Vought F4U Corsair .mov

the chance bought bent-wing bird the f4u Corsair had it started in 1938 the US Navy needed a shipboard fighter equal in performance from land-based fighters not only was the design radical but it was be mated with an experimental 2,000 horsepower pregnant XR 2800 engine the massive 13 foot hamilton standard propeller was so large that designers had to come up with a solution to avoid a long complicated main landing gear so the bent the wings with an inverted gull shape nobody realized that god had created what would soon become one of the greatest fighters of world war ii as we've done in our other roaring glory warbirds programs I'm going to take you along with me fly BOTS great bent wing bird the f4u Corsair the Constanza this fighter dominates any ramp including a feeling of power and purpose every pilot who flew the Corsair loved it and it's surprisingly easy to land with very long stroke on the landing gear anyway you'll find that out when we go most World War two aircraft are similar in their construction and I've always been impressed on how they're built and how much time was devoted to building redundant systems for emergencies these airplanes are made to be shot up and bring the pilot home planes of fame air museum f4u-1 Corsair saw combat on Bougainville Island in South Pacific its serial number was only a few digits away from Pappy Boyington zaire plane the air museum bought this plane in 1970 and we restored to fly by 1976 as far as we know it's the only flyable f4u-1 Corsair left in the country as we start a pre-flight on the Corsair we'll start right here the Corsair has a pratt whitney r-2800 2800 cubic inches 18 cylinder 2,000 horsepower radial engine a propeller is a hamilton standard 13 foot 1 inch diameter three bladed prop and what we're interested in and the pre-flight is for looking for oil leaks propeller leading edge you know conditions propeller being close to the ground it has density to pick up gravel Magneto's as you can see are located up on top prop governors up on top of the nose case as we work our way around the side Cal flaps this is for the air controlling it the engine for cooling and they're hydraulically actuated they close with hydraulic pressure and they open with spring pressure and on the back of the engine we can look at all the exhaust system where it attaches to the cylinders and we can inspected for oil leaks condition of the exhaust stacks that's pretty important with these big round engines you know the exhaust system a big long stack you know can contract and extend you know quarter to a half inch sometimes depend on the heat change here's your oil cooler and intercooler and carburetor air inlet scoops same on each side and it has an exit flat puts a little hydraulically operated slap they were just looking for general condition belly of the aircraft and you look for anything that is that a place there's nothing tricky and in the pre-flight in that area it's just general condition of things here we have a very unique landing gear that was designed for the Corsair as we mentioned earlier the early Corsair has had a tendency to bouncing off the carrier decks and the landing gear was designed to with a real long stroke as to hold the airplane down so to speak and not provide so much bounce and as we look up on the wheel well we can see the hydraulic actuator up here we're checking for leaks and condition of catchment hardware flex high-pressure flex hoses then up in here is a little sequence valve that closes the landing gear doors when the gear retracts on the Corsair as you can see it turns 90 degrees and folds up up into that small little apartment and the both care doors close up spare it over real nice finish our pre-flight along the leading edge of the right wing here you see a stall strip right here this was added to the Corsair to help improve the install characteristics of the airplane the airplane had a tendency of the ailerons would lose effectiveness before the wing would stall so anyway this was added to help improve the quality of that to make the wing stall the same time the ailerons lose effectiveness see the gunports here we had 50 caliber machine guns this is a little landing color indicator that the LSO could look at and by looking at this this light illuminated by the color he could tell the proper attitude of the airplane on approach you could tell that airspeed if it was you know right on or not so has nothing to do with today's flight though then we come to the aileron it's kind of a unique thing about a Corsair high speed fighter with wooden ailerons original Corsairs flew the very first ones flew the standard aluminum structure fabric-covered control surface but due to some flutter problems iran and do they liked it to make them out of wood wood being more rigid anyway cured their problems and whole line of course airs from the f4u-1 all the way through the - 7 model Corsair all had wooden ailerons with fabric covering so our pre-flight on this just you know bolts prett at mount and hinges of course our ailerons are very light and very effective and one of the reasons right here because of this this boost tab that's installed as you can see the linkage is connected to the airframe it connected the tab so when you give some aileron control this tab acts to acting force on the control to lighten up the surface see how that works as we move along in the wing the wing flaps structure of nuts bolts missing rivets and standard pre-flight items the ammunition bays and the gun bay latches are all secured in enough planes about the hardest part of flying this airplane once you're in it's pretty comfortable okay and as we sit down you know once we're strapped in and I heard seat belts roll security and we check for controlled movement make sure we're free and clear everywhere the geometry of the brake and the rudder pedal is is really unusual in this early model Corsair so you gotta get seated to be a full control movement a good visibility I kind of prefer to sit up a little tall on the seat maybe give me a good peripheral vision which is important when you flying a big tail dragger it's not so much way what you can see over the nose it's what you can see over the side of an airplane would come in to land or take off you know keep your perspective or keep the sides of the runway it's in sight mags are off flaps up throttle idle crack mixture all the way off prop will increase supercharging in neutral fuel selectors on we visually look at it our aileron that there and just add a little right wing down we trim over here to show least six degrees we're ready for takeoff and visually look at the