History Up Close with the F4U Corsair

Video from the channel NavalAviationMuseumFoundation about Vought F4U Corsair, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 32:13. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

Session from the National Naval Aviation Museum's History Up Close series, in which guide Kim Sheldon reviews the history of the Vought F4U Corsair alongside the museum's example, an FG-1D built by Goodyear, shows how the pilot climbed into the cockpit, and then answers questions from the audience.

The Navy wanted a fighter that would be the fastest in the world while still being able to fly slowly enough to land aboard a carrier, withstand carrier landings, have folding wings and heavy armament, all with a single engine. In the 1930s fighters typically carried liquid-cooled inline engines, and Hap Arnold had even ruled out radials for the Army, but the Navy preferred them for being light and easy to maintain. Chance Vought, of Stratford, Connecticut, and its chief engineer Rex Beisel designed the V-166B around the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp, an 18-cylinder engine delivering 1,850 hp at takeoff. The 13-foot-4-inch three-blade Hamilton Standard propeller required the inverted gull wing, which allowed for a short, sturdy landing gear. The XF4U-1 prototype flew on May 29, 1940, and reached 405 mph in tests, a demonstration that, according to the guide, changed Arnold's mind about radial engines.

The Navy ordered 584 F4U-1s and licensed production to Goodyear (FG-1). The production series removed the small wing bomb bays, moved the cockpit back to make room for a fuel tank ahead of it, and switched to six .50-caliber Browning M2 machine guns. In carrier trials, visibility from the 12-foot nose and landing gear bounce led to the aircraft being declared unsuitable after 14 accidents; it was passed to the Marines, and VMF-124 arrived at Guadalcanal in February 1943. The F4U-1A brought a clearer canopy, a raised seat and tailwheel, and water-methanol injection, which added 250 hp for five minutes. The British, who received Corsairs under Lend-Lease starting in June 1943, solved the carrier landing problem with a continuous curving approach; six months later the US Navy copied it, and in December 1944 VMF-124 and VMF-213 embarked on USS Essex against the kamikazes.

The F4U-4, with 2,300 hp and a four-blade propeller, reached Okinawa in July 1945, with 449 mph and a 4,000-pound payload. The F4U-5 reached 470 mph and 5,000 pounds and was, along with the previous model, the backbone of fighter-bomber squadrons in Korea, where a Corsair shot down a MiG-15; the AU-1 attack version entered combat from 1952. France used the F4U-7 and the AU-1 in Indochina, Algeria, Tunisia and Suez (1956) and retired the last one in 1964. The last combat was the 1969 Football War between El Salvador and Honduras. The Q&A session describes the night fighters F4U-2, with radar on the right wing, and F4U-5N, with four 20mm cannons; the clipped wingtips of British Corsairs to fit hangars about 16 feet high; and Goodyear's F2G Super Corsair, with a 28-cylinder, 3,500-hp engine designed for rapid climb and later used in the Cleveland air races.