F4U Corsair - The Most FORMIDABLE American Fighter plane?
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- Опубликовано: 28 июл 2024
- The Vought F4U Corsair is an American fighter aircraft which saw service primarily in World War II and the Korean War.
Development of the F4U Corsair began in early 1938, headed-up by Vought Aircraft’s Chief Engineer, Rex Biesel, who was a pioneer in the science and industry of aviation. He was the lead designer of several successful military and civilian aircraft, but his real glory was creation of the Corsair.
The Corsair was declared "ready for combat" at the end of 1942, though qualified to operate only from land bases until the last of the carrier qualification issues were worked out.
The F4U had an immediate impact on the Pacific air war. Unprotected by armor or self-sealing fuel tanks, no Japanese fighter or bomber could withstand for more than a few seconds the concentrated volley from the six .50 caliber machine guns carried by a Corsair. Marine and Navy pilots flew 64,051 operational sorties, 54,470 from runways and 9,581 from carrier decks. During the war, the British Royal Navy accepted 2,012 Corsairs and the Royal New Zealand Air Force accepted 364. The demand was so great that the Goodyear Aircraft Corporation and the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation also produced the F4U. On September 2, 1945, the Navy credited Corsair pilots with destroying 2,140 enemy aircraft in aerial combat.
🚀 Are you ➡ Grumman F6F HELLCATr ➡ FAN? Documentary video is here: • Grumman F6F HELLCAT - ...
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⏰ Timestamps
00:00 F4U Corsair Design and Development
03:02 Test Flights
06:41 Combat in the Pacific
11:25 "Pappy" Boyington and "Lucky" Lindbergh
13:04 Korea and Beyond
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🚀 Are you ➡ Grumman F6F HELLCAT ➡ FAN? Documentary video here: ruclips.net/video/xO948dstVAg/видео.html
U.S. Naval aircraft. Not Navy. Yes there is a difference.
@@rayw3294 Do you have a hard citation(s) for those claims?
@@rayw3294 Did you mean "convoys?"
My uncle went in at Anzio, Purple Heart with three clusters. Other uncle chased U-Boats around the Atlantic (First Officer on a Corvette) Another uncle was a forward artillery damage assessment Sargent. None of those men would count as non-anecdotal evidence.
Again, do you have hard citation(s) for your claims?
@@rayw3294 the soviet union did not and certainly didn’t during the cold war. id point to the declassified CIA documents pointing to the fact that Soviet citizens ate as well as but with diets of greater nutritional value than their US counterparts. im going to need more evidence than anecdotes from people who would have only heard this of their enemies from propaganda (similarly existing in a former eastern bloc country tells you nothing, the USSR is so heavily propagandised against and they have no exposure to the reality of the USSR only of the economic disaster it’s capitalist overthrow caused)
@@bumbyonline Hi mate, I do know the people ate well in the Soviet union. Especially if you were a member of the communist party. I was talking about the Gulags, where they did each other. Also The Japanese ate everyone. They in turn pi55ed off the the Islanders in the southern pacific. Who ate them. But, humans have been eating each other every time there is a famine. Ancient Egyptians and all around the world. Drachinifel did one on George 'h' Bush as he was a pilot in WW2 (over 50 missions). He managed to get away from an Island with a broken plane. If he didn't, he would of been eaten. Probably better not watch if squeamish.
My favorite WWII fighter! I met Pappy Boyington and have an autographed book of his!
Me too, at Fullerton in the 80's when he was promoting his book.
I’ll bet there was alcohol in that canteen 😂
Kill ratio's are " claimed" not confirmed kills. Typically, pilots of all nations overclaimed by roughly 3 x . But yeah, it did very well. It's debatable that the F4U had a positive kill / loss ratio vs. the Shiden Kai. Near the end of the war the Elite 343 Kokutai engaged and mauled a squadron of F4U's. Remember the famous photo of the shot up Corsair that later got pushed off the deck?
My father worked for Chance Vought and brought me a model F4U home when I was about 8 years old. By this time the war had ended and Vought had started producing the F8.U Crusader. This was not your run of the mill plastic model kit made by Revell or Monogram but a limited edition made just for employees. It was about 50% larger than those and more detailed, one of my most prized possessions.
very valuable probably my guy not just in price but special reasons
That is something to show to future generation's
Cosairs fought in 1969 in the Honduras/El Salvador war. Honduran Corsairs fought against El Salvador P51 mustangs. Honduran F4U pilot scored 3 kills in one day.
Those Mustangs had fuel tanks add to the end of the wings pretty much make them useless in a dog fight.
Yeah, those mustangs were modified for mostly ground attack. They had fixed fuel tanks at the wing tips which impaired their maneuverability. Further, those F4Us had 4x20mm cannons as well. Regardless, the F4U was an amazing plane and could compete with any common fighter in WW2 Europe (See Greg's excellent channel for an in depth analysis of this).
