Air Display

[Layer]

Attended RNAS Culdrose Air Day yesterday. The highlight? A lengthy display by a Seafire and a Corsair. Wonderfull, made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Seen Spitfires before but never had the privelage of seeing and hearing a Corsair at full chat. Can understand why the Japanese called it "Whispering Death"

[decaro]

Actually, the Japanese called the Corsair the "Whistling Death" because of the high-pitched sound it made in a dive, possibly caused by airflow through the wing-root oil coolers.

The Double-Wasp radial engine in the Corsair made it one of the noisiest WW II warbirds I've ever heard.

The only Seafire I ever "saw" was the one in UbiSoft's "Pacific Fighters"; it looks like a carrier-capable Spitfire w/an arresting hook.

[ONEI]

There are a few models of Seafires (Seafire Mk17 & MK47) in CFS2 by Microsoft that I have flown.

[Nugget]

The plane the Japanese refered to as "Whispering Death" was the Bristol Beaufighter.

[Froonp]

Wasn't the F4U Corsair nicknamed the Whistling Death ?

[ONEI]

The Corsair's distinctive sound, which earned it among the Japanese the nick-name of "Whistling Death", partly because of the engine noise, was caused by the wing-root inlets for engine air.

Here:

http://usfighter.tripod.com/frames1.htm

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Nugget
The plane the Japanese refered to as "Whispering Death" was the Bristol Beaufighter.

I couldn't find a reference to confirm this, but after Bristol built the Beaufighter as a "day- derivative" of the Beaufort, it was found unsuitable for that role because of its slow speed. However, radar-equiped, the Beaufighter became a successful night-fighter against German "night blitz' raids over England.

Eventually some Beaufighter variants made it to the Pacific, and perhaps that's where it got its nickname from the Japanese.

[Nugget]

It was used out of Port Moresby primarily as a ground attack fighter. It flew at tree top level along the Kokoda track to bomb any Japanese encampments or strongpoints it could find. The reason for the nick-name though is because of the quite close fitting cowling over the engines they didn't radiate a lot of noise for a piston driven aircraft, add this to their low-level tactics, they could sneak up with very little warning and attack.

I have heard this because I spent many years helping out WW2 airman, sailors and soldiers as part of a youth group I was associated with. Having already had a fascination with WW2 history anyway because of my families involvement this spurred me on to learn more.

[decaro]

I just realized you are posting from Sydney; for obvious reasons, many Australians take their Pacific WW II history very seriously and are adept at recalling it.

In any case, whistling or not, a Corsair couldn't sneak up on anyone, unless they were stone deaf.