| Author | Message | ||
     Keys |
I was browsing a website regarding the WWII Corsair, my favorite plane. And It hit me why I fell in love with that Blue Bike when I picked it up last year. There are a lot of similarities.  Corsair air-cooled engine.  Beautiful lines. And then I read this... --As the Japanese called it, the "Whistling Death" had many great features. Probably the second-most famous PTO fighter next to the Lightning, the Corsair was very useful against Japanese "Zero" fighters. At first deemed unsuitable by the Navy for carrier operations, the Corsair was quick to prove the Navy wrong. Modifications were made and it was soon the best single-engine fighter the Navy owned. Performance was excellent and the pilots loved them. This aircraft was vital to the Allied victory in the Pacific.-- } Well, I got an image in my head of a Buell engaging a Japanese bike through some backroad dogfight. Does the Buell sound like a Corsair about to strafe? Legendary   VERSUS   http://warbirdsofww2.tripod.com/f4u.htm | ||
| Kaudette |
Yeah, and the Corsair also killed a bunch of pilots early in it's deployment to the Pacific due to some handling "quirks"... Nice aircraft and there are very few left out there. | ||
| Johnnylunchbox |
Didn't Nader right a book about the Corsair and it's handling quirks and deemed it "Unsafe at any Speed" P.S. I'm kidding. | ||
| Tramp |
No,No, That was "Pappy" Boyington... That invert gull wing design was pretty stuka-esque....hmmmmmmmmm... borrowng tech from the Krauts....yep... | ||
| Bomber |
Johnny -- I got it (being an ex-Corvair pilot back in the day) -- good one -- just for the record, the poor dear wasn't unsafe, or, at least, no more so than any other rear engine, swing axle car -- I had a gas in mine -- learned about throttle steering! | ||
| Buellbozo |
the inverted gull wing on the corsair was there for a reason dear to the hearts of all buellers...TORQUE!!it was an attempt to minimize landing gear length required by a prop of sufficient diameter to absorb and use the power available.Goodyear Aircraft in Akron actually made more corsairs than chance-vought.my dad worked there his whole career.also of interest was the F2G variant-12 were built w/pratt&whitney R4360 engines-4 rows of 7 cylinders.the vertical fin had something like 5 degrees offset built into the airframe to help it go straight.BBBBWWWWAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!! | ||
| Djkaplan |
Buells remind me more of A6M Zeros than Corsairs. The Zero did the best it could with what little power it had. The little A6M depended on agility and lightness instead of outright speed and ruggedness like the Corsair. | ||
| Tramp |
And, much like the evo and the Corsair aeroplane, the corvair borrowed much of it's tech from the Krauts. The American Porsche. I loved them, but, man- did they get scary at hiway speed. Incidentally, The Corvair Fighter jet was one cool bird, all intake cowl up front, used to love the silence and then the kaboom as they shot in a hundred feet or so above our heads.....Are they still employed anywhere? | ||
| Djkaplan |
Bomber, what year was your Corvair? I always was a fan of the 65-69 models. | ||
| Tramp |
To me, and i think I've said this before, there is NO sound more exciting than that of a WWII era radial engine throttling up. Essentially a group of v-twins in perfect sync, wailing..... | ||
| Tramp |
Sebring Spyder- Now THERE was a cool american sportscar | ||
| Tramp |
DJ- It's remarkable how well Hollyweird used AT-6 Texans with modified canopies as Zeros in many PTO films. | ||
| Loki |
I dunno. I like to purr of a Merlin singing its song. Then again a Wasp has a sting of its own. | ||
| Djkaplan |
It's remarkable how well Hollyweird used AT-6 Texans with modified canopies as Zeros in many PTO films. Some nut around here flies an AT-6 tarted up like a "Kate" dive bomber complete with faux torpedo. I believe it's one that was used in the movie, "Tora, Tora, Tora". | ||
| Keys |
All this talk about planes. I sat passenger one day in a T-6. Amazing ride! The gentleman I went with had a buddy that also had a T-6. I got to watch a T-6 in flight at altitude. thanks for jogging my memory! Once I read "radial engine throttling up," that's all it took. | ||
| Tramp |
