Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "Ed Nash's Military Matters" channel.

@Barry Ervin, the Fleetwings plant was on the riverfront on Radcliffe St. It had earlier been the Keystone plant, but Keystone was bought by Curtiss Wright and closed. The original plant site is full of condos now, but the buildings built on the other side of Radcliffe when production expanded during the war still stand. The airport and final assembly building you were familiar with were built several years after the main plant.
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@barryervin8536 Yes, I have seen aerials of the plant, The ramp was next to a hangar that was separate from the plant. iirc, one of the pix I saw showed a Loening amphib sitting on the ramp. According to a "lost airports" site I found, the airfield was established by 1930. The assembly plant was built in 41. The plant is the complex on Green Ln, close to the turnpike. Yes, it looks like a factory, not a hangar.
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@barryervin8536 Yes. I have seen aerials of the riverfront plant. There was a hangar at the ramp, separate from the plant. According to a "lost airports" site I found, the airfield was established by 1930. The assembly plant was built in 41. It still stands. It's the complex on Green Ln, near the turnpike.
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It seems the Buccaneer really wasn't that bad. The Brits bought the Buc for training, but deemed the Helldiver unsuitable for any use. In the back of my mind is the thought the USN bought the SB2C, not because it was a decent plane, but because Curtiss could build them with acceptable quality and could meet delivery schedules, two areas where Brewster was a miserable failure. In some alternate reality, Brewster subcontracted Buff and Buc production to Fleetwings, instead of Jimmy Work lining his own pockets by having the Navy build the Warminster plant. The Miranda boys didn't exactly cover the company with glory either. Did the Aussies even know their new Buffs were built with second hand engines?
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@flyswryan You get a like for "airline proven". Supposedly they were refurbished by Wright, but I still wonder how up to spec they were. The Miranda boys were pretty sketchy characters, but they knew people. Shouldn't be surprised if the goods didn't live up to the sales pitch.
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