ARP Videos Corsair and more

Flight Journal, Dec 1998 by Farmer, James H

ARP Videos Corsair and More

Video may be ordered from ARP Videos: (800) 8433672; $29.95.

"Corsair and More" is a compilation of three black-and-white WW II Navy instructional films totaling approximately 50 minutes. The first and certainly most enjoyable of the trio is "Flying the F4U Corsair." Produced during the 1942 to '43 period, this 20-minute pilot's checkout short features a factory-fresh F4U-l "birdcage" Corsair fighter. In a straightforward no-nonsense fashion, it runs the viewer through starting procedures (with a cartridge starter), wing unfolding, S-turning taxiing techniques, takeoff and landing techniques for both field and carrier operations, as well as various inflight characteristics. During the latter sequence, the most dramatic images are of the fighter's notorious staffing quali-- ties that nearly throw the demonstration pilot over onto his back every time, in virtually every configuration!

More mundane is the second installment that details the workings and delivery techniques of WW II "aerial mines." Air-to-water, as well as surface and submarine delivery techniques are also explored. This portion concludes with a detailed recounting of the arming, loading, flying and dropping of a pattern of aerial mines by a group of P25/PBJ bombers.

The final 10-minute Navy instructional film, "Night Vision for Airmen," offers a mini-dramatization that features uncredited actor Eddie Albert (of later "Green Acres" television fame) as a Pacificbased F6F-3N night-fighting Hellcat pilot The moral of the story is that Pete (Albert) had played it by the book: he wore his red goggles before the scramble mission, went on oxygen immediately to help maintain his night vision and dimmed his cockpit lights. Hank, Pete's partner, on the other hand, didn't bother with these precautions and was virtually blind from the moment he left the well-lit tent on the strip. Searching out a raiding formation of Japanese Betty bombers, Pete scores a kill while Hank is spotted by an alert Japanese tail gunner and is shot down before he knows what's hit him.

The film also covers why intercepting the enemy from a slightly lower altitude makes nighttime interceptions easier in three ways. This latter segment, originally a darkly filmed dramatization, has, unfortunately, not aged well visually and is overly dark in all too many places.

-James H. Farmer t