Posted on 05/11/2005 8:04:35 AM PDT by Rakkasan1
It's taken six years and a special act of Congress, but an aircraft mechanic from Princeton, Minn., is the undisputed owner of a rare World War II Corsair fighter plane that he salvaged 15 years ago from a North Carolina swamp.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis in Minneapolis approved a settlement that ends a lawsuit filed a year ago by the U.S. Justice Department against Lex Cralley. The lawsuit was the climax of an escalating battle of wills that had been going on since 1999 between the 50-year-old Northwest Airlines mechanic and the U.S. Navy.
"I've been under a cloud so long, it almost seems like a dream that it's over," Cralley said Tuesday.
In celebration, Cralley said he plans to exhibit the still-skeletal and disjointed remains of the Corsair at the annual Experimental Aircraft Association show next August in Oshkosh, Wis.
"It remains a piece of naval aviation history to be shared," said Cralley, whose dream is to restore the plane to flying condition something that will take many years and millions of dollars, according to aviation history experts. It's estimated that fewer than 25 Corsairs still are flying.
In 1990, Cralley salvaged the remains of the fighter plane that had been buried in the muck of a North Carolina swamp for 46 years after it crashed there during a training flight in 1944. Shortly after the crash, a Navy report noted the death of the pilot, Marine Lt. Robin C. Pennington, and described the plane as "demolished."
Cralley transported the pieces of the shattered plane to a workshop behind his home in rural Princeton, registered it as a "non-airworthy model" with the Federal Aviation Administration and began the painstaking work of restoration.
Nearly a decade later, however, the Navy came calling.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
Exactly my point
Maybe the fact that the pilot died in the crash had something to do with it?
It is this simple, the Government hates the individual and loves the collective. That is basically a characteristic of government and is the reason why so many of the early Americans feared a strong central government.
Didn't think of that. Imagine if somebody wanted to salvage the Lexington or Yorktown. The German Prinz Eugen survived an atomic test to capsize on a reef and it might still be accessable.
And the tactics which gave the F4F a positive kill ratio did not make the F4F a better plane than the Zero. It just hid the chronic weaknesses of the F4F, which was obsolete at the beginning of the war.
Here is the best fighter-bomber of the war (glad to help):
You can say that again. But from what I've heard, they area royal beeyatch to land...being a tail dragger with that huge front end sticking out makes it very hard to impossible to see the tarmac.
P-38 could carry twice as much of a bombload . . . 8P
Yes, particularly when that tarmac is attached to a rolling, pitching carrier deck! The Corsair was slow to be implemented as a carried-based aircraft because of that problem.
Also, had the war dragged on a bit longer, the F2G-2 "Super Corsair" would've gone beyond limited production. That variant was designed with fleet defense in mind - it was a fast-climbing answer to the Kamikaze threat. With ten additional cylinders of Pratt & Whitney power up front (and an even *longer* snoot) and a Mustang-like bubble canopy, the Super Corsair would've been an impressive warplane.
If they raise it and float it, why the hell should the Navy care ?
The Japanese also didn't believe in armor for their aircraft, or self-sealing gas tanks. This made the plane a lot lighter, faster, and more manuverable that it would have been had it been designed and built by most other countries. The downside of this is that 6 .50 machine guns on a U.S. fighter had the effect of a buzzsaw on these guys.
IIRC, the US Navy considers all of its wrecks as monuments, wherever they lie. I'm sure there are other reasons (gravesites, unexploded ordnance, et al).
The P-47 was also a truly great fighter-bomber. As to which is best, the Air Force and Army would probably vote for the P-47, Navy and Marines, the F4U.
In the fighter capacity, the F4U was probably better being more maneuverable; in the bomber capacity, the P-47 could probably haul more ordnance. It was one more huge ordnance platform.
The Zero got most of it's ability from sacrificing
pilot protection, they also didn't use self sealing fuel
tanks till late.
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