Friday, September 30, 2016

Catching the wire


3 comments:

  1. From my understanding, one of the hardest planes to land on a flat top. That's why the navy was happy to give the polyhedral-winged F4U Corsair to the land-based Marines. Which allowed great pilots like Pappy Boyington to flourish...

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  2. I figure landing any high powered "tail dragger" fighter on a limited length, pitching runway has to be difficult.

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  3. Tommy Blackburn, CO of VF-17, the Jolly Rogers, says in his book the carrier landing characteristics had nothing to do with it. They did their carrier qualifications on a CVE, the Charger. They were scheduled to go to the Pacific aboard CV-17, Bunker Hill. But they would have been the only Corsair Squadron afloat with the fleet, and there was no supply line in place to support the Corsair there. So VF-17 got sent to the Solomons and the F6F-equipped VF-18 took their place. He also says they practiced carrier landings every time they approached a field.
    Blackburn later went on to become CO of USS Midway CV-41.

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