Thinking out Loud: It’s time for Plane Porn…this time it’s Corsairs

Bent wing birds I didn’t fly, Bent Wing birds I shot and miscellaneous Baa Baa Black Sheep stories

One of the best things about cable TV is the way it keeps old TV shows alive. They are continually being recirculated and one of the most recent is Black Sheep Squadron. This was a very loosely built series of largely fictitious WW II tales about VMF-214, USMC Major Greg “Pappy” Boyington’s squadron composed of supposed misfit fighter pilots. They were dubbed Black Sheep and based in the Solomon islands. The squadron was very real, as were their contributions to the war and the unusual way in which the squadron was created. Hollywood, however, did its usual thing to make them more “interesting”.

One of the more alarming personal facts to surface during my Pitts ground schools is that an increasing number of students, many of whom are in their 50s, don't know the name Pappy Boyington. This even though he is often credited with being the USMC's leading WW II ace (variously credited with 24 or 26 kills including 4.5 or 6 with the Flying Tigers) and a Medal of Honor recipient. He was an incredibly colorful and not necessarily meritorious personality and, although the facts around him are a little loose, he was nonetheless worth remembering. Especially since his story had its own TV show from 1976-‘78. Robert Conrad played Boyington but the real stars of the show were the Corsairs.

When coming back down the coast to San Diego from the filming location, at one point, as we were going past Santa Monica, I became aware of “something” flashing past in my view finder. I put the camera down for a second and saw we were so low some of the sail boat masts were over the airplanes and their props were kicking up spray from the water. THAT WAS SO VERY COOL!!

So, how does this all tie into my own background as a pilot and photographer, you may ask? It connects in a number of disconnected, unexpected ways.

A claim that few can make is that Pappy Boyington and his wife baby sat our young son, Scott (6 years old).

A partner and I were conducting a major airshow on the former Suffolk County AFB on the tip of Long island, NY. During airshow filming on press day, with every major network on site, Ed Mahler (A good friend) had a structural failure with his PJ 290 biplane and crashed/exploded right on airshow center. Instant pandemonium took over. My wife at the time was extremely upset and I was up to my butt dealing with everything that was going on. With the world coming down around our ears, Pappy and his wife, who had been staying at our house, stepped up and said, "We've got Scott. Do what you have to do."

We didn't see him again until later that evening and Scott, who is now 52, occasionally works being baby-sat by Pappy Boyington into conversations. Several times after that, Boyington and I worked on various programs together.

The prototype XF4U-1C. Notice how on production birds they moved the cockpit far back to put a gigantic fuel tank ahead of it. Also notice the cowl machine guns, which production airplanes never had.

This is how they looked, when at work in the Pacific.

Then the TV show came along. In total, the production company had something like seven restored Corsairs on site in a remote dirt strip north of Camarillo, CA. That was just about the entire flying Corsair population in the US at the time (1976) and they ranged from aircraft that were show quality and polished and restored down to the last rivet to Junior Burchinal's F4U-1D that was more than a little ratty around the edges. It was also the Corsair I nearly landed gear up. This even though I never got it off the ground.

I was doing an article series and flying my way through Junior's assembly of fighters (I hesitate to call them a "collection") and was sitting at the end of the runway at Cox Field in Paris, Texas in his Corsair. My hand was already pushing on the throttle when I did a quick visual look around, wing tip to wing tip, right wing tip first. As I swiveled around and looked down the left wing a column of hydraulic fluid about the size your finger erupted out of the wing fold joint. I instantly yanked the throttle closed.

IIRC, the airplane has only one hydraulic system and used a nitrogen bottle to blow the gear down and locked if hydraulics failed. It was silly to even think that the gear extension cylinder had seen nitrogen since the 1950’s. If I hadn’t glanced left before the throttle went in, I’d have made my first landing in a Corsair on my elbows!

I taxied back in, and Junior, totally unphased, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Okay, let’s put you in the Bearcat and you can fly that.” I hadn’t spent a single second thinking about the Bearcat which scared the hell out of me, but Junior kept pushing. That’s a tale for another time.

Then I was contracted by a magazine to shoot a bunch of photos of the Black Sheep TV series in production. That is another long story that can best be encapsuled in a series of quick paragraphs.

The first thing to be mentioned is that their TV camera ship was a T-28 that had the rear canopy drastically cut down. Only about four inches of Plexiglas was left around the entire canopy frame with a wide, aluminum spoiler curved around the front to break the slipstream. The entire rear instrument panel and the controls were removed to give room for the monitors that were hooked to cameras under each wing. One was wide angle, the other more telephoto. The monitors and the cameras were not installed when I was using the bird. The result was that that I could have roller skated in the back pit it was so big. ‘Best camera ship I’ve ever used.

When shooting the initial production shows, Junior’s airplane was part of the flight with Junior flying it. He was one of aviation’s true characters in every possible way. He was a deacon in a church on weekends and a crop duster with a warbird school during the week. He eventually crossed swords with the feds and had some legal problems, but he left his mark on a lot of wannabe warbird pilots and generated stories that are still being repeated today.

A couple I remember from shooting the TV series airplanes: We had all the airplanes at, I believe Camarillo, and they were being fueled while we had lunch. We had a down view of the fueling in progress and Junior jumped up and ran as fast as he could run (which wasn’t very fast) down to his airplane with the fueling in progress. When he came back up, he explained he had a small leak in the front of the huge fuel tank the occupies the fuselage from the instrument panel to the firewall. He explained he had to keep the fuel below that level or there would be a small streak of fuel pissing out. We asked him why he didn’t repair the leak and he said, “Son, there’s a fine line between spending money and airworthiness.” That was Junior.

When he was flying up to the filming site from Texas for the first time, he was primarily following highways because he didn’t have avionics in his airplane. He was a landmark-and-compass kind of guy. He wound up in the desert many miles east of the filming runway because he was flying up the I-5 and read the turnoff sign that was to lead to the runway. However, the sign took cars back under the I-5 heading them west. He followed the turn-off arrows that pointed out into the desert. Like I said, one of aviation’s true characters.

I look back on that particular shoot as one of the more fun ones I’ve done. And I like to remember a time when characters like Boyington and Burchinal roamed the Earth untamed. Looking back, it seemed as if life had just a little more color. bd

And sometimes things just work out. I shot this at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino Museum. That is an actual Zero powered by its original engine. One of only a few still flying. The late Ed Maloney, the museum’s founder and owner, went way overboard numerous times in helping me produce some unusual images. Combined with Steve Hinton and the other guys there, we captured what we liked to think were historically important images. Ed single handedly saved many airplanes that, were it not for him, would have been turned into beer cans and the type would have vanished. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves.