WWII Carrier Ops Footage

[YoDawg]

Some excellent footage of USN WWII carrier ops.

WWII Carrier OPS (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7166330178234459087)

Respect... :D

[YoDawg]

On closer inspection, it appears some of the footage is of RN ops with the F4U4.

[Pontius Navigator]

The Corsairs had the heavily cranked wing.

[MightyGem]

Didnt they take them off those duties
I believe that the US Navy/Marines did, until the Royal Navy showed them how it was done.

[brickhistory]

Corsairs, like SeaFires, used a wide, looping/angled approach to spot the deck/LSO and to minimize the period when the long nose obscured forward vision.

The USN did try Corsairs early in the career of the F4U, but the procedures in use at the time did not incorporate the above and the Corsair suffered an inordinately high accident rate. Combined with understrength gear failures on many of the early versions, and the Navy gave the unwanted bird to the Marines for use as a land-based fighter.

The need for more fighters following the introduction of the kamikaze allowed the USMC to make it's case for putting the 'bent winged bird' back on deck.

I do not know who/what service developed the landing procedure used for the Corsair.

[PPRuNeUser0139]

Jeffrey Quill, in his account of wartime Spitfire testing, credits Cdr Peter Bramwell with being the first to land a Seafire on a carrier using a crabbing approach from dead astern. This technique was apparently also favoured by Eric 'Winkle' Brown but JQ thought it carried too high a risk factor for inexperienced pilots and so he adopted the curving approach for Seafire carrier landings with great success.
All this, however, took place in late '43/early '44 so while JQ may well have been the first to use this technique for Seafire landings, I would be surprised if it hadn't already been discovered by operators of other aircraft elsewhere.
I remember from Geoffrey Wellum's 'First Light' that a curved approach was always SOP for Spitfire night ops.
sv

[brickhistory]

Vought F4U Corsair - USA (http://www.aviation-history.com/vought/f4u.html)


Several stumbling blocks developed when carrier trials were held aboard the USS Sangamon and other carriers in late 1941. The biggest problem was the long nose. It stuck out 14 feet (4.27 m) in front of the pilot, and when the Corsair was sitting in take-off position, the nose pointed up at an angle sufficient to block forward vision to about 12º above the horizon. In carrier landings it was practically impossible to see the Landing Signals Officer once the Corsair was lined up with the carrier deck on final approach. Adding to this problem were oil and hydraulic leaks from the engine compartment which seeped past the cowl flaps and smeared the windshield, further restricting visibility.

Landing on a carrier deck required the pilot to have the plane at stall speed just as the tail-hook snagged the deck wire, but this was made very difficult by the wicked stall characteristics of the F4U. Just as stall speed was reached, the left wing tended to drop like a rock. In a deck landing this could cause the landing gear to collapse resulting in injuries to the pilot and severe damage to the aircraft.

As the Corsair was thought by the Navy to be unsuitable for carrier duty, it was given to the U.S. Marines for land-based operations where it earned an outstanding combat record. Britain, France, New Zealand, Australia also received the F4U during WWII.

It was the British who finally worked out a method of landing the Corsair on their carriers in spite of the visibility problems caused by the long nose. Instead of the normal downwind-crosswind-final approach method, the British simply turned downwind, then made a slow, continuous curve which aligned the Corsair with the deck only at the last second before the aircraft touched down and trapped. This method allowed the pilot to keep the Landing Signals Officer in view right up to the moment the plane was over the fan-tail where the LSO gave the sign to either "cut" or make another attempt.

To alleviate the problem of oil and hydraulic fluid smearing the windshield, the Brits simply wired shut the cowl flaps across the top of the engine compartment, diverting the oil and hydraulic fluid around the sides of the fuselage. Numerous other simple, effective alterations were devised to alleviate the dreadful stall characteristics, landing bounce and tailhook problems (among others), and these modifications were incorporated into the production line. In 1944 the US Navy decided to again try landing the F4U on carriers, and this time succeeded. It turned out to be an extremely wise decision.

[Double Zero]

This, as previously mentioned, was another of Eric 'Winkle' Brown's successes.

Even the U.S.Marines, if I recall correctly, didn't fancy landing the thing on a carrier at all until Winkle strapped one on & developed the approach technique, after which the aircraft enjoyed great success in American hands.

