Saturday 24 November 2007

Low Life



Very poor image quality again I'm afraid (this may become a theme).
Ah now then - the old Vought F4U (Corsair). The thing I love about this plane is squirreled away in the design brief - MORE POWER -. Earliest models where producing in excess of 100 horses for each of the 18 cylinders. To get anywhere near max use of the power (later well over 2000 horse power) a massive 13ft+ prop was required. Flying at this sort of altitude becomes a whole new discipline with these statistics in mind ! Piloted here by Pierre Dargue (sadly no longer with us). I managed to snap this shot as I fumbled to get the instamatic out of my pocket. Most of the camera shake is caused by the noise, I'm sure. PS I've just done some basic trig on the full print and calculate the prop tip to be around 22 feet off the ground in the original picture. The second (top) pic is simply included for those who don't think size matters or don't know what 13ft+ looks like.

1 comment:

Peter Ashley said...

I like that. Flying over the Lyveden Valley or somewhere more esoteric? I saw either a Hurricane or a Spitfire (I really should know my fighter profiles)going very low over Cranoe on Thursday morning. Soul-stirring stuff.