WIX Archives

Re: Corsair N5222V

Posted by Rob Mears on Wed Jun 11, 2003 07:24:44 PM

In reply top Corsair N5222V posted by Dan Linn on Wed Jun 11, 2003 01:29:47 PM

That would be F4U-4 BuNo.97330 that was previously owned by Tillamook Air Museum in Oregon.

Art Vance was piloting the plane as part of a flight of four fighters headed to an airshow in Chilqin, Oregon on August 2, 1991. He lost oil pressure which quickly resulted in a siezed engine. He was in the process of what would have been a successful emergency landing when the engine compartment decided to catch fire on final! He was forced to bail out, and did so successfully at about 400' AGL!! The man's got big brass ones for sure :)

The plane crashed and burned in a wooded area - actually sparked off a fairly substantial forest fire. There was very little of the plane from what I understand, but what was salvaged went to Craig McBurney in Florida (Bootstrap Aviation Inc.) Craig has been collecting components for some time. He's ended up with some of the Corsair components recovered off of Australia's Queensland Coast (some 200+ Lend-Lease warbirds were dumped there after WWII.) I believe he also acquired the mangled remains of F4U-7 BuNo.133693 "Blue Max" previously owned by Bob Guildford.

Craig is a super cool dude and a bonafide Corsair nut :) His is definately a long term 'composite' project. Last I spoke with him he was looking to complete the QEC (firewall forward) section of the plane so that he could do static engine runs with it for show. I believe the majority of the center section for his plane is based on one of the dumped Australian birds.

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