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Re: Corsair in st. Louis back in the 70's

Posted by Rob Mears on Sat Jul 20, 2002 12:36:53 AM

In reply top Corsair in st. Louis back in the 70's posted by Shawn on Fri Jul 19, 2002 11:03:04 PM

The company was Cupples Products Inc, and in fact they did test walls for glass highrises.

The Corsair itself was a surplus FG-1D that had been recently stricken from active service at the Cherry Point Naval Air Station. The owners of Cupples Products decided to buy one of the Corsairs on site there and use it as a wind machine for testing their structures. The Navy sold the obsolete fighter to the company for $3000, and even chose to personally oversee the delivery flight of the plane!

The Corsair arrived at the Remert-Werner FBO at Lammert Municipal Airport in St. Louis piloted by one of the naval aviators from Cherry Point. The pilot turned the plane over to Cupples who set about immediately removing the wings (which were scrapped). Cupples then trucked the wingless airframe to their facility where the majority of the rear fuselage was also removed and discarded. They then painted their company logo on each side of the forward fuselage and set about doing twenty-six years worth of testing with the plane.

The Corsair became the company's icon and they were adamant over the years about not selling the plane. Many a propective buyer was turned away up until the summer of 1994 when two partners from Kansas decided to start buying up non-airworthy Corsairs. Greg Morris & Jack Reynolds bought the Cupples FG-1D, as well as a disassembled F2G-1 "Super Corsair" at the same time.

Both Corsairs were immediately put up for resale. In selling the planes, one of the owners even mentioned that the F2G's rear fuselage was in good shape, and could be retrofitted to the FG-1D center section if a buyer so wished.

During December of 1995, Brian Farrell and Bob Odeggard got together and purchased the entire lot from the partners in Kansas. Mr. Odeggard took the F2G for himself, and Mr. Farrell became the new owner of the ex-Cupples FG-1D. Mr. Farrell also sourced some outer wing panels for the project, but as of yet no rear fuselage AFAIK.

During its time with Cupples the wing hinges on the main spar of the FG-1D had been cut off even with the wing stub, and the entire area was faired over with sheet aluminum. I presume this very factor is the reason the ex-Cupples plane has yet to be considered for serious restoration. It's of course an EXTREMELY dificult task to fabricate a new spar for the F4U, as was learned by Tom Reiley while completing a scratch built unit for John Silberman's "F4U-4" project a few years back. I doubt even Mr. Reiley would be too interested in reliving that headache any time soon :)

Rob

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