They recoverd an F4U-1 Corsair. That's got to be rair; the first production version.



World War II fighter plane recovered from Lake Michigan

quote:

A World War II fighter plane was recovered from Lake Michigan on Monday, nearly 70 years after a Navy pilot missed a signal officer's warning to slow down and crashed during a training exercise.

The F4U-1 Corsair emerged rusted, its underbelly coated with zebra mussels, but otherwise remarkably intact after sitting beneath 250 feet of water nearly 33 miles off the Waukegan shoreline for decades.

"It's in wonderful condition," said Taras Lyssenko, general manager for A&T Recovery, a Chicago-based company that recovered the plane. "Keep in mind, it crashed and broke in half on the aircraft carrier."

That's charitable, calling the converted coal burning, side-wheel excursion boats the Navy pressed into service training aviators on the Great Lakes "aircraft carriers." They put the biggest flight deck they could on them, and they were still 300 feet shorter than the deck of an attack carrier. I know bombers like TBMs had their armor removed and where otherwise lightened so they could launch and recover from that little deck. I have no idea what they did with fighters.

Of course, that means the first time these pilots ever took off with a fully armed and fueled regular production aircraft from a pitching and rolling deck was often their first mission.

It's amazing these guys did their jobs so well.

someone is going to be happy restoring that bird!

Yea, I know some hanger rats that live for this sort of thing. Think nothing of taking a wreck like that and spending 15 year to restore to perfect condition. And fly it too.

quote:

Originally posted by China Fleet Sailor:
They recoverd an F4U-1 Corsair. That's got to be rair; the first production version.



World War II fighter plane recovered from Lake Michigan

quote:

A World War II fighter plane was recovered from Lake Michigan on Monday, nearly 70 years after a Navy pilot missed a signal officer's warning to slow down and crashed during a training exercise.

The F4U-1 Corsair emerged rusted, its underbelly coated with zebra mussels, but otherwise remarkably intact after sitting beneath 250 feet of water nearly 33 miles off the Waukegan shoreline for decades.

"It's in wonderful condition," said Taras Lyssenko, general manager for A&T Recovery, a Chicago-based company that recovered the plane. "Keep in mind, it crashed and broke in half on the aircraft carrier."

That's charitable, calling the converted coal burning, side-wheel excursion boats the Navy pressed into service training aviators on the Great Lakes "aircraft carriers." They put the biggest flight deck they could on them, and they were still 300 feet shorter than the deck of an attack carrier. I know bombers like TBMs had their armor removed and where otherwise lightened so they could launch and recover from that little deck. I have no idea what they did with fighters.

Of course, that means the first time these pilots ever took off with a fully armed and fueled regular production aircraft from a pitching and rolling deck was often their first mission.

It's amazing these guys did their jobs so well.

They had aircraft carriers on the Great Lakes? Sorry if I find that a bit humerous, but it's one historical fact, I was unaware of. Interesting. They did some strange things, during the war. We still have the steel skeleton of Habukuk, or something like that, in one of our mountain lakes. The idea was to build a floating ice, aircraft carrier. Didn't work out.

quote:

Originally posted by Grizzly Adams:


They had aircraft carriers on the Great Lakes? Sorry if I find that a bit humerous, but it's one historical fact, I was unaware of...

They were training carriers, safe on inland waters from attack.

quote:

Originally posted by f224:

quote:

Originally posted by Grizzly Adams:


They had aircraft carriers on the Great Lakes? Sorry if I find that a bit humerous, but it's one historical fact, I was unaware of...

They were training carriers, safe on inland waters from attack.

Did a little research. Actually very interesting and here's the story. George Bush got his start there.

http://ix-carriers.blogspot.co...-lakes-carriers.html

Grizz

I used to live in Waukegan, and there are still sizeable chunks of aluminum that washs up on the shore after storms. Mostly stuff under 2 pounds but you can tell it was part of an airplane.

quote:

Originally posted by China Fleet Sailor:
They recoverd an F4U-1 Corsair. That's got to be rair; the first production version.



World War II fighter plane recovered from Lake Michigan

quote:

A World War II fighter plane was recovered from Lake Michigan on Monday, nearly 70 years after a Navy pilot missed a signal officer's warning to slow down and crashed during a training exercise.

The F4U-1 Corsair emerged rusted, its underbelly coated with zebra mussels, but otherwise remarkably intact after sitting beneath 250 feet of water nearly 33 miles off the Waukegan shoreline for decades.

"It's in wonderful condition," said Taras Lyssenko, general manager for A&T Recovery, a Chicago-based company that recovered the plane. "Keep in mind, it crashed and broke in half on the aircraft carrier."

That's charitable, calling the converted coal burning, side-wheel excursion boats the Navy pressed into service training aviators on the Great Lakes "aircraft carriers." They put the biggest flight deck they could on them, and they were still 300 feet shorter than the deck of an attack carrier. I know bombers like TBMs had their armor removed and where otherwise lightened so they could launch and recover from that little deck. I have no idea what they did with fighters.

Of course, that means the first time these pilots ever took off with a fully armed and fueled regular production aircraft from a pitching and rolling deck was often their first mission.

It's amazing these guys did their jobs so well.

What's worse about those training carriers on the lakes is because of that "small deck" factor
they kept more tension on the arrestor cables....

this led to some amusing episodes...

One of my neighbors who passed a few years ago (Ed Brown) was a naval aviator in WW2 and served time as a training officer on one after he returned from flying an SBD in the cactus air force out of Henderson in the lovely early fall of 1942....

Anyway, in one "incident" found himself swimming because the SBD he was landing on the training carrier broke in half after catching the wire and went overboard.

His gunner stayed on deck with minor injuries
the front half of the SBD wound up in lake michigan. the airplane almost came to a complete stop before breaking and because takeoff power was already applied.... the front half tried to leave... with Ed still strapped in. the gunner OTOH quickly released his harness and didn't go with the plane. Ed didn't have that option...

Aircraft breaking in half on deck was not at all uncommon, particularly coupled with the fact that aircraft were bieng used up in training that had already seen extensive combat service.

I don't know how many carrier landings a WW2 aircraft is good for before metal fatigue catches up to them but that one SBD that broke under Ed obviously had one trap too many...

What poeobably made it worse was that he had a batch of students on deck watching while he did a landing to "show them how it's done".... oops!

I suspect there are an awful lot of aircraft
yet to be found somewhere on the bottom of lake Michigan, Erie and Ontario

I miss Ed, he had more stories to tell but...

I think he enjoyed talking to me because he didn't need to explain where Tulagi, Guvatu, Florida island and Sealark channel, or the different aircraft, etc were...

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