The Insane Engineering of the Thunderscreech

Links to everything I do:

Credits:
Writer/Narrator: Brian McManus
Writer/Researcher: Sophia Mayet
Editor: Dylan Hennessy
Animator: Mike Ridolfi
Sound: Graham Haerther
Thumbnail: Simon Buckmaster

References:
Some references cannot be shared here on request from industry insider sources. Here are some publicly available links:

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Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images
Thank you to AP Archive for access to their archival footage.

Thank you to my patreon supporters: Adam Flohr, Henning Basma, Hank Green, William Leu, Tristan Edwards, Ian Dundore, John & Becki Johnston. Nevin Spoljaric, Jason Clark, Thomas Barth, Johnny MacDonald, Stephen Foland, Alfred Holzheu, Abdulrahman Abdulaziz Binghaith, Brent Higgins, Dexter Appleberry, Alex Pavek, Marko Hirsch, Mikkel Johansen, Hibiyi Mori. Viktor Józsa, Ron Hochsprung

[ThShrike]

So that's the inspiration for the sound of my laptop's performance mode

[christiankroemer]

Gotta love how the test pilot's first assumption was "You will have to fight me to get me back in that plane."

[pattonorr]

Mustard yesterday, Real Engineering today… the holiday season has started early

[TheMightyKinkle]

That quadruple take off at 2:34 is insane

[caesar_cider]

Fun fact: This aircraft produced a sound of or exceeding 200 decibels. Sound is _no longer considered sound_ beyond 194 decibels.

[Berkana]

Your introduction to this 'abomination' was awesome. I wasn't entirely interested at first, but after hearing how you introduced it, I was hooked and had to keep watching.

[mohammadsattar]

I remember reading about an office in Japan where the workers all suffered from headaches during the working day and they did a lot of investigating into why from looking into gases or outside interference but one day the found if. The problem was that they had a fan that was on all the time and just one of the blades was slightly bent which sent out a very low sound that would induce these headaches in all the workers.

[TimeBucks]

I have never heard of this plane before and it is fascinating

[CamH-mcwt]

One of the engines that was in this monster is currently on display at the Kansas Aviation Museum in Wichita. It is just one of the two coupled turboprop engines, but it is still pretty fascinating in a horrendous way. It was described as a 'mechanical nightmare' to route the power through the two driveshafts from the rear of the aircraft to the front, and then to route all that power into a single gearbox. The best I can describe it is *'janky doesn't even scratch the surface'*

Oh and I almost forgot, as stated in the video, the engine itself was mechanically unreliable and failed all the time. So yea.

[TLTeo]

I just realized - it's fascinating how similar the profile of these supersonic propellers are to the wing of the F-104! Short, thin, sharp leading edge, no camber...and indeed, that wing is *extremely* effective at producing lift above Mach 0.7 or so!

[thebigitchy]

In defense of the Northrop Tacit Blue, it (like Lockheed’s Have Blue) was just designed to demonstrate stealth characteristics in aircraft, and never was intended to enter service. The technologies it pioneered were applied to the B-2, so other than its looks, it could hardly be considered a failure.

[AnonymousFreakYT]

Early in the video, it is mentioned that early jets had poor "climb performance" - to be clear, the issue was that early jet engines could not throttle up and down quickly. To change from "0% thrust" to "100% thrust" took a long time - many seconds. Some very early jet engines could take more than a minute. That means making rapid throttles changes are impossible. While top speed was high, and even maneuverability was good, dogfighting often requires rapid changes in throttle, which jets were bad at.

Piston engines can *VERY* rapidly change throttle settings (think about how quickly your car can go from idle to redline when you floor the pedal in neutral.)

The Navy specifically wanted rapid throttle change because when coming in for a landing on an aircraft carrier, the plane needs to be at low/idle throttle, but if they miss the arrestor wire, they need to throttle up to 100% very rapidly to be able to lift off again before running off the end of the deck. Something jets of the time couldn't do - if an early carrier jet missed an arrestor wire, the pilot would eject and the plane would dump into the sea off the end of the carrier deck.

The Thunderscreech's big benefit (as mentioned ~8:40) is that they could change the blade pitch to run the jet engine at one speed and change the amount of thrust it was producing by changing the propeller pitch. So it could have the speed of a jet, with the rapid-thrust-change of a propeller plane.

In the late '50s, early '60s, jet engines were developed that could rapidly change throttle, allowing for full jet fighters to be more reasonable for use on carriers.

[halliwedge]

Seeing those 4 jets launch from the Carrier in doubles was awesome! You get some insane footage for these videos.

[backwoodsjunkie]

This aircraft seems absolutely terrifying to fly, I got to hand it to the pilots that flew it on test runs! I've flown several single engine aircraft and done a lot of RC flying in my day so I know a little bit about aircraft knowledge. And you're absolutely right about the sopwith camels.... I had a giant scale that was a handful to fly! That sucker would not turn unless you are giving it full rudder, even if you banked it at 35° it would just want to go straight. I couldn't imagine having a scale model of the thunder screech, that would be one interesting RC model to fly!

[MrHurst-lbrn]

Wonderful video. As a former P-3 mechanic, I have to say your explanation of how a propeller works was amazingly informative and you explained it on a level easily understood by a non aviation type. Excellent video. Very impressed. You gained a new sub.

[cshan]

When you thought Tu-95 was really loud, I don’t even want to know how much louder this plane would be

[maschinen]

suprised they didnt deploy it as an area denial weapon by destroying ears wherever close it flew

[jimrobcoyle]

I grew up with this plane mounted on a pylon outside of the BFL, Meadows Field airport passenger building. I remember The Red Baron P-51 team trying to borrow its propeller for a speed record attempt without success.

[andyrobson]

I liked the RF-84 Thunderflash (the reconnaissance version of the F-84) at first sight because it was one of the first jets to move the air intake from the nose, to the wing roots, and looked truly sleek. So did the "Thunderscreech", but I'd heard of its horrendous noise. I didn't know anything about all the other problems the plane had, though. Thanks for the great video.

[wildpurple]

“We don’t believe your hearing loss is service related”