The Helldiver’s poor manufacturing was a superficial problem relative to its fundamentally flawed design. The aircraft was simply built wrong. The Curtiss SB2C Helldiver was built to replace the ...

Between 1943 and 1945, over 7,000 SB2C Helldivers ... a slow-go, as Curtiss worked to amend the various design flaws. When the Helldiver finally did join the Navy fleet, the aircraft, nicknamed ...