It must be said, I think personally that E.B. did things if they were possible with his rather high skill level, really a Research rather than Test Pilot, whose main concern nowadays is " can a standard service pilot hack this ? ".

Still, that was all-out war, and the results proved him right...

Despite the fearsome performance and firepower of the Corsair, surely the Hellcat was the ideal carrier fighter ( I hear, including from Winkle himself, that this aircraft had the highest kill ratio of all WWII fighters, but that was largely a function of being in the right place at the right time, certainly doesn't mean it was the best WWII fighter ).

[taxydual]

Why am I reminded of ducks landing on a frozen pond?

Respect to those guys. very thought provoking.

[Melchett01]

Pretty stiring stuff - especially the shots towards the end of the pilot's bringing their aircraft in with wheels up etc. Must have taken huge balls to land a serviceable frame on the deck, but to know that you were going to try and put a damaged aircraft down on a moving deck, well that is just something else.

Then again, it was a different era, where I guess flying was purer - men were men and aeroplanes were aeroplanes. Whilst modern jets look the part and can do warp factor 9, you can't help but feel it is so much more sterile adn clinical than in the days covered by the video.

[exscribbler]

WW2 naval pilots (particularly Corsair pilots) certainly had cojones; the barrier beckoned every time. If only they'd had angled decks then.

The development of the curved approach for the Seafire is described rather well in Spitfire: Portrait of a Legend by Leo McKinstry, although Eric Brown gets the credit.

[exscribbler]

PKPF68-77: from http://www.uss-hornet.org/history/wwii/ (http://www.uss-hornet.org/history/wwii/)

During the Battle of the Philippine Sea on June 19th (1944), Hellcat pilots from HORNET destroyed enemy aircraft with no losses in what came to be known as the "Marianas Turkey Shoot". The following afternoon, a TBM from Wasp (CV-18) spotted the retiring Japanese fleet and a strike was immediately launched. Pilots from HORNET were the first to attack, scoring lethal hits on a Zuikaku-class carrier. It was long after dark when the returning aircraft arrived over the Task Force. All were critically low on fuel, many badly shot up and their pilots wounded. From flag plot aboard Lexington (CV-16), Admiral Mark Mitscher gave his famous order to "turn on the lights", thus risking the submarine threat, but allowing the exhausted aviators to find carrier decks upon which to land.

In the early 80s my school's EWO was a gentleman who had been a PO TAG in an Avenger Squadron in the Pacific. He spent his 20th birthday dive-bombing Japanese airfields in the full knowledge that capture would result in beheading. Respect? I'll say.

[LowObservable]

They say in the Air Force a landing's OK
If the pilot gets out and can still walk away,
But in the Fleet Air Arm the prospect is grim
If the landing's piss-poor and the pilot can't swim.

Cracking show, I'm alive,
But I still have to render my A25.

When the batsman gives "lower" I always go higher,
I drift o'er to starboard and prang my Seafire.
The boys in the "Goofers" all think that I'm green,
But I get a commission from Supermarine.

I thought I was coming in high enough but
I was fifty feet up when the batsman gave "cut",
And loud in my earphones the sweet angels sang:
"'Float, float, foat, float, float, float, float, float, float, float,
PRANG!"

When you come o'er the round-down and see Wings' frown
You can safely assume that your hook isn't down.
A dirty great barrier looms up in front,
And you hear Wings shout, "Switch off your engine, you fool!"

I swing down the deck in my Martlet Mark Four,
Loud in my ear-'oles the Cyclone's smooth roar:
"Chuff-clank-clank, chuff-clank-clank, chuff-clank-clank-clink!'
Away wing on pom-pom, away life in Drink

Now in the Luftwaffe they never complain
Since Goering invented the pilotless plane.
They sit in the crew room and sing all the day,
And this is the song that they sing so they say:

The moral of this story is easy to see,
A Fleet Air Arm pilot you never should be,
But stay on the shore and get two rings or three
And go out every night on the piss down at Lee.

Cracking show, I'm alive,
But I still have to render my A25.

To the tune of "Moonshiner" by the great Cyril Tawney.

