Corsair Fighter Ww2 - Development of the F4U Corsair began in early 1938, under the leadership of Vought's chief engineer, Rex Bizzell. By May 1940, Vought had built a prototype; The new fighter's inverted gullwings gave the aircraft a distinctive face when viewed head-on, and were designed to provide ground clearance for the massive 13-foot propeller. During the Corsair's first flight, it broke the speed record for a single-seat fighter by over 400 mph in level flight. The Navy was sold on the fast fighter and Vought was ordered into production. Almost 13,000 examples would be produced by the end of F4U production in 1952.
The F4U Corsair entered the fray in 1943 and gave Allied naval aviators victory over their opponents. The Corsair was known for its speed, ruggedness and firepower, and was very successful as a fighter and attack aircraft in support of ground forces. The F4U-4, with a more powerful engine, was the last variant of the Corsair to see service during World War II.
Corsair Fighter Ww2
Due to the urgent need for a fighter squadron in the Solomon Islands area in the summer of 1943, the 214th Marine Fighter Squadron (VMF-214) was irregularly assembled in theater, using replacement pilots assigned to another squadron. Under the leadership of Maj. Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, the self-proclaimed "Black Sheep" of VMF-214, shot down 97 Japanese aircraft and damaged another 103 during the squadron's two six-week tours of duty, making the Black Sheep one of the best flying units at the time in the South Pacific.
Corsair Aircraft Images, Stock Photos & Vectors
Corsairs flown by VMF-214 were rarely flown by the same pilot every day. In fact, Papi always flew the plane in the worst condition on every mission, so no pilot under his command would have to do that. This aircraft is painted in the markings of one of the aircraft known to have flown the squadron.” By 1944 Corsair deployments in the Pacific were steadily increasing. Japanese pilots quickly learned what to fear.
BETWEEN Grumman and Vought Aircraft, the United States produced two of the best fighter planes of World War II: the F6F Hellcat and the F4U Corsair.
After making its combat debut over Guadalcanal in February 1943 – a full eight months before the first F6F Hellcats entered service – the F4U Corsair would become one of the most successful fighters of all time.
The Corsair was designed to meet the US Navy's 1938 requirements for a single-seat shipboard fighter. The nature of the military requirement strongly suggested—at least to Vought's design team—that the Navy wanted the fastest fighter ever built. Nonetheless, Reck Beisel, head of the Vought engineering team that designed the new fighter, said speed was paramount for the proposed aircraft. So the engineers focused on maximizing agility and minimizing weight and drag.
Blue Corsair Fighter Plane At The Airshow In Maryland Editorial Stock Photo
The new fighter will have the largest engine under development at the time: the 18-cylinder Pratt & Whitney R-2800 twin-row radial Wasp. The power plant pumped out an impressive 2,000 horsepower. Water/alcohol injection in later versions could add another 450 ponies to that total. To convert the R-2800's power into thrust, Vought engineers relied on data from prop manufacturer Hamilton Standard. Their calculations suggest that the new fighter needs a 13-and-a-quarter-inch diameter propeller to exceed 400 miles per hour.
Wind tunnel tests by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (then NACA, but now called NASA) showed that the wing had to be held back to minimize drag where it joined the bottom of the circular fuselage. Several configurations were considered, but all required an extremely long landing gear that would take up valuable space and be heavy and complex.
Alfred Sibila, the team's aerodynamicist, was in a meeting early in the design process with chief engineer Rex Beisel and six others from the design team[1] to discuss wing placement and design. As Sybil recalled in an article about the Corsair in the February 1995 issue of Proceedings, "Beisel asked, 'Why don't they put a little loop in the wing where the landing gear attachment would be lower and the device shorter...?' '" With that, the Corsair's most distinctive feature, the inverted gull wing, was born.
Aerodynamically, it made a lot of sense to place the folded wing low on the fuselage. Figuring out how to build the plane's structure was another engineering challenge. Vought made a special large port to allow the wing center and lower fuselage to be built as a single unit. The result was a very strong structure.
