Chance-Vought F4U-1A Corsair
Possibly the most famous fighter of the US Navy and Marine Corps in World War II, the F4U Corsair started as a response to a 1938 US Navy requirement for a carrier-based fighter that could achieve the most “maximum speed possible,” and yet still have a stall speed of 70 miles an hour or less for carrier landings. It was a design requirement thought nearly impossible, but Chance-Vought gave it a try, mating the most powerful engine then available—the Pratt and Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp—with an airframe designed around the enormous engine. This required a wide wing and high landing gear to allow the propeller to clear the ground or deck—too high for US Navy standards. To shorten the landing gear, Chance-Vought adopted an inverted-gull wing that bent the wing downwards from the fuselage and upwards away from the landing gear. This not only solved the landing gear problem, but also gave the XF4U design better performance.
When the first XF4U-1 Corsair flew in May 1940, it met the Navy’s desire for speed, becoming the first single-engined American fighter to break 400 mph, and setting a mark faster than that of the fastest US Army Air Corps fighter, the P-38 Lightning. By this time, World War II was in full swing, and reports from Europe led Grumman to switch to an all-.50 caliber machine gun armament, with provision for later installation of 20mm cannon if necessary.
While pilots loved the Corsair’s superb performance in the vertical, it was proving problematic as a carrier-based fighter. Since the R-2800 engine was so huge, the cockpit was set further back than normal, making it difficult to see over the nose on landing approach. Because of the torque of the aircraft, the Corsair also proved prone to stalls on missed carrier landings, and had a tendency to bounce on landing—which could cause the aircraft to bounce over the arresting cables and into parked aircraft forward on the deck. Visibility was also considered to be inadequate in the F4U-1’s “birdcage” canopy. Unable to solve these problems and desperately needing a replacement for the obsolescent F4F Wildcat then holding the line in the Pacific theater, the Navy turned to the simpler, easier-to-fly F6F Hellcat as its primary carrier fighter, relegating the Corsair to Marine land-based units.
It would be the Marines who would prove the worth of the Corsair, beginning in 1943. In combat, it was found to be far faster than any Japanese fighter then in service, and its engine power finally ended the A6M Zero’s dominance in climbs; the Corsair still could not match the Zero in slow manuevering fights (which the Hellcat could), but this proved not to be much of an obstacle for Marine pilots. Flying from bases in the Solomon Islands chain, units such as Gregory “Pappy” Boyington’s VMF-214 “Black Sheep,” and Robert “Butcher Bob” Hanson’s VMF-215 “Flying Corsairs,” joined by the land-based VF-17 “Jolly Rogers,” which included Tommy Blackburn and Ira Kepford, the Corsairs were to prove deadly to Japanese aircraft over the hard-fought Southwest Pacific. These squadrons racked up an impressive 11-to-1 kill ratio over Japanese opponents, which to this point in the war the US had been lucky to achieve parity. The derisive nicknames of “Hosenose” and “Hog” became affectionate, and the F4U acquired another nickname of the “Bent-Winged Bird.” The Japanese had a far more telling name for the Corsair, however: “Whistling Death,” caused by the sound of air rushing through the supercharger intakes in the wings.
While the Hellcat was proving itself as well, the Navy still wanted a way to put the Corsair back onto carriers. The British Fleet Air Arm, which had adopted the Corsair to replace its earlier Wildcats and supplement its Seafires, had found some solutions to the Corsair’s carrier landing problems—using a snakelike approach to the carrier, only turning into the final landing leg at the last moment, while adding a “Malcolm Hood” developed for the Spitfire to raise the pilot’s seat seven inches. This mitigated (if not entirely solved) much of the problems with the Corsair, while Chance-Vought itself solved the stall problem by a slight modification to the wings and the bouncing problem by a hydraulic pressure bleed system. Finally, the F4U was ready for carrier operations.
It was to prove itself once more. First deployed in numbers during the Okinawa campaign of 1945, the Corsair gained another moniker, the “Angel of Okinawa” for its support of Marines ashore and sailors afloat. Faced with mass kamikaze attacks from Japan itself, the Corsair’s speed meant that it could run down kamikazes on their final attack runs, and its range meant it could catch kamikazes far enough away from the fleet. Modification of late-war F4U-1A Corsairs into fighter-bombers, a program that was overseen by Charles Lindbergh, allowed them to put bombs and rockets onto ground targets for American troops on Okinawa itself.
I was lucky to find a 1/144 F4U-1A in Seattle in 2014, so I built it right out of the box. I wanted to do something a little different than the kit aircraft, so instead I built a postwar Corsair, in the colors of VF-82 aboard USS Randolph, circa 1946.
