I figure someone here will probably know the answer to this…
Is there any precedent to folding the wings on land-based Corsairs during WWII? I know you see them with wings folded at air shows and such all the time, but what about operating out of, say, Bougainville?
I’ve got Tamiya’s F4U-1A in the stash and I’m contemplating building it with the wings up, but I’m not sure if that’d be accurate for an island-based Corsair.
There is no single answer to your question that is always correct. Wings up or down depended on circumstances, general time frame, who was in charge, etc. A bird sitting alert, ready to go at a moment’s notice would probably have the wings extended. If parking space was at a premium, they would be folded. Some commanders line of thought was that with the wings folded the planes appeared less like a plane when viewed from an attacking enemy plane and might be missed. Most land bases that were subject to enemy attack had the planes in separate revetments or least a fair amount of space between them, so the wings might be extended. The people involved in protecting the planes didn’t want another fiasco like Pearl Harbor where the planes were lined up in nice, neat rows and made wonderful targets.
Darwin, O.F. [aln]
From the pics I’ve seen they were normally parked with wings extended, but that’s certainly not definitive.
Regards, Rick
Take into account the number of revetments at any given airbase… If it was necessary, the wings were folded on land-based Navy (like VF 17 at Ondongo, New Georgia ) and Marine F4Us in order to park two aircraft in one revetment… You could do a couple things here… One, buy another Corsair (and why not?) and park it in the revetment too, or B, Park it folded but off-center, as if the other aircraft has already been towed out, and use a Tamiay Duece & a half (or other vehicle, like the Pro Modeler towing tug, starter cart, and an extiguisher cart ) to take up the remaining space…
I don’t know if this helps, but here are a couple of pictures of F4U’s.
This is VMF 222 on Vella Lavella photographed in December '43.
This is VMF 211 in the Green Islands in May '44 with a stray Hellcat mixed in.
Most of the pictures I found are similar to these. There were a couple with wings folded while being worked on. Most were not. One in particular with wings folded has the caption of battle damage repair. Since pictures are “worth a thousand words” (yeah right) I hope this helps. I imagine you are getting lots of “rain delays” for painting in Austin too. At least the drought is over, for now anyways.
Cheers,
Greg
Look at the weathering on those things! I’m not sure it would be important what your base blue was. Just pile on the dustings and washes. Rick.
Yeah, no kidding, a quick spray with intermediate blue, some off-white on the bottom, spray it all over with some clear super sticky, and take handfulls of powdered sand and coral dust and throw at it!! Then all-but cover the white with any kind of nastiness you can think of… oil, fuel, grease, dust, grease mixed with dust-Hey, you can get this off an old car that’s been leaking stuff for years.
Wow. Amazing what a salt air environment can do.
LOL!
Maybe I’ll wait til next summer and just leave in the backyard for a week or two after the decals go on! Then park the car over it for a few days…