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The gullwing configuration had another advantage. This allowed the designers to place the armament of the aircraft outside the landing gear assembly in the folded part of the wing. This allowed the design team to place large oil coolers in the wing roots, next to the engines.
The prototype Corsair had .30 and .50 caliber machine gun mounts in the nose and a .50 caliber cannon in each wing. Lessons from the air war in Europe led to a change to six .50 calibers, three in each wing. Later, 300 F4U-5s were built with two 20mm cannons in each wing. However, most pilots (both Navy and Marines) preferred six .50 caliber guns, each with 400 rounds per gun. With each weapon firing about 600 rounds per minute, this arrangement gave the pilot 40 seconds of ammunition, far more than any of his potential opponents.
To reduce time and time with proven components, the horizontal and vertical tail layout was borrowed from the OS2U-1 Kingfisher seaplane, which was already in production. And, because Vought wanted to make the plane as fast as possible, the exhaust stacks were designed to provide a small amount of thrust.
The first production contract for 584 Corsairs was awarded on 30 June 1941. The first F4U-1 was delivered to the US Navy on 31 July 1942. Unbeknownst to Vought, the Navy had made the Marine Corps the preferred recipient of the new fighters, ie. who were destined to go to Guadalcanal where the Corps airmen flew their first combat mission in the Corsair on 13 February 1943.
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Even before the Corsairs were sent to Guadalcanal, the Navy and Marines knew they had a world beater. Fighting in the Solomons was still fierce and the Navy wanted to put the Corsair into action where pilots could take advantage of its performance and range.
Unloading from the carrier was a challenge in the original Corsairs, although the fighter passed its initial trials with a flat roof. But once they got aboard a ship and into the hands of Navy aviators, the accident rate skyrocketed. The compression and rebound on the landing gear struts were found to be too stiff, causing the aircraft to bounce dangerously on touchdown.
In addition, the Corsair's long nose made it difficult to look forward during takeoff and landing. The Royal Navy recommended that the US Navy use a more curved approach so that pilots could better see the deck and the landing officer. Another modification to improve visibility in the landing pattern was to increase the height of the rails so the pilot could raise his seat to get a better view of the long nose.
A design effort by Vought known as the "Program Dog" resulted in the main landing gear having a longer stroke and lower bounce ratio, which solved the aircraft's tendency to bounce on landing. Other modifications to cow flap actuators prevented them from leaking and splashing fluid over the canopy.
Vought F4u Corsair
By 1944, the Corsair was deployed in increasing numbers in the Pacific, both as a ground-based fighter-bomber with the US Marines and as a naval aircraft carrier. Japanese pilots quickly learned to fear him. They were called the Death Whistling F4U. While the Mitsubishi Zero could still turn inside the Corsair, the F4U was doing more than 50 miles per hour. faster than the A6M, it had a better turn rate and could outrun the Japanese fighter by a wide margin. The Corsair's performance allowed pilots to choose when and how to engage enemy aircraft.
Against zero, the Corsairs scored 2,129 victories in the air with only 189 losses. That's an 11:1 ratio that's only better than the Hellcat's 19:1.
In the end, the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm received 2,012 Corsairs compared to 584 Infernos. Most of the Royal Navy's corsairs flew from British carriers in the Pacific in the later stages of the war. Those who survived the war were returned to the US Navy in late 1945 and early 1946.
On May 29, 1940, the KSF4U-1 made its first flight, more than two years before the F4F Hellcat and the North American P-51 Mustang flew.
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On a test flight on October 1, 1940, the prototype KSF4U-1 flew at a speed of 404 m.p.h. making the Corsair the first American single-engine aircraft to exceed 400 m.p.h. in level flight.
The F4U was in production longer than any other piston fighter in World War II. Production began in 1941 and ended in 1953 at the end of the Korean War. A total of 15,575 were built.
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