Ever wonder why the Corsair was called "Whistling Death"?

[Autococker07]

Here is an awesome video of an FG-1D that captures the unique whistle made by the intercooler/oil coolers in the wing roots..... I sure am glad they were on our side...

http://youtu.be/087sF9pfuSE

 

[DGT]

Great post, I had always wondered what the nickname was all about.

 

[Dueeast]

Nice! My Uncle flew one in the Pacific in WW2.

 

[shouldazagged]

It's an unforgettable sound when you hear it for real. I've never actually heard a JU-87, but the F4U's sound will impress you.

 

[zzzippper]

It's an unforgettable sound when you hear it for real. I've never actually heard a JU-88, but the F4U's sound will impress you.

Ju-87 Stuka?

 

[Autococker07]

It's an unforgettable sound when you hear it for real. I've never actually heard a JU-87, but the F4U's sound will impress you.

Stuka siren


I've never heard a real stuka dive, but my dad always took me to the airshows at Barksdale, and I never could make out the whistle of the corsairs..... he swore that he heard them.....

 

[Kernel Crittenden]

Here's a pic showing good detail of the intercooler/oil cooler inlets. You can even see the exhaust dampers.

And some eye candy. 3/4 of the same Vought (Goodyear) FG-1D Corsair in flight.

 

[Dennis The B]

My understanding was that "Whistling Death" was the moniker the Japanese gave it.

I've seen them at a couple of air shows, and they lived up to their nickname. I can imagine the horror of being on the business end of 6 "Ma Deuces", and a few rockets, or napalm. Not my idea of a fun day in the field.

 

[M&P Freak]

What a piece of machinery. Thanks for the history lesson.

 

[Alpo]

Interesting. Daddy always referred to them as a Hose Nose.

 

[lawandorder]

My humble opinion,it is the most Beautiful of all the WWII Fighters.

 

[mstem]

I had a distant relative that flew a F4U Corsair in the Pacific in WWII. VMF 214, Gregory "Pappy" Boyington.

 

[bigride]

Awesome video. Thanks for sharing.

Just pretend this is witty.

 

[ancient-one]

They were a very good fighter and really looked the part. One of the bad things about them was the location of the starter chamber. After the engine was started you had to remove the fired cartridge. That required you to hang on with your left hand, one foot a step hole and lean forward as far as you could to get the spent cartridge out of the chamber because if left in they had a tendency to swell and be very hard to remove. If you slipped you were probably prop fodder.

 

[rwsmith]

Stukas

Stukas had sirens built in especially designed to terrorize. Another craft whose noise had the ability to terrify was the V-1 Flying Bomb. As long as you heard the buzzing of the ramjet you were safe, but when the noise stopped...... Kind of like a rifle bullet. If you hear it, you are safe. It's the one you don't hear that got you.

PS The sirens were mounted on the spats on the undercarriage and were called 'Jericho Trompete' or Jericho Trumpets. Its an apt name. The walls came tumbling down.

 

[the ringo kid]

Oh those beautiful birds. My other favorite is the Mustang.

 

[Isis1200L]

Both my Dad's sisters worked in the factory in Bridgeport, CT building those gorgeous Corsairs.
I wish I'd asked them to write down what it was like, doing "guys" work. (And being damm good at it.)
Corsair's my favorite. Love the Texan. And the Mustang.

 

[Texas Star]

I read a comment by a former Japanese pilot who said that he was more afraid of the Hellcat, which seemed more maneuverable in a hot dogfight. But I'm sure the Corsair was pretty dangerous and it did well in air support in Korea. The Navy had, I think (?) withdrawn the Hellcat from first line units by then.

BUT...the Hellcat was replaced by jet fighters in the air superiority role and the F-4F was being used for ground attack, which may suggest that they felt the F-6F Hellcat was indeed a better fighter than the Corsair in air combat, so they got replaced by the next gen. of better fighters, Banshees and Panthers.

In addition the US, France and the Royal New Zealand AF used the Corsair. And the Royal Navy had them in service when the US Navy felt they were too unstable for sea duty. They relegated them to USMC air units operating from islands. The landing gear needed improvements to achieve US carrier service. The British were more desperate for suitable carrier fighters to bolster the Seafire that had longer range, so they adopted the Corsair and the Hellcat as well as the older Wildcat, which they initially called the Martlet, a kind of weasel.

The RN version had shorter wings, I think because the British carriers had smaller aircraft storage areas. As far as I know, the RNZAF Corsairs were the same as US versions, as they didn't operate from carriers. They replaced or augmented P-40's and Spitfires.

 

[Bat Guano]

Re the V-1s; About ten plus years ago My Dad (WWII vet) and I were walking through the USAF museum at Wright-Pat. They had a V-1 on its dolly over in one corner, and he was looking at it while I was looking at the B-29, Bock's Car. When I went back to where he was, he said, "Saw one of those go over once". In Belgium, apparently.

Sort of like the offhand comment he made one day about seeing Eisenhower, and commenting that he was a pretty big fellow.

He never talked much about his experiences in the ETO (combat engineers, Fifth Army) ; when he did it was usually some cryptic comment out of the blue.

I sure do miss him and those minimalist stories!

 

[Shorty 45 MK2]

Very cool!

Thanks for sharing.