Restored-To-Glory Corsair Fighter To Go On Display At Flight Museum

It's been a long way from the bottom of Lake Washington to the Museum of Flight, but Goodyear FG-1D Corsair fighter BuNo 88382 has been restored to its original glory and will go on permanent display beginning tomorrow.

Produced for the Navy in 1945, the "bent-wing bird" saw service aboard the USS Intrepid and ashore in Hawaii and Saipan before returning to stateside duty. In 1950, Cmdr. Ralph Milleson was flying the aircraft over Lake Washington when he was hit by another Corsair in low clouds and poor visibility.

With its propeller damaged, the plane lacked enough power to make the final turn to the Navy's Sand Point runway, and Milleson landed on the water about 300 yards offshore. Milleson survived, but the plane sank 190 feet to the lake bottom.

At the time, Marine Corps Maj. Herb Valentine watched the landing and scratched a mark on his office window in line with the site where the airplane disappeared. More than 30 years later, in 1983, when attempts were made to raise the plane, the mark helped a team from Air Marine Salvors Co., an underwater salvage company, locate the Corsair.

Once pulled from the lake, it was taken to the museum's restoration center at Paine Field, where volunteers worked on it. In May 1988, it was moved to Jerome, Idaho, for final work by professionals at Airpower Unlimited.

The Corsair, considered one of the finest aircraft produced during World War II, had a reputation as the "sweetheart of the South Pacific" after several dogfights against the Japanese Zero. They were produced by Goodyear Aircraft Co., Brewster Aeronautical Corp. and Vought, during the war. A total of 12,582 were built; only an estimated 50 remain.

The mostly carrier-based Corsair fighters were able to exceed 400 miles an hour and could climb at 2,890 feet a minute. Rex Bisel of the Vought Corp., a Seattle native, designed the plane.

Among famous pilots of the scrappy fighter, according to the Museum, were Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, leader of the Marine Corps Black Sheep Squadron; Tom Blackburn, head of the Navy's "Jolly Rogers" Squadron; Joe Foss, Medal of Honor winner; and Charles Lindbergh.

Restoration funding has come mainly from family and friends of Navy Lt.j.g. Jerome Reese Schuchart, a Seattleite killed in 1989 in a midair collision during a routine instructional flight near Meridian, Miss. More than $200,000 has been contributed in his name.

The special plane being shown off this weekend is on indefinite loan to the museum from the Naval Systems Command Headquarters.