This black and white, animated U.S. Navy training film is from the “Granpaw Pettibone” series. It features the sage title character, a retired pilot himself, who begins the picture by recounting a fatal incident involving two F4U-4 Corsairs (1:00). According to comments at (2:55), there were three join-up collisions per week at the time the film was made — many of them likely fatal. At 1:22, Pettibone presents additional accident scenarios involving inattentive pilots who cause collisions by, for example, flying into a blinding, direct sun and losing situational awareness, forgetting where the airplane has blind spots, or getting distracted by dreaming about “another joiner” (a woman). At 3:07, Pettibone gives advice about how to do join-up techniques cautiously so as to do them safely.

This UPA cartoon draws from the contemporaneous work of Lt. Robert Osborn, who created a character known as Grampaw Pettibone in 1943 to enliven Navy safety tips for a Bureau of Aeronautics newsletter. Osborn was also the creator of more than 2,000 “Dilbert the Pilot” and “Spoiler the Mechanic” posters, which delivered helpful reminders to US pilots of WWII.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com