GregP
Major
In case some of you don't follow on facebook, I'd like to report on a Planes of Fame "event."
The museum flies the oldest active F4U-1 Corsair (Bu. No, 17799). Until last week we had a case of "lost history." Our Corsair was used in "Baa Baa Black Sheep," and then wound up on a Hollywood backlot. We, of course, known the history since then and we know it started life as a "birdcage" F4U-1, was upgraded to F4U-1a, and then, F4U-1d. But we had no indication of its history, other than being told it spent its life in a stateside training group and finally as part of a carrier air support group in 1945, late in the war.
Last week, we had two different Corsair pilots, one with one mission, one with two missions, come forward with logbook entries in our bird earlier during the war, and the daughter of another who also flew our bird earlier during the war for six missions. All CAP missions were flown from Kwajalien Atol, and so our bird we THOUGHT had been in a training command and late-war carrier air support group has been shown to be an actual WWII veteran combat aircraft! Not only that, but both of the still-surviving pilots were there today and gave talks about flying Corsairs, as well as OUR Corsair on actual WWII Combat Air Patrols. We put both back in the cockpit, and had their names on the side of the canopy rail, one on each side.
Altogether a very uplifting day and the discovery of a bit of previously-unknown history of an aircraft we have been flying for some decades. It turns out that the museum had cooperated with Disney for the movie "Planes," and our Corsair was part of the inspiration for the cartoon Corsair. A very determined lady journalist unearthed several pilots who had time in our bird, thought they were all probably deceased, and was delighted to find out they weren't. She interviewed them all and told them their old bird was still flying. And that's how all this got started.
So far, we have had visits from former pilots of MOST of our flying warbirds, and several static warbirds, too. We even had a talk from a former test pilot of our original Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket when it got to Mach 2!
Pretty cool, from our end, and they were able to get back in the cockpits once again, some 70-odd years later!
- Greg
The museum flies the oldest active F4U-1 Corsair (Bu. No, 17799). Until last week we had a case of "lost history." Our Corsair was used in "Baa Baa Black Sheep," and then wound up on a Hollywood backlot. We, of course, known the history since then and we know it started life as a "birdcage" F4U-1, was upgraded to F4U-1a, and then, F4U-1d. But we had no indication of its history, other than being told it spent its life in a stateside training group and finally as part of a carrier air support group in 1945, late in the war.
Last week, we had two different Corsair pilots, one with one mission, one with two missions, come forward with logbook entries in our bird earlier during the war, and the daughter of another who also flew our bird earlier during the war for six missions. All CAP missions were flown from Kwajalien Atol, and so our bird we THOUGHT had been in a training command and late-war carrier air support group has been shown to be an actual WWII veteran combat aircraft! Not only that, but both of the still-surviving pilots were there today and gave talks about flying Corsairs, as well as OUR Corsair on actual WWII Combat Air Patrols. We put both back in the cockpit, and had their names on the side of the canopy rail, one on each side.
Altogether a very uplifting day and the discovery of a bit of previously-unknown history of an aircraft we have been flying for some decades. It turns out that the museum had cooperated with Disney for the movie "Planes," and our Corsair was part of the inspiration for the cartoon Corsair. A very determined lady journalist unearthed several pilots who had time in our bird, thought they were all probably deceased, and was delighted to find out they weren't. She interviewed them all and told them their old bird was still flying. And that's how all this got started.
So far, we have had visits from former pilots of MOST of our flying warbirds, and several static warbirds, too. We even had a talk from a former test pilot of our original Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket when it got to Mach 2!
Pretty cool, from our end, and they were able to get back in the cockpits once again, some 70-odd years later!
- Greg
