Well, the F4F-4 also gets all 5 nothces at 175 IAS, so it is definately on purpose.
I found this, although I can't verify the accuracy from
http://www.fantasyofflight.com/aircraftpages/wildcat.htm:
The Wildcat has an interesting flap system that is activated by the vacuum system in the airplane and is also used to spin the gyro instruments for instrument flying. Instead of using positive pressure to operate the flap cylinder, this aircraft uses negative pressure or suction. A large tank in the rear of the aircraft stores the negative air pressure. At higher speeds, the negative pressure does not create enough force to overcome the air loads to lower the flaps. It will not hurt the system, as in some aircraft, to put the flaps down at high speed. They just simply won’t come down! Pilots could use this to their advantage in a dogfight and could select the flap handle down before engaging another aircraft. If during the dogfight the airplane happened to slow down below a certain speed, the flaps would creep out. The more the aircraft slowed down, the more flap would creep out. This gave the Wildcat a tighter turning radius, which was a major advantage in a dogfight, as they could potentially turn inside their opponent and get on his tail.
Still no comments from the peanut gallery?
