Chance Vought F4U Corsair - The Fighter Over the Pacific
Video from the channel Mundo de Aviación about Vought F4U Corsair, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 9:46. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.
What it's about
An educational piece from the Aeropedia series on the Mundo de Aviación channel about the origin, design, versions and service of the Vought F4U Corsair, a Second World War carrier-based fighter that also excelled as a fighter-bomber in Korea and in the French wars in Indochina and Algeria.
Historical context
In 1938 the US Navy was looking to replace the Brewster F2A Buffalo and the Grumman F4F Wildcat. Vought bet on the new XR-2800 Double Wasp engine, and its V-166B project led to a prototype that flew in May 1940 with a 4 m propeller. The inverted-gull wing kept the propeller clear of the ground and allowed a short landing gear that folded backward. On 1 October 1940 it reached 652 km/h in level flight. The armament became six 12.7 mm machine guns in the wings. The first production F4U-1 was delivered on 31 July 1942, but its dangerous stall behavior and its bouncing on landing prevented its acceptance as a carrier fighter, and it was passed to the Marines on the Pacific islands.
Key facts
In 1942, 178 units were built, and in 1943, 2,294, including FG-1s from Goodyear and F3As from Brewster. Its versions include the F4U-1A, the 1B for the British Navy, the 1C with four 20 mm cannon, the 1D with hardpoints for drop tanks or 454 kg bombs, the F4U-2 radar-equipped night fighter, and the F4U-4, with over 2,450 HP. In Korea, night fighters with APS-19 radar shot down slow aircraft like the Po-2. The last one, an F4U-7 for the French Navy, was completed in October 1952, closing a production run of 12,571 units. The Argentine Navy operated 29 F4U-5s from the ARA Independencia between 1956 and 1966.