boyington natural metal corsair?

[old hoodoo]

I just heard on the history channel one of the black sheep stating that there was one corsair that had the paint stripped off of it
that Boyington may have actually flown in combat? Boyington allegedly commented something to the effect that it might attract more
Japs to him (in the sense he would have more targets).

Anyone hear the reference?

AL

[Stephen Harding]

old hoodoo wrote:

> I just heard on the history channel one of the black sheep stating that there was one corsair that had the paint stripped off of it
> that Boyington may have actually flown in combat? Boyington allegedly commented something to the effect that it might attract more
> Japs to him (in the sense he would have more targets).
>
> Anyone hear the reference?

I read a recent book on Boyington and never came across
such a reference. I did read where he had an ashtray
installed in his corsair. He used to smoke while flying!

During the program, I *thought* I saw in a film footage
snip, *four* machine gun barrel ports in the leading edge
of one wing.

Were there any eight [MG] gun Corsairs in the Pacific war?
Could this simply be some footage from a later period, or
some experimental version?

I noticed some rather obvious substitutions for corsairs
during the program, including hellcats (maybe wildcats)
flying formation instead of corsairs, and Spitfires taking
off instead of AVG Flying Tiger P-40's.

You never know what the producers are going to pull on you!


SMH

[Steven P. McNicoll]

"Stephen Harding" > wrote in message
...
>
> I read a recent book on Boyington and never came across
> such a reference. I did read where he had an ashtray
> installed in his corsair. He used to smoke while flying!
>

F-111s were built with ashtrays.

[JDupre5762]

>> I read a recent book on Boyington and never came across
>> such a reference. I did read where he had an ashtray
>> installed in his corsair. He used to smoke while flying!
>>

What I read about Boyington's smoking is that he used to fly with the canopy
cracked open and then used to flick the butt out the crack and slide the canopy
closed when he spotted the enemy. Boyington's wingman learned to watch for
this as much as looking for enemy aircraft.

The other thing is that Boyington created a rubber band autopilot. He got some
large rubber bands and would twist them over the stick and then hook them over
some convenient protruberance in the cockpit thus holding the stick roughly
neutral. Then he would fall asleep! If the airplane fell off on one wing he
had only to nudge the stick to get back to level and usually did so many times
without being fully conscious.

John Dupre'