War birds

War birds:

Todays aircraft in review is the Vought F4U Corsair produced from 1942–1953. Which is the longest production of a piston fighter; around 12,500 were made during that time. Design specifications were given February of 1938, when the U.S. Navy published requests for a design of a fighter that had a high maximum obtainable speed, and a slow stalling speed.Also had to have a range of 1,000 miles. The Aircraft had to have heavy armament.The Chance Vought aircraft design was the XF4U-1.When the prototype was built largest engine, propeller ,and wing on any fighter at that time. And because of the 13′ 4 inch propeller the design of the inverted gull wing was incorporated. The first flight of the XF4U-1 was on 29 May 1940.On 1 October, the XF4U-1 became U.S. fighter to fly faster than 400 mph. The production model came out June of 1942. The performace of the corsair was very impressive it was the fastest fighter in the pasific theater. Due to the long nose the corsair was not used on carrers until 1944. It was some times called the bent wing maker because of the emencese torqe. The corsair racked up a 11:1 kill ratio in the pasific in WW2. The corsair could out-perform a Zero in every aspect except slow speed manoeuvrability and slow speed rate of climb. Corsairs were flown by the famous “Black Sheep” Squadron VMF-214, led by Marine Major Gregory “Pappy” Boyington in an area of the Solomon Islands called “The Slot”. The corsiar was outstanding fighter,also proved to be an excellent fighter-bomber, serving latter role throughout the Korean War.