Chance-Vought F4U-1A Corsair
Possibly the most famous fighter of the US Navy and Marine Corps in World War II, the F4U Corsair started as a response to a 1938 US Navy requirement for a carrier-based fighter that could achieve the most “maximum speed possible,” and yet still have a stall speed of 70 miles an hour or less for carrier landings. It was a design requirement thought nearly impossible, but Chance-Vought gave it a try, mating the most powerful engine then available—the Pratt and Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp—with an airframe designed around the enormous engine. This required a wide wing and high landing gear to allow the propeller to clear the ground or deck—too high for US Navy standards. To shorten the landing gear, Chance-Vought adopted an inverted-gull wing that bent the wing downwards from the fuselage and upwards away from the landing gear. This not only solved the landing gear problem, but also gave the XF4U design better performance.
When the first XF4U-1 Corsair flew in May 1940, it met the Navy’s desire for speed, becoming the first single-engined American fighter to break 400 mph, and setting a mark faster than that of the fastest US Army Air Corps fighter, the P-38 Lightning. By this time, World War II was in full swing, and reports from Europe led Grumman to switch to an all-.50 caliber machine gun armament, with provision for later installation of 20mm cannon if necessary.
While pilots loved the Corsair’s superb performance in the vertical, it was proving problematic as a carrier-based fighter. Since the R-2800 engine was so huge, the cockpit was set further back than normal, making it difficult to see over the nose on landing approach. Because of the torque of the aircraft, the Corsair also proved prone to stalls on missed carrier landings, and had a tendency to bounce on landing—which could cause the aircraft to bounce over the arresting cables and into parked aircraft forward on the deck. Visibility was also considered to be inadequate in the F4U-1’s “birdcage” canopy. Unable to solve these problems and desperately needing a replacement for the obsolescent F4F Wildcat then holding the line in the Pacific theater, the Navy turned to the simpler, easier-to-fly F6F Hellcat as its primary carrier fighter, relegating the Corsair to Marine land-based units.
It would be the Marines who would prove the worth of the Corsair, beginning in 1943. In combat, it was found to be far faster than any Japanese fighter then in service, and its engine power finally ended the A6M Zero’s dominance in climbs; the Corsair still could not match the Zero in slow manuevering fights (which the Hellcat could), but this proved not to be much of an obstacle for Marine pilots. Flying from bases in the Solomon Islands chain, units such as Gregory “Pappy” Boyington’s VMF-214 “Black Sheep,” and Robert “Butcher Bob” Hanson’s VMF-215 “Flying Corsairs,” joined by the land-based VF-17 “Jolly Rogers,” which included Tommy Blackburn and Ira Kepford, the Corsairs were to prove deadly to Japanese aircraft over the hard-fought Southwest Pacific. These squadrons racked up an impressive 11-to-1 kill ratio over Japanese opponents, which to this point in the war the US had been lucky to achieve parity. The derisive nicknames of “Hosenose” and “Hog” became affectionate, and the F4U acquired another nickname of the “Bent-Winged Bird.” The Japanese had a far more telling name for the Corsair, however: “Whistling Death,” caused by the sound of air rushing through the supercharger intakes in the wings.
While the Hellcat was proving itself as well, the Navy still wanted a way to put the Corsair back onto carriers. The British Fleet Air Arm, which had adopted the Corsair to replace its earlier Wildcats and supplement its Seafires, had found some solutions to the Corsair’s carrier landing problems—using a snakelike approach to the carrier, only turning into the final landing leg at the last moment, while adding a “Malcolm Hood” developed for the Spitfire to raise the pilot’s seat seven inches. This mitigated (if not entirely solved) much of the problems with the Corsair, while Chance-Vought itself solved the stall problem by a slight modification to the wings and the bouncing problem by a hydraulic pressure bleed system. Finally, the F4U was ready for carrier operations.
It was to prove itself once more. First deployed in numbers during the Okinawa campaign of 1945, the Corsair gained another moniker, the “Angel of Okinawa” for its support of Marines ashore and sailors afloat. Faced with mass kamikaze attacks from Japan itself, the Corsair’s speed meant that it could run down kamikazes on their final attack runs, and its range meant it could catch kamikazes far enough away from the fleet. Modification of late-war F4U-1A Corsairs into fighter-bombers, a program that was overseen by Charles Lindbergh, allowed them to put bombs and rockets onto ground targets for American troops on Okinawa itself.
I was lucky to find a 1/144 F4U-1A in Seattle in 2014, so I built it right out of the box. I wanted to do something a little different than the kit aircraft, so instead I built a postwar Corsair, in the colors of VF-82 aboard USS Randolph, circa 1946.