 aircraft as B-32’s and B-29's become available. I feel we are doing nothing in the Theater which could not be done equally well with B-17's, although range is a very pertinent factor. A comparison of performance of the B-17 and B-24 is somewhat difficult for me, since there are no B-17's in this Theater. A comparison of the two models from the latest tactical planning chart indicates that the B-17-G has practically the same range and load capacity as the B-24-G-H & J. If actual performance confirms these data, I would prefer them over the B-24.
It's crucial to know basic combat radius; takeoff run, empty weights, etc when planning operations.
By the early cold war period (1950s), it became part of the design process to actually have a Standard Aircraft Characteristics (SAC) chart ready for your proposal submission to the USAF/USN; so there are bunches of them for designs that never entered service.
Also, every time a large enough modification or change in role occurs, the SAC chart(s) have to be recomputed.
For example, a B-52H SAC from the 1960s is going to be a high altitude mission profile dropping a few nuclear devices from 45,000 feet. Meanwhile, the same aircraft in 1985 will have had an extensive modernization (the AN/ASQ-151 Electro-Optical Viewing System [EVS] was added to the lower nose, changing the drag profile) and a much different mission profile – take off, long range subsonic cruise at medium altitude, launch cruise missiles at 1,500 miles range; then descend to 500 feet for low altitude penetration of the Soviet Union, etc...
Who Did All This? The majority (80%+), were scanned in by me on trips to the Naval Historical Center in the Washington DC Navy Yard, and at the Historical Section of the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.
Those that were not scanned by me, but given to me as gifts have that person's name added at the end of the filename such as _Tommy for Tommy Thomason, and _Yip for W. Yip-, etc.
Discolored Streaks on some Scans: This unfortunately, was caused by me not properly cleaning my new scanner; and me contaminating the calibration plate with Windex. After getting my scanner replaced under warranty, the problem went away.
U.S.A.A.F. World War II Aircraft Performance Charts – These were the immediate predecessors to the Standard Aircraft Characteristics and the June 1947 Tactical Planning Characteristics & Performance Charts is a evolutionary precursor to the SAC style. There are 57 individual charts totaling about 1,700 pages here. Unfortunately, they were saved at approximately 30% JPEG compression by AFHRA, losing a lot of data. Hopefully we get the originals rescanned by AFHRA in the future...
I've chosen to organize things in each category two ways – with the USN system and then the USAAF system. I've also chosen to “collapse” things into a single type – i.e. every C-47 derivative is under one single C-47 page, instead of having a separate R4D page for the USN variants.
F-107 / NA-212 / F-100B – No Performance Documents, but some nice images!
North American Aviation
AJ/A-2
Savage
A2J Super Savage
A3J
/ A-5 Vigilante
Douglas Aircraft
BT2D/AD/A-1
Skyraider
A2D Skyshark
A3D/A-3
Skywarrior
A4D/A-4 Skyhawk
Grumman Aircraft
TB3F / AF
Guardian
A2F / A-6 Intruder
Martin Aircraft
BTM/AM Mauler
A-7 Corsair II
A-9
/ A(X) – No Performance data, but some images.
A-10
/ A(X) – No Performance data, but some images.
A-12
Avenger II – No Performance data, but a few drawings and a
slideshow briefing.
A-20 / BD Havoc
A-29
/ PBO Hudson
B-17 / PB-1 Flying Fortress
B-24
Liberator / PB4Y Privateer
B-26 /
JM Marauder
B-27 (Martin Model 182) – No Information
Yet
B-28
B-29 / P2B
Superfortress
B-35 Flying
Wing
B-36 Peacemaker
B-44
(see B-50)
B-45 Tornado
B-47
Stratojet
B-48 (Glenn L. Martin
Model 355) – Just a single Characteristics Summary and a
few other things.
B-49 Flying
Wing
B-50 / XB-44 / B-29D
Superfortress
B-51 / XA-45 (Glenn
L. Martin Model 234)
B-52
Stratofortress
B-53 / XA-44 –
No actual SACs/CSes, some nice mockup pictures, a few drawings, and
some memos.
B-70 Valkyrie / WS-110
B-1A/B Lancer (aka AMSA aka
“America's Most Studied Aircraft”)
B-2A
Spirit / ATB – No performance data, but a brochure and some
artwork from the program.
C-69 / L-049 Constellation –
No characteristics, but have flight manual and some odds and
ends.
C-97 Stratofreighter