Posted on 07/10/2023 11:20:00 AM PDT by fugazi
The beautiful Chance-Vought Corsair is one of the most iconic planes of the second world war. But it has a lot of designations, and that can get confusing. There’s the F4U, the FG, the F2G, the F3A to name a few. The British flew the Corsair Mk I, II, III, and IV. There’s also an AU-1 Corsair, used by the Marines during the Korean War.
Let’s break it down.
Beginning in 1922 the Navy classified fighter aircraft as “F.” Each manufacturer was assigned a code letter, and Vought’s was “U.” So in 1927 Vought developed the FU biplane. 1929 was their second submission — the F2U. Then in 1933 there was the F3U. So when Vought’s Corsair first flew in 1940, it became the F4U.
Simple enough. So where does the “G” come from?
Demand for Corsairs was more than what Vought could produce so Goodyear Aircraft Company began producing them. Goodyear’s code was “G,” meaning their Corsairs would go by “FG” since there wasn’t a previous Goodyear-produced aircraft. Brewster also built Corsairs, and their letter was “A” (Boeing had the “B”). Since there already was an F2A Buffalo, Brewster’s Corsair became the F3A.
As World War II drew to a close, Goodyear installed a 3,000-horsepower Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp in one of their FG-1 Corsairs, creating the XF2G Super Corsair — “X” for experimental.
So before the convention changed in 1962, F4 could also refer to biplanes made by Curtiss and Boeing, the Grumman F4F Wildcat, Canadian Coach and Foundry’s F4W-1 Bearcat, the Douglas F4D Skyray, or McDonnell’s mighty F4H Phantom II of the Vietnam era. The Phantom became the F-4 once the U.S. Armed Forces services settled on a single designation system for aircraft in 1962.
The dash and number after
(Excerpt) Read more at untothebreach.net ...
Agreed, but another reason why the nose looks so long is because the cockpit was moved rearward so the main fuselage fuel tank could be installed directly over the center of gravity, lessening trim changes as fuel was consumed.
Isn’t that the plane Pappy Boyington flew?????
Best looking prop plane ever.
Y’all do watch Black Sheep Squadron on H&I on Saturday nights, right?
What’s that page from, Jane’s? I’ve got the 1945-46 reprint, but it doesn’t have the nice cutaway drawing.
That’s because it was difficult to learn how to land the plane since on final, the pilot had to take the nose up enough to only see the landing strip from the side of the cockpit.
But once in combat, it was most definitely an enemy killer.
I was in VMF(122) out of MCAS Beaufort. The squadron transitioned from F8U-2 to F8U-2NE. NE standing for Night Electronic. Beautiful plane; but radar was a big maintenance nightmare.
I have no idea. I just Googled "F4U Cutaway Drawing" and found one with decent detail.
The website where I "borrowed" the cutaway drawing was this:
https://history.scale-model-aircraft.com/wwii-aviation/chance-vought-f4u-corsair
And that page lists as one of it's sources the book "Fighters 1939-45: Attack and Training Aircraft." The book's Amazon page:
Hope this helps.
Pappy and the Black Sheep?
Yes. He is in front, third from the right.
That’s got to be Pappy with the white shoes in the front and the flattened nose.
Yeah, that "butterfly" supercharger up front instead of the like the P-47s or P-38s that had the supercharger behind the pilot with the plumbing running back and forth from the engine up front.
Yeah, he was a scrapper:
Duh @ me. The caption under the cutaway drawing at the source website says "image source: An Illustrated Anatomy Of the World's Fighters" and gives a link to the Amazon page for the booik:
The prop and gull wing fix are a separate issue. There is a huge amount of super charger systems behind the engine and the main fuel tank is in front of the pilot.
The F-8 “Crusader” was the Ensign killer!
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