Warbird Information Exchange

For those of you who are interested, the link below takes you to some photos of the Corsair on the pole at Bridgeport, CT and photos of the F4U-4 Corsair 97288, (N4907M) Honduran Air Force #612, just after it was brought to Bridgeport in 1980. Just scroll to te bottom of the page to get to #612. It crashed on t/o in June of 1982, and the pilot later died from injuries received in the crash.
Blue skies,
Jerry

http://www.thistlegroup.net/corsair/photos.htm

Check out the drop tank from Capt. Fernando Soto's F4U-5N (FAH-609). That would be a cool item to own in and of itself. I'd be curious to know if it was lost in the crash.

I got a detailed look at the remains of this plane a couple of weeks ago. The current owner is seriously considering pulling it out of the dark recesses of his storage building for restoration sometime later this year. Waaaay ----> !

_________________
Rob Mears
'Surviving Corsairs' Historian
robcmears@yahoo.com
http://www.robmears.com

Rob;
I'm not sure if the drop tank was lost in the crash or not. The plane went in left wing low and the landing gear was extended forcing it to dig it's nose into the soft marsh and flip over, breaking into two major peices. I'm not sure anybody recovered the engine. I would estimate the engine was a good ten feet down in the mud. I'll have to look at my pics from the crash to see if the drop tanks might have been present.
I have photos of it in Jan. of 1982, when it was on a set of jacks due to a partial gear down landing. 6 months later it was a pile of crushed metal.
Jerry

just out of curiousity, are there any pics available to post of the airframe in its current state? For some reason I find the "before" pics almost more interesting than the "after" ones...

cheers

greg v.

It would be cool if the owner gave the Corsair for restoration work, to Jerry Zollman and the guys at Vintage Fighters; they did a superb job with the ex-Salvadoran FG-1D .

Saludos,


Tulio

I have post-crash photos in-situ, but none of it after it was pulled from the marsh.

In a related question; Does Soto ever appear at any shows, appearences, speaking engagements or such? I think he might make an interesting speaker for an event.
Jerry

As I understand it Bellantoni had the star/bar painted on the airframe at the time of the fatal accident. Did it wear any other markings, codes, etc? Was the plane restored or at least given an IRAN after arriving from Honduras?

T J

I can't address an IRAN on the aircraft, but by Jan of 1982, it had a star and bar on it, The rudder was re-painted blue and the cowling was repainted with the name "Whistling Death". Not much else appeared done to the paint or the airframe. The previous summer, the plane suffed the landing accident at Bridgeport, and my first photos are of it on the jacks in Jan. of 1982.
Many witnesses to the crash stated the engine sounded bad on run-up and some said they couldn't believe he was actually taking off with it sounding so bad. I think if he had had a little time to getthe gear up, he could've pancaked it into the mash. With the wheels still down, it was an inevitable flip.
Jerry

I've seen some magazine photos of Honduran Corsairs in some sort of camo, but I can't tell the colors. Maybe 2 shades of green. One is a -5 in flight & the other is a -4 with checkerboard cowling. Anyone know what colors were used & what the pattern is or have photos?

I have read a report by the T-6 instructor who gave Bellantoni tail dragger time, and according to him this guy had no business flying a WW2 fighter. Unfortunately he did and subsequently died as a result of it!

T J

Hi Jerry,hope you're doing good.
Col. Soto seldom appears at related events.Whenever he has time,he likes to talk about many things during his service with FAH.Believe me when I tell you that he's a very humble man.


Probably you're mixing up the salvadoran Corsairs which had a camo scheme vs. the honduran Corsairs which had navy blue paint.Honduras had 2 Corsairs with checkerboard cowlings (FAH-614 and FAH-615)
Pictures soon.

About the FAH-612,Col Soto had also an accident with that aircraft during the mid 60's when an engined failure ocurred and the aircraft had lots of damage but was repaired and put back in service soon after.Other pictures of this accident later on.


Cheers

Here's the FAH-614 with checkerboard cowling:


Photo Col Urbina via FMAH

I have just put out the beginnings of a flame war. Lets all calm down and quite making emotional responses to posts. I have my Firehog spooling up and I will mercilessly delete posts of this thing starts up again.

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Here's another shot of the accident of the FAH-612:

It might be the lighting & shadows, but the pic or so that I've seen surely look camo'd. These aren't the Salvadoran a/c, or at least captioned as such. I've seen those camo'd & they were -1s which a model is available in that scheme. Definitely not the same camo scheme & I don't believe even the same colors.