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Visit the Special Collections Division online or write to speccollections@akronlibrary.org with any questions or comments.

 

 

A Corsair FG-1 was flown through the Goodyear Airdock.

?? -  An Akron Beacon Journal article from January 28, 1996, quotes Joy Thompson talking about the time Mike Kelly, a test pilot during the Corsair production years, flew a Corsair through the Airdock. 

There were 3648 Corsair FG1's built in Akron between February 1943 and October 1945 according to a 1951 Goodyear Aircraft Document (GER 2569).  Each was subjected to a test flight by one of approximately 25 test pilots.  Chief Test Pilot, R.L. Stephens, conducted the first on February 26, 1943 and the last in October of 1945.  According to The Wingfoot Clan, Goodyear Aircraft's employee newsletter, Michael Kelly from Snowshoe, PA was a test pilot for the Corsairs. 

There was no mention of the stunt in The Wingfoot in 1944 or 1945.  The Akron Beacon Journal did not publish a story about it between 1984 and 2006 (other than the one noted above).  There was also no mention of it in Goodyear Aircraft by Hugh Allen published in 1947.

There is more research still to be done - The Akron Beacon Journal can be reviewed from February 1943 through October 1945.  Since there is no index, this is a page by page review of the newspaper on microfilm.  When that is complete, more information will be posted here. 

If anyone has any further information, please post it here.

Browse images of Corsair Fighters being built in the US Naval AirStation Collection at www.SummitMemory.org.  See an undated image of Corsairs in flight at http://www.summitmemory.org/u?/airstation,27.

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