Texan is an amazing aircraft. would a been an excellent combat aircraft, as well. When I was a kid, we had a derelict Texan ( no, not RT) at our airport. My dad allowed me and my big brother, under the tutelage of one of the A&P guys, to rebuild the engine. It was really a snap pulling all those jugs, etc. The bets was firing it up. Dad drew the line at us working on the brakes, etc., for taxiing. Kinda felt it would affect his insurance and his EAA charter if any of us were tooling around the runways in a T6 that couldn't fly. I belive it wound up on the Island Of Misfit Toys ("What child wants a Charlie in the Box?... or a T6 that doesn't fly...it taxis...???...") | ||
| Bomber |
Texans being training aircraft meant there was a buncha them around, most of em stayed in CONUS, and they were sold very cheaply after hostilities ended . . . . . great birds, rugged as heck Deej -- 66 turbo 4-speed convert -- ugly as home-made sin, but good fun agains jacked up Chevy IIs on the right road | ||
| Djkaplan |
"...just for the record, the poor dear wasn't unsafe, or, at least, no more so than any other rear engine, swing axle car -- I had a gas in mine... If it's for the record, the 65-69 Corvairs didn't have swing axles. The 2nd gen Corvairs were actually pretty sweet handling cars and didn't have the swing axle jacking problems of the earlier models. (Message edited by djkaplan on December 16, 2005) | ||
| Bob_thompson |
What made my Corvair much like the Corsair was the addition of a 427\425 amidships via an adaptor kit back in the 70's. This made the power to weight ratio somewhere close to the birds that dominated the Pacific in WW2. Yes I do have a few pictures and all American made like Buell's. Flying close to the ground back then. Not so much now with my M2. Bob (Message edited by bob_thompson on December 16, 2005) | ||
| Firemanjim |
What was different about the rear axles of the 65-69 Vairs? | ||
| Tripper |
My pop was Chief Engineer of the 66 Corvair, built at Willow Run. Great cars! | ||
| Tripper |
IRS, not solid axle. Keep the front tires at recommended pressures and it was a sweet handling car. Pump them up and watch out, the rear is coming around. | ||
| Djkaplan |
"What was different about the rear axles of the 65-69 Vairs?" All Corvairs had IRS. The latter 2nd gen cars had a sophisticated dual control arm IRS that accounted for camber change unlike the earlier swing axle Corvairs. I'd rather talk more about Corsairs. | ||
| Phatkidwit1eye |
Not exactly a Corsair, but this came flying over my buddies house this summer.  | ||
| Xlcr |
The fact the Stuka had gull wings too has no bearing on the Corsair's design. The Stuka had non-retractable landing gear with spats, and the designers probably were trying to reduce drag by making the struts shorter, whereas the Corsair needed a longer prop. At the time the Germans and the Brits were suffering from the delusion that inline water-cooled engines would always perform better because of reduced drag, and the Stuka had such an engine. The USAAF allowed itself to be sucked into that delusion, and even had Curtiss convert the perfectly competent P-36 with its 1200 HP radial into the Allison engined P-40, a sideways rather than a forward step. The Allison made only 1150 HP and suffered from inferior high altitude performance, though it did manage to eak out a slightly higher top speed. In the event, the P-40 was outperformed by the Grumman Wildcat, which used the exact same 1200 HP radial that Curtis abandoned. The Navy had no such delusions, and favored radials from the early '30s on. The Corsair was a triumph of American engineering with its world-beating 2000 HP Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp that owed nothing to to the Germans or anyone else. It was the first single-engined fighter in the world to exceed 400 MPH, in 1940. The Germans did not achieve similar performance from the BF109 in spite of its inline DB601 engine. But a projected shortage of these engines led the Luftwaffe staff to support the development of Kurt Tank's brilliant radial engined FW190, which did match the Corsair's level of performance. The Brits took longer to figure out that air-cooling was not dead. When the first FW190s appeared, the Air Ministry theorized that they were merely leftover P-36s captured from the French. It didn't take long to disabuse them of this cosy notion. Meanwhile, Hawker, having dismissed the fine Bristol Centarius engine as a mere air-cooled radial, wasted years, pounds, and the lives of pilots trying to make two almost worthless inline engines work. The RR Vulture was finally abandoned, and the sleeve-valve Napier Sabre was eventually made to work, though it was never really reliable. Next, Porsche had nothing to do with the Evo, at the time they were under contract to develop the v-four Nova engine, while the Milwaukee engineering staff (yes, there is one) developed