F4U Corsair in World War II: Rejected by the U.S. Navy, Feared by Japan's Zero Pilots

Video from the channel War Machines about Vought F4U Corsair, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 32:33. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

A documentary about the Vought F4U Corsair. It covers its design, aimed above all at speed, the problems that kept it off carriers, its success from land bases against the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, and its eventual return to carrier decks.

In 1938 the US Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics called for the fastest possible carrier-based fighter. Rex Beisel's team at Chance Vought chose the most powerful engine in the country, the 18-cylinder, 2,000 hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp, and wrapped it in the most compact airframe they could manage, with a propeller over 13 feet across. To shorten the landing gear without the propeller touching the ground, they bent the wing into an inverted gull shape. The XF4U-1 prototype was ordered in June 1938. It flew on 29 May 1940 at Bridgeport, Connecticut, piloted by Lyman Bullard, and exceeded 400 mph in level flight. In June 1941, 584 F4U-1s were ordered. In autumn 1942 it was tested aboard the escort carrier USS Sangamon. The long nose blocked the view of the deck on approach, and the overly stiff landing gear made the aircraft bounce. Because of this, in early 1943 the Navy assigned the first production aircraft to land-based Marine Corps squadrons, while carriers used the F6F Hellcat. VMF-124 flew the first combat mission from Guadalcanal on 13 February 1943. Pilots learned to attack in a diving pass from altitude and to avoid turning fights with the Zero. VMF-214, Major Gregory Boyington's Black Sheep, claimed 94 Japanese aircraft destroyed across two combat tours. Boyington was shot down on 3 January 1944 near Rabaul and was picked up by a Japanese submarine.

Pilots nicknamed it the "Ensign Eliminator" for the accidents it caused on landing. Vought fixed this with more pressure in the landing gear oleos, a frameless bubble canopy, a seat raised 8 inches, and a stall strip on one wing's leading edge. The Royal Navy, which operated it from carriers such as HMS Illustrious, contributed a continuous curving approach inherited from the Seafire, which kept the deck and the landing signal officer in view. The US Navy cleared it for carrier operations in late 1944. Production ended in 1952 with roughly 13,000 units built, and the aircraft also fought in Korea in close air support. Beisel rose to vice president of United Aircraft Corporation in 1949 and died in Sarasota, Florida, in 1972. The documentary notes that the often-cited 11-to-1 kill ratio against the Zero likely overstates the real figure.