F4U Corsair: The Monster Japan Feared

Video from the channel L'envers du passé about Vought F4U Corsair, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 37:05. Language: French. Video type: Documentary.

A documentary that traces the history of the Vought F4U Corsair: from the 1938 competition to its retirement in the 1960s, covering its teething troubles, the Pacific campaign, the Korean War and some of its best-known pilots.

On 1 February 1938, the US Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics requested the fastest possible carrier-based fighter. It also had to have a stall speed below about 113 km/h, a range of around 1,600 km and at least four machine guns. Rex Beisel led the design at Vought. The aircraft used the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radial engine and a three-blade Hamilton Standard propeller about 4 m across. The inverted gull wing allowed the landing gear to be shortened, folding entirely into closed bays. In November 1940 it switched to six 12.7 mm machine guns and a roughly 900-liter fuel tank was added in the fuselage. The XF4U-1 prototype flew on 29 May 1940 with Lyman Bullard Jr. and was the first single-seat American fighter to exceed 400 miles per hour. It had two flaws: oil from the cowl flaps streaked the windscreen, and the shock absorbers made the aircraft bounce. Both were fixed. On 30 June 1941, 584 F4U-1s were ordered, and the first production aircraft flew on 24 June 1942. The name came from the O2U Corsair biplane of the 1920s.

After trials aboard the USS Wolverine, Core and Charger, the Navy kept the Hellcat on its carriers and assigned the Corsair to the Marines, who used it from Guadalcanal starting in February 1943. On 14 February, an escort mission over Kahili ended in the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre". Kenneth Walsh, later awarded the Medal of Honor, was its first great ace, with 21 victories. Gregory "Pappy" Boyington, commanding VMF-214 "Black Sheep", scored 28 victories before being shot down and captured on 3 January 1944. In September 1944, Charles Lindbergh flew with MAG-31, carrying up to three 1,000-pound bombs. The Navy did not put it aboard carriers until January 1944. It was credited with 2,140 kills against 189 combat losses. The Royal Navy received more than 2,000 and the New Zealand air force 364, and Goodyear and Brewster also built it. In Korea it served as a support and night-fighter aircraft against the Po-2 "Bedcheck Charlie". Guy Bordelon, of VC-3, was the Navy's only ace of that war. France used it in Indochina. A total of 12,571 examples were built in 16 versions between 1942 and 1953.