Tallman FG-1D Corsair BuNo 88365 (N9153Z)

FG-1D BuNo 88365 is one of three surplus USN Corsairs purchased by Frank Tallman in 1959 and 1960, this being one of two bought in January 1960. These two Corsairs were never operated by Tallman beyond a ferry flight from NAF Litchfield, AZ, to his base near Riverside, CA, and then a short flight from there to the new Tallmantz base at Orange County Airport. Though not utilized by either Tallman or Tallmantz, it is nonetheless one of the four FG-1D in the Tallmantz stable.

USN Service

BuNo 88365 was built at the Goodyear production plant at Akron, Ohio, and delivered to the Navy on May 1, 1945. Its USN utilization consisted initially of assignment to a Combat Aircraft Service Unit (CASU) that later became the Fleet Aircraft Service Unit. These units were based on Pacific islands in the last year of the war and served as maintenance depots for active USN aircraft. It is probably that BuNo 88365 was in a replacement pool and never activated. And then, beginning in 1947, it was assigned to Naval Air Reserve Training Command bases through the domestic U.S. Its last operational use was with a Naval reserve unit at NAS New York, NY. It was deemed excess to needs and sent into storage at NAF Litchfield Park in May 1955. BuNo 88365 was finally stricken from the USN inventory on January 7, 1957.

Surplus Sale to Alu-Met Smelters in January 1959

BuNo 88365 was grouped with 38 other surplus FG-1Ds and made available as a sales lot  for scrap in early 1959. The bid offering noted that the overall condition of the aircraft was “poor, parts missing.” This lot was sold to Alu-Met Smelters of Long Beach, CA, on January 23, 1959, for $18,941.13, or $485.67 per aircraft.

Of the 39 FG-1Ds in the lot, three ended up going to Frank Tallman (BuNos 92433, 88365, 88297), two went to Ed Maloney’s The Air Museum (BuNos 92132 and 92436), and two to other civil owners (BuNos 92468 and 92509). The other 32 FG-1Ds presumably ended up being scrapped.

Civil History

Tallman came to Litchfield Park and purchased BuNo 88365 and another surplus FG-1D, BuNo 88297, on January 9, 1960. He had purchased another FG-1D, BuNo 92433, the prior May and was operating that aircraft as N3440G. Why he purchased the additional two surplus FG-1Ds is not known. The pair of FG-1Ds purchased in January 1960 became N9153Z and N9154Z, respectively.

Tallman’s account in his 1973 book Flying the Old Planes is an interesting read, both for what is included and for what is not. There is a lengthy account about how he came to Litchfield Park and bought three FG-1Ds from the scrap dealer (known to be Alu-Net Smelters), which is true but they were not purchased together. As is seen above, on was purchased in May 1959 and two in January 1960. To read Tallman’s account, he worked on all three at Litchfield at the same time, but in actuality, N3440G was ferried from Litchfield to Flabob most likely shortly after he purchased it in late May 1959. and the other two later, most likely in the late winter of 1960.

Still, Tallman’s account of recovering the FG-1Ds from Litchfield is an interesting read in his book (pages 234-235) even if it can’t be considered particularly accurate.

In any event, it is apparent that Tallman ferried the pair of Corsairs from Litchfield Park to his base as Flabob Airport near Riverside, California. He did not actually apply to have BuNo 88365 registered with the FAA until June 1963, after he had merged with Paul Mantz and after he had moved his aircraft collection to Orange County Airport. 

Tallman Sells N9153Z in June 1963

The impetus for registering N9153Z was that he was selling the airplane, and sell it he did on June 27, 1963, to Ben W. Widfeldt of Desert Aviation at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport in Arizona. Widtfeldt is a name seen often in the warbird years of the early 1960s. He was involved in early B-17 air tankers and several surplus fighters. However, he only owned N9153Z for about six weeks as it was then sold to T.A. “Skip” Underwood of Buckeye, California. Whether the airplane ever moved from Orange County to Phoenix to Buckeye Airport over these few weeks is doubtful, but it seems it eventually made its way to the Buckeye Airport, located 25 miles west of Phoenix in the Arizona desert.

Underwood was associated with two FG-1Ds at the time…the first was BuNo 92468 flying as N9964Z and the second was N9153Z. Both came from the same batch of Alu-Met Corsairs and both evidently ended up parked at Buckeye, where Underwood operated a crop dusting operation. Underwood sold N9964Z to Lefty Gardner of the (then) Confederate Air Force in April 1961. 

Underwood had N9153Z from August 1963 until March 31, 1965, when it was sold to R.W. Gilbert, Jr. of Phoenix, Arizona. Earlier that March, Underwood applied for the aircraft’s first experimental airworthiness certificate, showing airframe time of only 430 hours (which diverges from the 1,516 airframe hours the USN had recorded by January 1957). The certificate was issued on March 5, 1965. (Skip Underwood would be killed in aircraft accident in August 1981.)

Randy Gilbert purchased the FG-1D on March 31, 1965. According to media reports, Gilbert was a pilot for Zantop International Airlines based at Willow Run, Michigan. He and his family and the FG-1D moved from Phoenix to Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Sadly, Gilbert and his son Gary were killed when N9153Z crashed near the Ann Arbor Airport on June 15, 1965. Newspaper reports stated that Gilbert was flying the single-seat Corsair with his 16-year old son on his lap, and they were doing low altitude passes over the airport. On the last pass and with the landing gear extended, the Corsair hit the runway hard enough to break the landing gear off while also hitting a parked Mooney. It bounced back into the area and then staggered, reportedly on fire, until it crashed near the airport. The airplane was subsequently consumed by fire. The subsequent investigation, the NTSB brief of which is seen here, reported the pilot had a blood alcohol content of 0.24%.