F4U Corsair

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The Chance Vought F4U Corsair was a fighter aircraft that saw service in World War II and the Korean War. Goodyear-built Corsairs were designated FG and Brewster-built aircraft F3A.

When flown in 1940, the XF4U-1 became the first U.S. single-engine production aircraft capable of 400 mph in level flight. It was a remarkable achievement for Vought, as carrier aircraft are, compared to land-based counterparts, overbuilt to withstand the extreme stress of deck landings.

The Corsair is also popularly known as 'The Sweetheart of the Marianas' and sometimes also as 'The Sweetheart of Okinawa' for its roles in these campaigns respectively - the names were given by ground troops rather than by Naval and Marine personnel.

The Corsair has been named the official aircraft of Connecticut, due to its connection with Sikorsky Aircraft, in legislation sponsored by state senator George "Doc" Gunther; Gunther has also organized a Corsair Celebration and Symposium at Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford, Connecticut, on Memorial Day, May 29, 2006.

Contents

1 Development
2 Royal Navy
3 Royal New Zealand Air Force
4 Korea, Indochina, Suez and the Football War
5 The F4U in fiction
6 Operators
7 Specifications (F4U-4)
8 References
9 External links
10 Related content

Development

The Corsair was designed by Rex Beisel and Igor Sikorsky. Its most striking feature is the inverted gull wing. The design concept for the Corsair incorporated the largest available fighter engine — the 2,000 hp, 18-cylinder Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial, turning an enormous 13'4" (4.06 m) Hamilton Standard Hydromatic three (later four) blade propeller; use of a smaller propellor would have wasted much of the power of the engine. The dimensions required the bent wing in order to keep the landing gear reasonably short and sturdy enough for carrier landings, while still providing ground clearance for the propeller.

Another performance enhancing feature of the aircraft was its streamlining. The F4U was the first Navy plane which retracted its landing gear completely into the wing, leaving a completely smooth and flat undersurface. Air intakes were supplied by slots in the inboard leading edges of the wings, rather than by protruding scoops. Panels were attached with flush rivets, and the newly developed technique of spot welding.

However, numerous technical problems had to be solved before the Corsair entered service. Carrier suitability was especially troublesome, leading to changes of the landing gear, tailwheel, and tailhook. Additionally, a small spoiler was added to the leading edge of the starboard wing to reduce adverse stall characteristics. A noticeable problem with the Corsair design was its difficulty to recover from a developed spin, as its wing shape interfered with elevator control.

A French Navy F4U-7 Corsair (14.F).

Due to visibility problems on landing caused by a combination of the pilot's position and the length of the nose, which made landing tricky for poorly trained pilots, as well as the availability of the more docile Hellcat, Corsairs were not introduced in any numbers for U.S. carrier service until the end of 1944. When the aircraft finally saw combat, it was a superb fighter compared to its contemporaries, achieving a 10 to 1 victory ratio. However, nearly as many Corsairs were lost to landing accidents as the type downed enemy aircraft. Growing pains aside, Marine Corps squadrons readily took to the radical new fighter.

From February 1943 onward, the "U-Bird" flew from Guadalcanal and ultimately other bases in the Solomon Islands. Corsairs were flown by the famous Black Sheep Squadron VMF-214 led by Marine Fighter Ace Maj. Gregory "Pappy" Boyington in an area of the Solomon Islands called The Slot. Corsairs also served well as fighter-bombers in the Central Pacific and the Philippines. Night fighter versions were produced, equipping Navy and Marine units ashore and afloat. British units flying from aircraft carriers solved the landing visibility problem by approaching the carrier in a medium left-hand turn, which allowed the pilot to keep the carrier's deck in view over the dip in the port wing, allowing safe carrier operations. At war's end, Corsairs were ashore on Okinawa combating the Kamikaze suicide pilots and flying from fleet and escort carriers.

During the war, Corsair production expanded beyond Vought to include Brewster (F3A) and Goodyear (FG) models. Allied forces flying the aircraft included the British Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm and the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Eventually, more than 12,500 F4Us would be built, comprising sixteen separate models.

Royal Navy

The Fleet Air Arm introduced the Corsair into service before the USN. In the early days of the war RN fighter requirements had been based on cumbersome two-seat designs, such as the Blackburn Skua, Fairey Fulmar and Fairey Firefly, on the assumption they would only be fighting long range bombers or flying boats. The RN hurriedly adopted higher performance but less robust types derived from land based aircraft, such as the Supermarine Seafire. The Corsair was welcomed as a much more robust and versatile alternative to naval adaptations of these. In RN service, most Corsairs had their outer wings clipped to assist with storage and low-altitude performance. Despite the clipped wings and the shorter decks of British carriers, the pilots of the RN found landing accidents less of a problem than they had been to USN aviators due to the curved approaches mentioned above. Royal Navy Corsairs saw wide service with the British Pacific Fleet from late 1944 until the end of the war, some six carrier-based squadrons flying intensive ground attack/interdiction operations and also claiming 47.5 aircraft shot down. One Corsair pilot, a Canadian named Robert Hampton Gray, was awarded the Victoria Cross after being killed while attacking Japanese shipping, becoming only the second fighter pilot VC of the war as well as the final Canadian casualty of WWII.

There were four versions used by the British as the end, and were named as such: Corsair I for F4U-1s, Corsair II for F4U-1As, Corsair III for F3A-1Ds, and Corsair IV for FG-1Ds.

A total of 2,012 Corsairs were supplied to the United Kingdom.

Royal New Zealand Air Force

Equipped with obsolescent Curtiss P-40s, the Royal New Zealand Air Force Squadrons in the South Pacific performed impressively compared to the American units they operated alongside, in particular in the air to air role. The American government accordingly decided to give New Zealand early access to the Corsair, especially as it was not initially being used from carriers. Some 424 Corsairs equipped 13 RNZAF squadrons, including No. 14 Squadron RNZAF and No. 15 Squadron RNZAF, replacing SBD Dauntless as well as P40s.

However by the time the Corsairs arrived, there were virtually no Japanese aircraft left in New Zealand's allocated sectors of the Southern Pacific, and despite the RNZAF Squadrons extending their operations to more northern islands, the Corsairs were primarily used for close support of American, Australian and New Zealand soldiers fighting the Japanese. New Zealand pilots noted the Corsair's poor forward view and tendency to ground loop, but found this could be solved by pilot training in curved approaches before use from rough forward airbases. 14 Squadron took its Corsairs to Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force. Two privately owned Corsairs remain airworthy in RNZAF colours.

Korea, Indochina, Suez and the Football War

The AU-1, F4U-4B, F4U-4C, F4U-4P, and F4U-5N logged combat in Korea between 1950 and 1953 while all 94 of the final, "dash seven", model were sold in 1954 to the French Navy, which flew the planes until the early sixties. The French F4U-7s and AU Corsairs were heavily involved in the French campaign in Indochina up until the French defeat at Dien Bin Phu. The F4U-6 was never built. Corsairs flew their final combat missions during the 1969 "Football War" between Honduras and El Salvador.

The AU Corsair was a ground-attack version produced for the Korean War. The Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine, while it was supercharged, was not as highly "blown" as on the F4U.

A Corsair fires its rockets at a Japanese stronghold on Okinawa

The F4U in fiction

The exploits of a Marine Corps squadron which flew the Corsair in the Pacific during the war were depicted in the popular 1970s television series, Baa Baa Black Sheep . The TV series actually featured about six genuine flying Corsairs. Most of the storylines were fictional. See also Pappy Boyington.

The movie Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War, set during the Korean War, has a battle scene with Corsairs in a ground attack role.