the Evo. In the early '80s, as they were buying themselves out from AMF, they only had the money to build one or the other, and in one of the wisest, or luckiest, decisions in motorcycle marketing history, they chose to make the Evo, along with the new Softtail frame. And so history was made, the Evo Softtail becoming one of the greatest success stories of all time. Had they chosen the Nova, I am convinced they would be only a memory now. V-fours have never really sold that well in this country. And besides, it was butt-ugly. Finally, the air-cooled, rear-engined car with swing rear axles was not a German design either. The first one was the Tatra 77 of 1934, which used an air-cooled v-eight and was designed by the chief engineer, Dr. Hans Ledwinka. He was a friend of Porsche, and showed him the plans of a smaller model using a flat four engine. Porsche basically just copied the design and showed it to Hitler. After WWII Tatra sued Porsche in a German court over it and won, being awarded a large cash settlement. Porsche was proven to be a thief. So, Tramp, that's zero out of three. You'll have to do better. | ||
| Bomber |
well, I've learned a great deal today -- which explains the need for a nap ;-} thanks, gents! | ||
| Ceejay |
Pfat-where I grew up, a group of 3-5 of those would fly over our house about once a month in the summer-possible training runs from Dayton I guess. Pretty awe inspiring as a kiddo, that and watching the crop dusters disappear under the treeline, reappear about a mile further down, turn and then repeat could be the reason I have a buell and set-up the way I do, thanks for the rehash  | ||
| Djkaplan |
"At the time the Germans and the Brits were suffering from the delusion that inline water-cooled engines would always perform better because of reduced drag..." Certainly there were merits to the radial engines used by the Allied and Axis powers during WWII, but I'd hesitate to say that planners were delusional in thinking that inline water-cooled engines would always perform better. The USAAF had front line fighters with both types of engines and the it was the P-51 that eclipsed all of them with it's inline water-cooled engine. The British developed RR 1650 engine was considerably smaller and more fuel efficient than the PW 2800 radial and allowed the P-51 to escort bombers all the way to the targets. The much larger and heavier P-47 couldn't do this with the same amount of fuel and it couldn't turn with a Mustang (it was a diving sonuvabitch, though). This doesn't sound delusional to me. | ||
| Tramp |
xlcr- relax. the stuka came first, and there is NO way to prove the corsair wasn't influenced by it. In all likelihood, the corvair was highly influenced by it. secondly- you're wrong about the evo. porsche had much to do with it, in fact, back in the '90s at a tour of the york plant, a friend noticed a STACK of crated mills marked 'stuttgart'. the tour guy wasn't too happy about the 'discovery' and my friend (a BMWNA exec.) asked around and found that, allegedly, porsche was doing much design with the evos. ummm...I never cited swing axles in any of my posts, but ferdinand porsche was doing rear-engine boxer vehicles many decades prior to the chevy, which was my point. the tatra was a v-8 (I've owned many tatri, and have spent a good portion of my life in the tatri) and has little bearing on the comparison between the flat-6 rear-engine corvair and the flat-6 rear engine porsche. evidently you're still opearting under the delusion that you cited in a political post, that you "know more than anyone here..." good luck with this and all associated delusions. oh, and by the way, much like my unanswered question about how much time (if any) you'd spent in the mideast (being that, you know you "know more about mideast affairs than anyone here", how much time, (if any) have you spent in the tatri hori? ...er...Ok, then- how aboutr driving a tatra? how about in a warbird? no? ...er...OK- how about in a corvair? um.... you ever solo an aircraft, and if not, are you going to edumacate me about that, as well? dude- drop the books, step away from 'google' and live a little. get out and enjoy the sun- you'll feel a lot better. | ||
| Tramp |
actually, xlcr- would you please educate me about corvair jets, like, are they used anymore? i honestly would like to know more about them and when and if they went outta comission. all I know about them is how cool they sounded swooping in over us.....but a lot that was relief, as well.... (edited because i typed "corsair" jet) (Message edited by tramp on December 16, 2005) |