Thought that those battles would be mentioned but were not
My dad become a B-24 pilot for the US Navy in WW2. When he was training in the mid west a Corsair flew in and landed at the field. It is a new plane and they were happy to get a look at it. He and his fellow trainees were amazed to see one. They walked from their hangar over to it as the pilot got out and walked to the office. They got to it and looked it over while it was being refueled. Then they went back to their duties. They walked to the office later on and found out that the pilot of the Corsair was Charles Lindberg. He had signed for the gas. He was probably ferrying it across the country. They never got close enough to him to see him. He did wave at them as he walked back to the plane to leave. He was a hero to all of them and they did not think to see who the pilot was.
In Korea, the F4U-4 shot down one MIG-15 and damaged another in a dogfight.
Keith Moffat Thank you 🙏
That goes to show that it's not the machine it's the pilot !
@@brandondugger2754 its both
The iconic wing shape was fascinating to me as a child. Absolutely love WW2 aviation and all of the innovative ideas that came from that time period
Quite an aircraft
From what I heard on the vid it was for the big prop to clear the ground .
@@txrick4879partly, but were that the only reason then other aircraft like the p47 and the hellcat would have required this too given they had the same r2800 engine and propellers only v slightly smaller. that clearance could equally have been achieved with say telescoping landing gear were that the only concern. it was, as mentioned in the video, also to reduce interference drag. essentially NACA testing had found that an angle of 90 degrees between wing root and fuselage was best for minimising interference drag. in order for the corsair to achieve this with its v round fuselage* it would have required a conventional wing to have been mounted roughly in line with the propeller spinner. that would have required telescoping landing gear which would lack the strength of the corsair’s landing gear and couldn’t have been used as a dive brake in the way the corsair’s landing gear was designed to be able to do. the fact that the corsair was able to have shorter landing gear enabled it to be fully enclosed in the wing, and took up less space in the wing which allowed for a shorter chord and overall more efficient wing. this also allows for much larger flaps, critical for lowering the stall speed for a carrier fighter which in turn allows for larger ailerons. this contributes to the excellent rolling capability of the corsair which was a quality noted both by those who flew it and who fought against it.
*the fuselage itself was designed to minimise the frontal area of the aircraft despite the large r2800 engine which required both oil coolers and intercoolers, which contemporary fighters with the same engine put at the front of the fuselage, something the corsair avoided and which resulted in the characteristic long nose. this desire to reduce the frontal area of the engine had a lot to do with trying to make the plane competitive with land based fighters
A friend of my mothers flew with the RNZAF during WW2, started off in p40s then transitioned to Corsairs. He said the best evasive manoeuvre in the F4U was to "unstrap yourself and run around the cockpit". 😂
That’s awesome.
Heehee yX-D 😂🏆🥇❤️!!
The Mustang and the Corsair… 2 of the sexiest planes ever.
The television show made the "Corsair" famous. The fighter squadron in the show VMF 214 still exists as a fighter squadron out of Yuma Air station in Arizona. The designation was indeed a concoction of Greg "Pappy" Boyington. Great history.
black sheep squadron !!!!! great show
The F4U is my favorite plane of WW2 I seen one fly over my home it was so beautiful and cool Made my summer 😎
I had the pleasure of seeing a Corsair at my state's air show a few years ago. I love those old piston-engined planes.
If you look at the performance of all the front line Allied/Axis fighters late in war F4_u. P-51, FW-190 etc. They were all about equal. Some had better climb rates others turn/roll rates etc. It came down to the pilots and their ability to exploit the plane's advantages and minimize the disadvantages .
True, I just wonder why the Japanese never put self-ceiling fuel tank in the zero after so many were lost to very few bullets
@@thevortex6754
They did. They put self-sealing tanks in some later models.
@@danl.909 oh, I never knew that, thanks
Agreed!!
@@thevortex6754 -self-sealing tanks are more expensive and adds weight to the plane, which is why they weren’t prioritized. The Japanese philosophy was maneuvering and speed, if you don’t get it hit then you don’t need to worry about your tank leaking/burning.
In the first year of the war in the pacific though our Naval, Marine and Army fighter pilots were in aircraft that werent equal in performance to the Zero they held the line and achieved combat victories thru their own innovative methods of flying.
A testament to their training and personal persistance.
My all time favorite aircraft! Best dog fighting plane ever made. I also love the story of Ace Pappy and his fighting squadron the Black Sheep VMF 214.
Baa Baa Black Sheep! Was one of my dads favorite shows. My dad was an infantryman in WWII in the Pacific Theatre.
All of teens Loved it!!! I was...15 or so! Havent seen it since then but I ran across an old episode 3 weeks ago and watched it.
I then remarked on how Gawd-awful it really is was =)
"Ahhhhhhh........Boyington!. Come play...Boyington!"
"Right behind ya, RIceball!"