Full lyrics here: The A25 Song (http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiA25;ttVILDINAH.html)

[Double Zero]

We all know how good the Spitfire was, but at sea it was a very different proposition.

My father ( who retired as a trials crew-chief on experimental Harrier GR5's ) was an engine fitter on Seafires, first on the medium size HMS Unicorn, then on escort carriers Stalker & Khedive.

His photo albums are full of Seafires pranged attempting deck landings; the feeble, narrow track undercarriage was never designed with carrier operations in mind.

At Salerno, the Unicorn had to give her Spit Mk 9's to the escort carriers, as they were even worse off with shorter decks.

In exchange her squadrons ( 897, 809 + another beyond recall ) received clapped out Mk.5's.

There was no wind during the operation, and despite the carriers steaming flat out, after 2 days they had gone from around 30 to 6 operational aircraft, the rest bent on landing.

I asked Eric Winkle Brown why the hell they didn't use the Sea Hurricane, with its' wide track undercarriage, more ( dad feels the same ).

The answer was that it couldn't cope with the FW190; I have to say I'm dubious about this, though Winkle has forgotten more about flying than I could ever learn - at least the Hurricane might have been available to fly, not a mangled heap pushed to one side.

When the Seafire was replaced by the Hellcat, it was a revelation and a great success - you can guess which aircraft model has pride of place on dads' TV !

[exscribbler]

This is the lady: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Unicorn_(I72 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Unicorn_(I72))

I remember seeing her at Devonport in about 1959; she went for scrap not long afterwards.

[MightyGem]

This is the lady: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Unicorn_(I72 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Unicorn_(I72))
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[GreenKnight121]

Just a couple of notes:

The first FAA Corsair unit was No. 1830, created on the first of June 1943, and soon operating from HMS Illustrious.

Despite the decision to issue the F4U to Marine Corps units, two Navy units, VF-12 (October 1942) and later VF-17 (April 1943) were equipped with the F4U. By April 1943, VF-12 had successfully completed deck landing qualification. However, VF-12 soon abandoned its aircraft to the Marines. VF-17 kept its Corsairs, but was removed from its carrier, Bunker Hill (CV-17), due to perceived difficulties in supplying parts at sea.

In November 1943, while operating as a shore-based unit in the Solomon Islands, VF-17 reinstalled the tail hooks so its F4Us could land and refuel while providing top cover over the task force participating in the carrier raid on Rabaul. The squadron's pilots successfully landed, refueled and took off from their former home, Bunker Hill and the USS Essex (CV-9) on November 11, 1943.

The U.S. Navy finally accepted the F4U for unrestricted shipboard operations in April 1944, after the longer oleo strut was fitted, which finally eliminated the tendency to bounce. The first Corsair unit to be based effectively on a carrier was the USMC squadron, VMF-124, which joined USS Essex. They were accompanied by VMF-213.


An interesting account from a RAE test pilot can be found here (scroll down a ways, past the modeling stuff): Corsair F4U | Aircraft | Fiddlersgreen.net.. Fun downloadable paper models (http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/Aircraft/Vought-Corsair)

I had joined the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Fainborough in January 1944, and one of the first tasks to which I was assigned was that of checking out the diving characteristics of the Corsair with undercarriage both retracted and extended. The aircraft with which I was to perform the tests was an early Lend-Lease Corsair Mk I and our encounter was certainly not a case of love at first sight. On the contrary, during my acquaintance with this impressively large and aesthetically unappealing fighter, which was to spread over several years, I was never to achieve any sort of rapport.
....
I was well aware that the US Navy had found the Corsair's deck-landing characteristics so disappointing in trials that it had been assigned for shore duties while an attempt was being made to iron out the problems, and although the FAA was deck-landing the aircraft, I knew that, by consensus, it had been pronounced a brute and assumed that shipboard operations with the Corsair were something of a case of needs must when the devil drives. The fact that experienced US Navy pilots could deck-land the Corsair had been demonstrated a couple of months earlier, in November 1943, when VF-17, providing high cover for the carriers Essex and Bunker Hill, had run short of fuel after decimating an attacking torpedo-bomber force and had landed safely aboard the carriers. All in all, I was most anxious to discover for myself if the Corsair was the deck-landing dog that it was reputed to be. It was!