My adventures witht he bent wing bird

Air Classics, Jul 2001 by Cantrell, Richard A

RECALL WHAT IT WAS LIKE THE TRANSITIONING FROM THE SNJ TEXAN TO THE MIGHTY F4U-4 CONSAIR

There I was at 1200 feet--- and I had finally located the altimeter! The problem was we all had been told to stay below 1000 feet until we were clear of the nearby commercial field. Fresh from basic carrier qualification in SNJ Texans, I was making my first flights in a Corsair, an F4U. It was only the first of seven unforgettable flights in the old bentwing bird. Two were at the beginning of advanced training, on in the middle, and the other four at the end.

I remember having two thoughts as I added power for takeoff. First, that I was riding the barrel of a 13-foot cannon; and second, as I got airborne, that now I had flown a Corsair. No matter what might happen after that no one could take that away from me. By then I was above 1000 feet and still looking for the altimeter. There was simply no way to get ready for the difference in the speed with which things happened to the Corsair compared with the SNJ. The rest of the flight was normal, and I somehow avoided a mid-air collision with any of the commercial planes from the other airport.

When my advanced training class, which consisted of six Aviation Midshipmen, had arrived at Cabaniss Field, Corpus Christi, Texas, at the first of September, we expected to be flying Turkeys (TBMs) and training to be attack pilots. The only consolation we had was that at least we were going to be flying single-engine aircraft and not the PBM flying boats at Mainside to which some of our former classmates had been assigned. We used to kid them by saying the PBM took off, cruised, and landed at 70 knots. Of course, all they had to do was grin at us and go "Gobble, gobble, gobble!" Those others who were going to fly fighters had gone to training units at Cabaniss Field which were flying RU-4s.

We spent the first month in ground school studying Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines and other subjects. I remember one day in Engines class, I could see out the window that Corsairs were taking off on runway 31 about every 30 seconds. After one of them took off, all of a sudden the temperature dropped about 20 degrees and it seemed that within 30 seconds a Corsair landed on the same runway headed in the opposite direction. The weather was that changeable in that part of Texas.

About the time we finished the month of ground school, without any warning, all the Turkeys disappeared and were replaced by Corsairs. So our training to be attack pilots was in F4U-4s! The attack pilot syllabus was similar to the one for fighter pilots except there was a difference in emphasis. We practiced gunnery, but not as much as they did. They practiced bombing, but not as much as we did. The Corsair was fine for glide bombing using up to a 45-degree dive. But of course it could not do true dive bombing. Real dive bombing involves dive angles of 60 degrees or more, because it did not have dive brakes to control its speed in the dive. We had to wait until we arrived in the fleet and got AD-4 Sky-- raiders to practice true dive bombing.

The second unforgettable flight in a Corsair came on my second hop just the next day. It seems that as I was taxiing out for takeoff someone in the tower had noticed that my tail wheel hydraulic strut appeared to be low. I had not noticed it when I did my pre-- flight check. At any rate, he did not mention it until after takeoff. Then the tower called and instructed me to land at once and to make a "wheels" (two-- point) landing to avoid any problem with the tail wheel. I had about 200 hours in SNJs during which I had done my best to make perfect three-point landings. I had never made a wheels landing on purpose in my life. Furthermore, we had been warned about the Corsair's tendency to porpoise during wheel landings. We were told never to try to stop the porpoising by chasing it - rather to keep the stick still and let the plane correct itself.

So following the established emergency procedures I told the tower I was climbing to 6000 feet to test the slow flight characteristics and then would make a wheels landing. After the slow flight test the tower cleared me in and sure enough old "Hosenose" started porpoising. But I let it correct itself, and the result was "an excellent landing." It has been said that a good landing is one you can walk away from; an excellent landing is one in which the aircraft can be used again. I know the plane was used again, because I flew it the next day with no problems.

The rest of my time in the Corsair at Cabaniss Field was uneventful except for one hop at an outlying field where we were shooting dead-stick touch and go landings - three-point I might add! The instructor, Lt. (jg) Bill Youmans, had landed and set up at the end of the runway with a portable radio. Our class then took turns in a "round-- robin" landing, adding power and taking off again, picking up our landing gear as we did. Each time around as we got to the end of the downwind leg and started our turning approach, we went over our check-- off list and reported to the instructor, "Gear down, flaps down, check-off list complete, sir" and pulled off the power. At the end of the period, when I came around for my last approach, the instructor, instead of giving me a "Roger" with the LSO paddles as I expected, gave me a wave-off and then waved to all of us good-bye -- meaning we were going home. When I got back to the ready room he was already there, having landed first. As I walked in, he grinned and said to me "Gear down, flaps down, check-off list complete, sir." And that was the first time it dawned on me that I had made a wheels up pass! I never made another one.