Corsair crash at airshow

[ROX]

This sucker would ROAR--I excrete you not!  I could hear it revving up before take off and roaring into the air.  I would scramble to my window and watch it take off.  He would do numerous touch and goes and then make a big slow arc over Lake Michigan and come in and land.  It was a wonderful sight for a kid growing up loving history and flight!   

Sadly, after the TV show was over he got the plane back and only flew it a few summer and fall weekends before hangaring it.  He bought a Spitfire (or was it a Hurricane?) and had it shipped over.  Pretty expensive investment. 

On British birds the airscrew (evidently) rotates opposite of US birds so the engine torque is just the oposite, tragically, he did not take it into consideration and pushed and ruddered the wrong way and flipped the bird over and crashed on takeoff and died.

I think his estate sold off the corsair after he died.

Sad story, really.
   

ROX

[Angus]

Whooa. Well, he had just about the altitude to bail. Ans slowing down for an emergency landing would have meant a fireball I guess. Must have been a dreadful 10 seconds to the guy. 

[AWwrgwy]

Whooa. Well, he had just about the altitude to bail. Ans slowing down for an emergency landing would have meant a fireball I guess. Must have been a dreadful 10 seconds to the guy. 

His crew told him to bail.  The chase plane told him to bail.   His foot got stuck between the seat and cockpit side getting out.  The plane trim was set for 450mph racing, not 200mph bailing out and it kept rolling to the right. 

It sounds like he hit the tail getting out.  Broke his leg and arm, messed up two vertebrae, whacked his head and lost his helmet.  The chute barely hung together.

He is lucky to be walking as well as being alive.

 

As for the plane, it is my understanding that a data plate "counts" as a warbird.  So, if the rebuilt it from the ground up with the original data plate, it would be a "real" Corsair versus a replica.

I always wondered if the parachutes were anything more than wishful thinking, "just in case".  I guess they aren't.


wrongway