FAA Pilots impression of the Corsair

GregP said:

Aircraft factory pics are most often taken to show the airplanes, not the workers.

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I envision two thousand workers hiding behind the cameraman.

GregP said:

Aircraft factory pics are most often taken to show the airplanes, not the workers. The idea is to WOW the enemy with what he is facing, not to showcase the workers. Factory production pics were usually taken by the customer in WWII, not the manufacturer. It might be different today, but the customer controlled EVERYTHING in WWII.

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Having worked in a factory, workers take a dim view of people walking about with cameras taking pictures of them. It induces paranoia.

SaparotRob said:

That's an amazing bit of info. The Buffalo gets written up as awful as does Brewster. The Corsairs they were building was beset by problems. It had never occurred to me that other manufacturers may have contributed to the problems. It never occurred to me that other airplane manufacturers had similar trouble and similar sub-contractors. I had never looked farther than popular press stories.
Great post.

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An old post but it just jogged a memory. When I first went to Italy I didnt speak a word of Italian, in meetings I was surrounded by people discussing "problems" but when I asked what the problems were they said they didnt have any. Then a guy who spoke excllnt nglish xplained that "problem" in Italian is "Question" in English, he proved his point with the translation of the Shakespeare quote "To be or not to be, that is the question" which is "Essere ou non essere questo il probleme" you can also use demando or dilemma because like English there are many nuances. If you change "beset by problems" to "posed many questions, the PoV and nuance changes. I saw a video years ago on TV discussing the Corsair, it said that the design and production of the Corsair threw up thousands of detail changes, design changes and revised instructions, but they were all eventually solved in a great illustration of American "can do" mentality. Designing and producing large numbers of 2,000BHP carrier borne strike aircraft is not an easy task. The fact that it survived into the Jet age shows that they did a good job.

When I think of the Corsair joining the FAA I put myself into the shoes of the FAA pilot who started out in Fairey Flycatchers in the early 1930s, and then ten years later he's facing the Corsair.

pbehn said:

An old post but it just jogged a memory. When I first went to Italy I didnt speak a word of Italian, in meetings I was surrounded by people discussing "problems" but when I asked what the problems were they said they didnt have any. Then a guy who spoke excllnt nglish xplained that "problem" in Italian is "Question" in English, he proved his point with the translation of the Shakespeare quote "To be or not to be, that is the question" which is "Essere ou non essere questo il probleme" you can also use demando or dilemma because like English there are many nuances. If you change "beset by problems" to "posed many questions, the PoV and nuance changes. I saw a video years ago on TV discussing the Corsair, it said that the design and production of the Corsair threw up thousands of detail changes, design changes and revised instructions, but they were all eventually solved in a great illustration of American "can do" mentality. Designing and producing large numbers of 2,000BHP carrier borne strike aircraft is not an easy task. The fact that it survived into the Jet age shows that they did a good job.

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The same sort of thing happens in quite a few languages. Indeed, one of the great myths of astronomy -- canals on Mars -- happened because the word for "channel" in Italian is "canali."

Admiral Beez said:

When I think of the Corsair joining the FAA I put myself into the shoes of the FAA pilot who started out in Fairey Flycatchers in the early 1930s, and then ten years later he's facing the Corsair.

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I doubt that there were any that did have that experience.

When the Fairey Flycatcher was in service 1923-1934 the vast majority of the pilots would have been RAF, and would have returned to that service by the end of 1940 at the latest. If any RN officers had experience on the type they would have been promoted beyond flying roles by mid-1943 when the Corsair arrived.

Such was the expansion of the FAA in WW2 that by the time the first squadrons formed on the Corsair in mid-1943, the most senior officers in flying positions, the Naval Fighter Wing Leaders, squadron COs, Senior Pilots and flight leaders, had all joined up from about 1939 onwards. Everyone else was almost straight from the flying schools having joined up later. For example

Dickie Cork - the wing leader on Illustrious from Nov 1943, joined in May 1939. Killed in a flying accident April 1944.

Norman Hanson - senior pilot in 1833 squadron from its formation in July 1943 and CO from March 1944 joined the RN in early 1941 having volunteered earlier but having to await his call up papers.

"Hammy" Gray VC- joined the RCNVR in 1940. Flew with 1841 Corsair squadron from Aug 1944 until his death a year later.