Viewing page 93 of 122

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[image No. 100 - black & white photograph of McCarthy and the Vought Corsair plane]]

[[image No. 101 - black & white photograph of NC-4 biplane in Central Park]]

[[caption]]McCarthy and the Vought Corsair, ca. 1930 (100). The special enclosure over cockpit, wheel fairings suggest craft was for Navy VIP, or company demonstration. The NC-4 is in Central Park, N.Y.C., 1919 (101).[[/caption]]

Charles Joseph McCarthy

"My contributions have been team ones. All my engineering career I have worked on highly complex projects, and have been blessed in working with highly competent people," the former board chairman of Chance Vought Aircraft reflected. But when he is pressed, Charles McCarthy admits two projects have provided special pleasures: the O2U-1, and the NC boats.  Following a year of teaching at MIT, the school of his undergraduate days, he joined the Navy as an aeronautical specialist, and was assigned to the Curtiss aircraft factories in Buffalo and Garden City, N.Y. As structural engineer for the NC-1 and other flying boats, he worked with a host of diligent pioneers who were preparing these craft for their historic 1919 Atlantic crossing.

The TransAtlantic flights of the boats began at Trepassey Bay, Newfoundland, May 16, 1919; all dropped out of the race, except NC-4, which reached Lisbon, via the Azores, on May 27, marking the first ocean crossing.

McCarthy retired from the Navy in 1926, and joined the Chance Vought division of United Aircraft Corporation, where he remained until 1954, when Vought became a separate corporation.  The O2U-1 observation plane was the first aircraft designed around the specific capability of the famed Wasp engine, and the first of Vought's great Corsair Navy fighters.

[[image - small drawing of a propeller]]

Charles Joseph McCarthy: born Lawrence, Mass., October 1, 1895.

Transcription Notes:
Reviewed