Corsair carrier landings never seemed to end up ...

[Mark Allen M]

... with twisted landing gear like what you see in the F6F Hellcat photos below. Makes one wonder who had the "tougher" landing gear. The Corsair or Hellcat. They both had very sturdy gear that could take a pounding but I don't recall seeing a photo of a corsair in a similar view. I'll have to look in my files.

Below are two photos showing two separate F6F-5 Hellcat carrier landing prangs aboard the USS Langley (CVL-27) in 1944.

[Scott Rose]

Never really thought about it, but that is weird.

[steve dickey]

Well the first one was filmed!! Find that film Mark!! I don't think i've ever seen that configuration before, wow! Be neat to see the outcomes of both...

[Lon Moer]

The first thing I notice in the second pictures is the outer landing gear door is dragging on the deck. Obviously don't know whether that is a cause of or a result of the gear twisting.
The Corsair doesn't have that kind of gear door.

[Pogmusic]

Both are F6F's

[Tony C]

Given that the outer wheel hub is showing as facing forward in both pictures, the catch netting is deployed in one picture, plus if I remember correctly, the undercarriage rotated prior or during retraction/deploying, is it possible that the retraction mechanism has failed/not locked, resulting in the wheel hub facing forward and what we are seeing, is the aircraft in a 'controlled' crash?

Don't know, not even sure if the capture netting would be deployed for all landings though would have thought that this was unlikely, in case the pilot had to abort their landing so I'm just guessing...

[Chad95XJ]

I remember seeing a couple in the book "Bent & Battered Wings" that broke a main wheel off, but it wasn't the whole gear.

[Richard W.]

Look at that man in the lower left corner of the first picture, filming the landing.

Guy has nerves of steel, standing his ground while that Hellcat seems to be veering in his direction!

[Courier Sportster]

The best look I've ever had of the arrestor cable set-up. I never quite understood how they could make it work, but now I think I get it. Why is it old black and white photography is still the best thing going? I think I see two budding film-makers, hope they used a clapperboard!

[dbrown]

The barrier is up on the lower pic so I suspect they knew he was having gear trouble.

[bdk]

Could be something as simple as the bolt falling out of the scissor link. Both instances pictured look like the gear leg is still well locked into place.

[JohnB]

Two technical questions...any experts out there?

The Grumman and Corsair designs both features wheels that rotate flat during retraction...
-Are the specific retraction and wheel designs on both types identical?
-Are they the same as the Boeing designed system as licensed to Curtiss for the P-40?

[pstrany]

Hopefully I've attached a picture of the mechanism that caused the gear leg to rotate as it extended or retracted. This image came from this thread:

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/inde ... t/page/11/

The mechanism itself seems pretty fool-proof, but then the above images seem to indicate it wasn't completely impervious to battle damage, or gremlins.....


Paul

Attachments

[CAPFlyer]

The barrier is up on the lower pic so I suspect they knew he was having gear trouble.

Back during the straight deck days, the barrier was almost always up as there were usually airplanes forward of that. They would lower the barrier (it moved pretty quick) once the plane landed to allow it to taxi past and then raise it for the next plane.