elevator trim there's a little peg shows travel but anyway we look at the elevator trim and and verify its at neutral we've got over on this side of the airplane the engine instruments over here manifold pressure rpm cylinder head temperature oil pressure oil temperature fuel pressure fuel quantity system hydraulic pressure generator full-name meter G meter such engage for the flight instruments this is your Cal flap intercooler oil cooler control knobs electrical panel your tail hook actuator down up or in the parking position definitely get the seat if your Sita this is good for you although the seat goes I'd be exciting after takeoff with it so make sure the seats well locked and we're ready to start okay battery on whose pump feel pressure Claire okay we hit the starter adjust the RPM to come up through 2,000 RPM and we got a real pressure set a boost pump off okay we're warming up we're going to shape here let's bring the mixture back to the taxi and lean draws pressures up okay until the engine warms up to 40 degrees oil temp we want to make sure that we don't run over about a thousand rpm on it and as you're taxing the Corsair it's a not a real smooth taxi and airplane the he's got a straight free castering tailwheel on the machine it's not a steerable tailwheel so it's really just rudder a great and at the slow speeds and idle power you know there's not a lot of rudder blast planta fighters first of all Corsair over 20 years ago and comparing it to the other fighters it's a let's say a little more difficult to fly to do a good job flying I mean it's an easy flying taildragger but compared to some of the other ones it requires a little more skill level the airplane landing and taking off but it's got a great engine and really strong structure is stood through ages so to speak did you know the history will tell you the Corsair was the first military plane that could do a straight line for the right up here oil temperatures up over 40 degrees looking good okay run 1700 rpm old brakes get a second crop watch 400 rpm drop piece again backup oil pressure looks good and it feels good and you do that three times all the way down it's good generator putting out in sections give a bollock script we let cycle now all the way down as far as we'll go go down to 1250 gallon feels good stronger than looks good okay max rpm again and that will push it on up the barometric pressure and at this airport 29 inches to this night we entered rpm all the brakes tight so good I need a mag check and go left mag we've got a 50 drop like the bullets right nag 25 drop back the bolt Kali looks good person's attempts or - looks good Enoch or 3372 200 go straight out but you perfect a cough second okay like the tail will feel it locked okay breaks off 30 it 2,300 rpm a very little drip change from our takeoff hands off feet off the rate of roll here a little bit just be there back to a level right here 2020 like 3221 for a little bit Delta Airstream minute looking out over there is the federber over there Venable from Clara's aviation to take Allenwood jackass blinded put that aircraft together keep on the Knoxville Tennesse in the refuge Hey Dude Alan Corsair - Thunderbolt pretty comparable airplane believe it or not include us here just looking these altitudes they're pretty similar they're within an inch or two a manifold pressure of each other you okay of course here it's a interesting handling airplane the ailerons on the airplane are really liked by almost infinite the pitch is heavy elevator not so much 300 knots plus it's almost two hands on the stick really to maneuver the thing around properly but the ailerons are so like rudders nice and light so it's called perfectly harmonized airplane but it's you know very good good ready to roll and a great running engine so the airplane runs nice and smooth it does have a vibration range so on this series of into propeller combination between two thousand rpm 1700 rpm is got pretty its shake to it but the normal power settings will use 30 inches 2050 right at area sites as smooth or about 30 and 1600 it's nice and smooth there too so but anyway it's a easy flying airplane okay we're just out of crews here we're just a to keep about 200 knots and crews so we're gonna throw them back to a clean still okay power back to 20 inches the mixture rich okay now we're slowing to 170 just going to click pull the nose up okay we're going to pick it out dude would be level here we've got 20 inches we're still slowing into climb and now we're going to level off at 150 inches in 2000 smell hundred knots that's a level okay now we're just gonna close the throttle we're looking for about one knot per second rate of descent 90 knots 85 I can feel the nose make a transition now everybody's starting to get a little mushy 75 knots 73 knots right in that area that's when it starts buffeting and shaking okay that's a stall we just use the back pressure points accelerates away we just push the throttle back up to about 25 inches and the nose dropping accelerates right through it nice and smooth well anyway we're finally enough of the throttle a barber to squeeze a lot our Air Force Base twenty-five times normal cruising this engine which is like run about a RPM indicate around 200 that 200 odds is about 75 to 80 gallons an hour long range economical cruises the protocols for 34 inches about 45 gallons an hour and indicate about 145 knots I'm saying this with a fool available nowadays though that 34 inches of manifold pressure with 13 our limits like thirty into six yeah my gear down 20 degrees of flap turn a bass leg out here 110 thought so far okay it's some poor flap come in or dissenter another man never down flaps up please pop off tailwheel unlocked the Corsair is one of the greatest thoroughbreds of World War two when hostilities ended 1945 Corsair pilots had down 2120 enemy while early losing 189 Corsairs a kill ratio of 11 to 1 that's excellent by any standard VFR you along with its Goodyear brucer brothers the FG 1 in the f3 a were the first modern American Navy fighter to vest the Japanese in the Pacific marine squadrons among them Pappy Boyington famous black sheep turned it into an outstanding close air support fighter bomber as well with some fine help from Charles Lindbergh flew them in combat as a civilian on loan from United Aircraft certainly the Corsair record speaks for itself but all you have to do is fly one and you'll understand

Channel: comaz

Views: 287,948

Rating: 4.845777 out of 5

Keywords: Vought F4U, airplane, engine start, taxi for takeoff

Id: nubn_QpkHnI

Length: 22min 56sec (1376 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 03 2011