Holy cow! Model planes, restoring autos, etc all superbly done – wish I had your energy!
Glad you are back safely. Call me so we can get together soon.
Ted Brito said:
Michael Kirrene said:
My favorite is the ‘Whistling Death’. It had gull wings and folded up under the flight deck of the aircraft carriers. I can see why the model would be hard to control, especially at high speeds. My second favorite is the P-51. The Hellcat was a very fast plane too and so was the Thunderbolt. Interesting story you have, Ted, about the Shinden Kai and how it out-performed US aircraft when provided with good fuel. Your numbers C 343-45 coincide with the prototype. Google is my best friend. (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
The Corsair was actually a failure at its initial design, to be a carrier based Aircraft. The nose was long and it was difficult to see the deck when at the proper attitude to arrest the cable with the tail hook. Landing speed was the critical part of flying the Corsair and many pilots stalled the wing lift causing it to drop the left wing and hit the left gear hard on the deck usually causing heavy damage. If the pilot tried to avoid the stall by flying just a little faster, they often over shot the arresting cable and would fly into parked planes on the front of the carrier. The Corsair was removed from carrier service and used as land based mainly by the marines where it’s speed and maneuverability shined making the Corsair a successful airframe used into the Korean War and even later by foreign air forces. The whistle is caused by the combination of high air flow by the huge propeller, over the wing mounted oil coolers, and it’s gull wing shape. If you watch both the models and the real aircraft fly, you will often see a little “wag” of the tail which is another known characteristic of the Corsair. Even though the nose is long, the airframe is considered short coupled, and short coupled aircraft often ”wag” side to side as they fly. It is one of my favorite WWII airframes too!
It took the Brits to show the Yanks how to land the Corsair on a carrier. It involved a short final, where the crosswind allowed the pilot to keep ‘Paddles,’ in sight right up to the last second, crossing the threshold, chopping the throttle.
They slipped it in basically approaching the carrier from the side so they could see the deck and the LSO (landing signal officer) and his “paddles” in each hand which he uses to tell the pilot what attitude to put his aircrafts wings in. Then turning the aircraft hard about 90 degrees with the rudder, which quickly bleeds off speed, with its nose down more to keep the speed from bleeding off too fast, and touching down on the deck. The brits really didn’t have many options for carrier based aircraft, and tried very hard to make the Corsair work for them, and eventually a fix to the landing issue was found. The US had developed the Hellcat and it was at least equal if not a better carrier based aircraft than the Corsair so it was a wise move to land base the Corsair and replace them with the Hellcats.
Thought I’d update my posts on my Oldsmobile. We were awarded the Ransom E Oldsmobile award by the Antique Automobile Club of America for the years most outstanding restoration of an oldsmobile in the US. I was quite a surprise for us and an honor to win the award. My kids came down and up to philadelphia to celebrate with us.
Still planning on getting something started this year and keep following others on the forum Enjoying all the informative posts. Been lots of setbacks and additional work required on the 34’ pickup and the 30’ 4 dr plus our weather has been lousy so even with the stay at home orders, I’m further behind than I wanted to be at this time. I’m still looking for and acquiring things I think I’m going to need for when I do start the RR and a couple days ago I found two sm pond liners right here in town on FB Marketplace for extra short money so got that part of the layout covered.
heres the link to the 34’ Chevy pickup restoration. https://forums.aaca.org/topic/336225-34’-chevy-pickup/page/6/#comments