P-51's in movie "Empire of the Sun"

We used to sing a song at Happy Hour at the O Club about an
unfortunate pilot whose bombs were set for tenth of a second delay,
instead of the proper 10 seconds.

I can recall that one line was, "An F4U without a tail won't fly."

The chorus went something like:

"Ten thousand dollars going home to the folks.
Won't they be delighted!
Won't the be excited!
Think of all the things that they can buy!"

I hope that answers your question, Dan; and if anyone can remember the
entire lyrics, I'd be grateful to see them posted, for my senile mind
can no longer recall them.


Great post, Vince - love to read about this sort of thing. But seriously, can
we get back to politics now?

ducking

Your post got me thinking - I have an original poem in my Corsair file,
attached to a cartoon of a bunch of Vought engineers trying desperately to
install an early turbine engine into the nose of a late F4U... It's worth
finding, to see what the poem was about --

/theme from Jeopardy/

I found it quickly: the main idea of the page-long poem "The AU In Olde Eden
Town" is summed up below.

"Said he, "T'was a shame,
that a gal of her fame
Should be strapped to a risky-
dirty old Pratt and Whiskey

So to get her into the blue,
the thing to do
Was to give her a Nene,
and make her a Queen."

"So attention All Hands!
Just lend us your ears;
Tere's more for the U-bird
in spite of her years.

She'll still keep her hose-nose,
Jet engine or no.
And Wherever there's trouble,
be ready to go."

Ok, I'll admit, its not going down as a classic poem, but it was some anonymous
writer's tribute to the last throes of 'jet envy' that struck down thousands of
otherwise outstanding projects at the end of WWII. The stationary is from
"Chance Vought Aircraft Departmental Correspondence and neither the cartoon or
the poem are dated. Just little bits of Corsair crap from the binder... Can't
bring myself to throw it away, even though I have boxes of such things that my
wife views as trash. Worse than trash - decades-old trash. But if it was a
dress from 1978, THAT is still important enough for her to keep. Go figure.


v/r
Gordon



====(A+C====
USN SAR

Its always better to lose AN engine, than THE engine.

The stationary is from
"Chance Vought Aircraft Departmental Correspondence and neither the cartoon or
the poem are dated. Just little bits of Corsair crap from the binder... Can't
bring myself to throw it away, even though I have boxes of such things that my
wife views as trash.

Thanks, Gordon. Let me urge you to get in touch with a museum to
arrange for the transfer of that "trash" so that it doesn't go into a
landfill when you're no longer around to enjoy it.

I would say the same to others in this newsgroup who have old "trash"
that might be valuable to the historical record.

vince norris

Let me urge you to get in touch with a museum to
arrange for the transfer of that "trash" so that it doesn't go into a
landfill when you're no longer around to enjoy it.

My garage is divided into "Give to San Diego Aerospace Museum" and "Give to my
kids". My kids are fully up to speed on what to do, no matter what Mrs. Tossit
tries to do. )

I would say the same to others in this newsgroup who have old "trash"
that might be valuable to the historical record.

absolutely! In fact, I would urge everyone here to go through their 'trash'
and see if there was anything they felt like letting go of, and send it to
their local air museum NOW. Besides, its a real charge to see some of your
former bits on display; until recently, the San Diego Aerospace Museum had my
Soviet flight gear and the stuff I brought out of Mogadishu on display - for
years I got comments on it.

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Its always better to lose AN engine, than THE engine.

hi, i was one of the pilots flying in the movie. i always regard the time as the best 3 months in my life. the zero replicas were constructed at la ferte allais near paris to the design from tora tora tora . there were 3 flyers and the rest non flyers. initially the cannons were made from wood for lightness , but down in spain charles bishop the art director insisted that we had them done in metal . the extra weight put the centre of gravity to far forward, so we had to ballast the tail.
i was windy of doing aerobatics because of this, but tom used to loop and roll them. the p 51 pilots were ray hanna, mark hanna and hoof proudfoot.
on the zero replicas there was tom danaher, steve bolan and myself . victor kriz also did a little.
the very best bit of flying was cut. i was supposed to get airborne and be shot down by hoof in the p 51. tom asked me if he could do it, and of course i agreed. we knew it would be good. when hoof made a pass at him, tom was on the mustang's tail in 45 seconds, and there was nothing hoof could do to shake him off. it all happened at around 300 feet.it was about the most exciting bit of flying i ever saw. you do not become an ace for nothing, and tom got 3 in one day.
the bombs were filled with plaster for weight, and ray put them through the hangar front. if you watch you will see a 50 gallon barrel flying up through the roof. this was done by cutting the bottom out of it, and placing it over a bucket of avgas. 3 sticks of gelignite were hung above the bucket.
there are only 3 of us left alive now. alan

Originally Posted by Cub Driver

I was watching "Empire of the Sun" the other night and near the end some
P-51's attack the Japanese base. What struck me was that the P-51's were
flying in just a few feet above the ground and dropping their bombs. Would
this really have been done? How did the planes keep from blowing themselves
up?

This seems pretty routine in contemporary movies. It was ture I think
in Saving Private Ryan, in Windtalkers, and of course in Pearl Harbor,
where a P-40 chases a Zero down a street, about the level of the
second-story windows.

Of course at one time or another, planes flew at every altitude right
down to impact. The artistic failure is to take the exceptional and
make it routine.

Great movie, by the way--Empire of the Sun, I mean. But did you notice
that the entire tail section of the "Zero" turned? Probably it was an
AT-6 with a pointy tail cone pasted on.

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (requires authentication)

see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com
and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com

On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 16:56:18 -0500, zxcv wrote:

I was watching "Empire of the Sun" the other night and near the end some
P-51's attack the Japanese base. What struck me was that the P-51's were
flying in just a few feet above the ground and dropping their bombs.
Would this really have been done? How did the planes keep from blowing
themselves up?

Delayed action fuses in the bombs were used in low level attacks.

Yep, and on dropping the eggs they flew off to one side!
"Dan Shackelford" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 16:56:18 -0500, zxcv wrote:

I was watching "Empire of the Sun" the other night and near the end some
P-51's attack the Japanese base. What struck me was that the P-51's
were
flying in just a few feet above the ground and dropping their bombs.
Would this really have been done? How did the planes keep from blowing
themselves up?

Delayed action fuses in the bombs were used in low level attacks.