Vought F4U Corsair F4U-5

Development of the Corsair did not stop when the Second World War ended. Early jet fighters needed long runways and used their fuel very quickly, which made them ill-suited to carrier operations. The U.S. Navy still needed a carrier-based piston fighter, and Vought answered with a 1945 design modification of the F4U-4 meant to improve its overall performance and incorporate many suggestions from Corsair pilots. That modification became the F4U-5. Sources disagree on the date of the first flight: one gives 21 December 1945, another April 1946.

The main change was the Pratt & Whitney R-2800-32W engine, of the Double Wasp E series, with a two-stage supercharger. Its twin auxiliary blowers breathed through "chin" inlets on the cowling, and the forward fuselage had to be widened compared with the F4U-4 to accommodate this arrangement. The cowling was lowered by two degrees to improve forward visibility.

The new engine came with automatic controls for the supercharger blowers, cowl flaps, intercooler doors and oil cooler. Pilots appreciated being able to choose between manual or automatic operation of the cowl flaps, supercharger and other equipment. The reduction in aerodynamic drag brought by the redesign contributed to a top speed of 470 mph, 20 mph faster than the F4U-4.

The F4U-5 was the first Corsair variant with all-metal wings, replacing the fabric-covered outer surfaces of earlier versions. It received spring tabs on the elevators and rudder, a completely modernised cockpit, a fully retractable tailwheel, and heated cannon bays and pitot head, intended to prevent the freezing that had plagued the 20 mm cannon at high altitude.

Standard armament became four 20 mm M3 cannon, two in each wing, instead of the six 12.7 mm machine guns of the F4U-4. It retained the eight stubs for 5-inch HVAR rockets and the wing-root pylons, which could carry bombs, drop tanks or napalm. 223 F4U-5s of the basic version were built.

Several sub-variants were developed from the F4U-5. The F4U-5N was a night fighter with the AN/APS-19 radar in a radome similar to that of earlier Corsair night fighters; the F4U-5NL was a winterised version of the -5N, with the same radar and de-icing equipment to cope with the Korean winters. Between them 315 aircraft were built, making the night fighters the most common variant of the -5 family. The F4U-5P was a long-range photo-reconnaissance version with a rotating camera mount. The AU-1, the ground-attack version for the Marines, was also derived from the F4U-5; it replaced the -5's automatic two-stage supercharger with a manually controlled single-stage one, because it would operate almost always at low altitude.

The F4U-5 was capable of fighting at high altitude, but in practice it never needed to: its war in Korea was almost entirely low-level, where its tremendous payload was eminently useful. In that conflict the night-fighter versions were used more than the basic -5. The F4U-5 was retired from U.S. service in 1956.