Walk around a Douglas SBD Dauntless Dive Bomber at the USS Midway museum. #ww2 #aviation | World War II Aircraft

9.9K views · 306 reactions | The Douglas SBD Dauntless took its...

Twin flypasts straight over the camera followed by landings from two absolute legends of WWII aviation. An original Mitsubishi A6M Zero, still powered by its Nakajima Sakae radial, alongside a Douglas SBD Dauntless running the unmistakable Wright R-1820 Cyclone. This is pure mechanical history — raw radial engine sound, low passes, and the kind of atmosphere you just don’t get anymore. Aircraft that once faced each other in combat, now flying together, sounding incredible, and reminding us how d

The Turboprop Disaster vs. The Delta Wing Wonder: Douglas Aviation’s Cold War Pivot The Cold War race for air superiority drove engineers to the absolute limits of physics, resulting in some of the most fascinating and dangerous aircraft ever built. In the early 1950s, the legendary designer Ed Heinemann—the mastermind behind the SBD Dauntless—found himself at a crossroads. The US Navy needed to bridge the gap between the propeller age and the jet age. The result was two radically different mach