Vought OS2U Kingfisher

During the late 1930s, the manufacturing company Vought was assigned to build an observation monoplane aircraft intended for the United States Navy that would fit a great number of tasks which included directing battleship fire. The resulting aircraft was the OS2U Kingfisher.

The OS2U-3 version can carry two crew members. It has an exterior length of 10.24 meters, an exterior height of 3.2 meters, and a fuselage diameter of 1 meter. It has a tail height of 4.6 meters and a wheelbase of 7 meters. The wingspan is 10.94 meters and the wing area is 24.33 square meters. It has an empty weight of 1,513 kg, a gross weight of 2,259 kg, and a maximum takeoff weight of 2,722 kg. The maximum payload is 600 kg and the fuel capacity in an integral wing tank is 144 US gal.

The aircraft is fitted with a single Pratt and Whitney R-985-AN2 Wasp Junior engine. It is a nine-cylinder supercharged air-cooled radial piston engine with two pushrod-actuated overhead valves per cylinder, a single-speed gear-driven General Electric centrifugal supercharger with an impeller driven at ten times crankshaft speed, and a direct drive reduction gear. The engine produces a maximum thrust of 450 horsepower for takeoff and 400 horsepower at 5,000 feet and drives a two-bladed Hamilton Standard constant-speed propeller.

The OS2U has a maximum speed of 149 knots at 5,000 feet, a cruise speed of 132 knots with seventy-five percent power at 6,000 feet, and a landing speed of 48 knots. It has a travel range of 789 nautical miles with 75% power at 6,000 feet. The aircraft can fly up to 18,200 feet and can climb at a rate of 960 feet per minute at 4,000 feet. It is armed with a single fixed forward-firing 7.62 mm M1919 Browning medium machine gun with 500 rounds and a single 7.62 mm M1919 Browning medium machine gun with f600 rounds that were flexibly mounted for the observer. It is also loaded with 295 kg of bombs.