The Vought F4U Corsair

By Martin W Bowman

This fully illustrated history of the iconic American fighter plane examines its development and combat experience through WWII and beyond.
 
First flown in 1940, the Vought F4U Corsair was the fastest fighter in the world and the fastest US aircraft of any description. Powered by a huge 18-cylinder Pratt and Whitney Double Wasp engine, the first Corsairs were capable of speeds up to 417 miles per hour. This figure would rise to nearly 450mph in later versions.
 
The F4U entered service with the US Navy in September 1942 and over time was extensively used by the US Marines, Royal Navy and Royal New Zealand Air Force. Famous squadrons that flew these planes—like VMF-214 'The Black Sheep' and VF-17 'Jolly Rogers'—maintained their superiority over the Japanese for the rest of the war.
 
After the Second World War the Corsair was used with distinction by the French in Indo-China and again by the US Navy in Korea. Since then, Corsairs have remained a favorite among warbird enthusiasts the world over. This comprehensive book examines the engineering of the Corsairs alongside a detailed history of their development and usage in combat. Illustrated with scores of rare and previously unpublished photographs, Vought F4U Corsair is the perfect book for any fan of the 'bent wing bird'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781526705907

Martin W Bowman

Martin Bowman is one of Britain's leading aviation authors and has written a great deal of books focussing on aspects of Second World War aviation history. He lives in Norwich in Norfolk. He is the author of many Pen and Sword Aviation titles, including all releases in the exhaustive Air War D-Day and Air War Market Garden series.

Book preview

IMAGES OF WAR

THE VOUGHT F4U

CORSAIR

IMAGES OF WAR

THE VOUGHT F4U

CORSAIR

RARE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM WARTIME ARCHIVES

MARTIN W. BOWMAN

img1.jpg

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by

Pen & Sword Aviation

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire – Philadelphia

Copyright © Martin W. Bowman, 2019

ISBN 978 1 52670 588 4

eISBN 978 1 52670 590 7

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52670 589 1

The right of Martin W. Bowman to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

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INTRODUCTION

The F4U is regarded by many as one of the greatest combat aircraft in history, and was in production for longer than any US fighter other than the F-4 Phantom. In 1938 the US Navy had decided that the time was long overdue to bring carrier-based aviation up to the same performance level as land-based aircraft.At Vought, the F4U-1 project team headed by Rex B. Beisel had to design the smallest possible fuselage around the mighty 1,800hp experimental Pratt & Whitney XR-2800-2 Double Wasp air-cooled radial engine, the most powerful power-plant available. Everything possible was done to limit drag while a gull-wing design gave the massive engine’s 13 feet 4-inch diameter three-bladed propeller sufficient ground clearance on both take-off and landing. A .30 calibre and a .50 calibre machine gun were mounted above the engine, firing through the upper propeller arc and a .50 calibre machine gun outward of each wing fold mechanism.The stub wings included open vents in their leading edges to allow cooling air for engine oil and air for supercharger intercooler equipment. The carburettor air, supercharger intercooler and oil cooler air inlet ducts situated at the leading edge of the wings removed the need for a drag-inducing scoop for each. In flight, this layout created a curious high-pitched whistling sound as air was sucked into the ducts. Later, the Japanese would call the Corsair the ‘Whistling Death’ after the blood-curdling scream emitted during high-speed dives on their positions.To American troops in the Pacific Islands campaign, the ‘Bent Winged Bird’ was often their saviour and the Marines would dub the Corsair the ‘Sweetheart of Okinawa’. Everything about the new fighter was massive. It weighed 9,357lbs empty and measured 31 feet 11 inches with a 41 feet 11 inch wing span - the largest American fighter yet built.

The Bureau of Aeronautics awarded Vought a contract for a single XF4U1 prototype on 11 June 1938. The yellow and silver XF4U-1 first flew at the Bridgeport Municipal Airport, Stratford, Connecticut on 29 May 1940 with Lyman A. Bullard Jr. at the controls. All went well during his first four test flights but on the fifth, while performing a series of low altitude cabin pressurization and high-speed cruise tests, low on fuel, the XF4U-1 crashed but within two months was airworthy once again. Lyman A. Bullard demonstrated the XF4U-1 for USN officials on 1 October 1940. He flew from Stratford to Hartford, Connecticut, at a speed of 405mph, making the Corsair the first single-engine single-seat Navy fighter to fly at over 400mph. On 30 June, Vought received an initial contract for 584 F4U-1 production aircraft for the Navy, with initial deliveries to begin in February 1942. As contracts increased, the VGB programme consisting of Vought, Goodyear and Brewster was formed to mass produce the F4U-1. Increases in wing armament resulted in the leading edge fuel tanks being removed and 155lbs of armour plate was added to the area around the cockpit and oil tank, while the pilot was protected by the addition of a half-inch thick laminated bulletproof glass behind the forward windshield. Modifications were made to the arrestor hook and tail landing gear systems. All of these changes increased the F4U-1’s all-up fighting weight to 12,061lbs. The seventh production Corsair was the first to be delivered to the US Navy, at NAS New York on 15 August 1942 and was flown aboard the escort carrier USS Sangamon in Chesapeake Bay for carrier qualifications. It quickly became apparent that in the three-point landing attitude, the pilot’s visibility was impaired by the long round-nosed engine installation and the Corsair possessed unhappy stall characteristics. A series of design changes were implemented but the Navy finally decided that the Corsair was not suitable for carrier operations and it would be the US Marine Corps - the ‘Flying Leathernecks’ - that would take the F4U-1 into combat.

On 28 December 1942, though its 22 F4U-1 Corsairs were not strictly combatready and none of its pilots were combat-experienced, VMF-124 was declared operational; such was the urgency of the situation in the South Pacific. VMF-124 left for the South Pacific in January 1943. As at 31 December 1942, the US Navy had a grand total of just 178 Corsairs. On 14 January 1943, VF-12 received its first F4U-1s and was declared operational although it had also to practise carrier landings, even though it was destined as a land-based Corsair squadron. VF-12 lost seven pilots during training, four of them in an early morning storm. At the same time, Vought engineers were still wrestling with problems troubling Corsair operation aboard carriers. By the time VF-12 sailed aboard the USS Saratoga from Hawaii in July 1943, F6F Hellcats had replaced the Corsairs for combat sea duty. VF-17 was established on 1 January 1943 at NAS Norfolk, Virginia with Lieutenant Commander John T. ‘Tommy’ Blackburn as its commander, becoming the second Navy squadron to operate the Corsair. In February the ‘Jolly Rogers’ began receiving their first F4U-1s for training.

Marine squadron VMF-124 had received its first Corsair on 7 September 1942, but was not declared fully operational until three months later. On 12 February 1943 the ‘Checkerboards’ arrived on Guadalcanal with twelve Corsairs, went into action the following day. Two of the Corsairs, six Army fighters and two PB4Y-1s were shot down. Despite this setback, the signs were that the Corsair could more than hold its own. It soon became obvious in combat with ‘Zero’s that if the American pilots had altitude advantage, the Corsair largely had the upper hand. The ‘Zero’ could not out-turn the F4U-1, nor out-dive it or outclimb the American fighter. On 15 April, VMF-121, which was equipped with Wildcats, was taken out of the front line for a short while to change to Corsairs; it received between ten and fifteen hours’ training on the F4Us before becoming the third Corsair squadron to go into combat.