Good to see so much video footage from the archives of the Royal Navy, they loved the Corsair and called it 'The Bent-winged Bastard'. One of the best books by any pilot in WW2 is 'Carrier Pilot' by Norman Hanson. He flew Corsairs for the Royal Navy in the Far East and the book tells his story from training at Pensacola through too the end of the war. It's the book that first got me into Corsairs and I've never looked back. I highly recommend it to anyone, especially if you're a fan.
i like the story of the f4u , it was less known than the wildcat and hellcats were but it was a really good plane . the other one few know about that was very dominant was the f8 bearcat that came very late in the war but was one of the fastest piston planes ever made
The F8-F never made it to combat in WWII.
There were faster planes, what it excelled in was rate of climb
My favorite WW 2 fighter.
Cannot argue about that , just a pity it never faced better opposition . Being nearly 100 mph faster then your opponent makes one hell of a difference .
I think it did in the Dominican Republic
You left one the best squadrons, VF-17 the Jolly Rogers. CO Tommy Blackburn, they perform off CV's and land bases with outstanding results.
I totally agree with you 100%
F4U was a great air frame and good performance plane. The swept wings of a CORSAIR and very good kill ratio was outstanding. It was better than the F4F Wildcat .... but NOT THE UPGRADED F6F HELLCAT - 6 holy Moses Missiles, 2000 HP Pratt Witney radial engine and a KILL RATIO OF 19 to 1 !!! Best ever. With respect, jj
Also the Corsair flew into the sixties between El Salvador and Honduras conflict the Corsair shot down a p51 mustang and a Corsair .
It would be awesome to see this bird modernized. It would be a real beast.
Came in a box marked Cox & it was a .049 ukie. The year, 1969 . A fave , ever since & TY for the video.
I had one too! Mine was orange (that's the only one they had).
The F4-U Corsair is my favorite plane of all time. It was the first toy plane i ever got, and i fell in love with its design.
This was I think the first WW2 , fighter that I was exposed to in the 70s with that tv show. Baba black sheep. Great plane, Great tv show. Thanks
I have two uncles who flew corsairs, one a US marine, and one in the British Navy. Both died more than a decade ago, but I heard many stories. Both men loved the plane, and said the same things about it, and interestingly both made what was really the same comparison to two different aircraft: the P-38 and the Mosie.
Their points were that the Corsair was as close to those aircraft as you could get with one engine: a tough fast airplane with serious gunpower. If you could fly it, it would take care of you. The goal was not to get into turning dogfights with anything, always keep speed up; dive away from anything on your tail.
Landing it, particularly on a carrier, was a different story. The Brits did it, Americans mostly didn't.
Brits with Corsairs fought FW-190s, the later models with the liquid cooled V12. The Brits did well against them. Granted that the German pilots at the end of war in Europe weren't the Luftwaffe's best, but they were better than what Japan had at it's end.
My Brit uncle also said the Corsair compaired favorably to the Typhoon: arriving earlier, having similar capabilities (good at ground attack too) being much more reliable and able to take punishment, although slightly slower.
The Typhoon was a great airplane as long as its engine kept running, but they weren't very reliable and neither the engine nor the airframe could take the punishment the Corsair could.
In the late 1940s Iived with my family just north of NAS Dallas and Chance Vought. At the time, F4U Corsairs operated at the field for several years. It was thrilling to watch them conduct take offs and landings. The F4U is a most impressive aircraft. Years later I worked on the F8 Crusader at Vought.
I have always thought that the US Military had 5 exceptional fighters during WWII, The P-38, The P-47, The P51, The F6F, and the F4U. They each had their pro's and con's and its impossible to pick just one as the best. But the F4U stayed in production and use the longest of all of them. My own thought's are that the Corsair and the Mustang were the best overall among these five.
And both got to go after one another in the Banana Republics
I just love the Hellcat and Thunderbolt, both were like flying tanks lmao
A very nice airplane⁉️
Good work in video😃
Thanks a lot!
Love the Corsair. My favorite WW2 fighter, and the best on all sides.
You might have mentioned the the technique by which British pilots were able to land the aircraft safely on carriers.
Wasn't it something to the regard of approaching said carrier by using a long arcing sweep, so that they may look around the nose of the aircraft in order to see the carrier deck?
He did slightly mention it,,
@@jameskoskinen6763it’s a method that was already used for landing seafires. i don’t think it’s as simple as that though, the US knew perfectly well that they could use the corsair off carriers, they simply chose not to until around the time that kamikaze attacks favoured the corsairs superior climb rate to the hellcat over the hellcat’s user friendliness in an interceptor role
Yes- the Marine Corp would have rejected it most likely had it not been for the Limeys.
Straight on landing approaches were nightmarish- the solution was a wide, sweeping turn on approach.
The Hellcat could turn much better than a Corsair though not as fast.
No, the inverted gull wing was NOT to provide clearance for the propeller. The P-47, F6F, and F8F had similar engines and similar size propellers, but didn't need gull wings as they used telescoping landing gear. The inverted gull wing on the Corsair was to keep the landing gear short and strong because it was also required to act as dive brakes.
It was mainly to reduce drag on the somewhat low mounted wings and the shorter landing gear was a bonus, they were even used as dive brakes
thank you. the shorter landing gear also then takes up less space in the wing, allowing for a shorter chord and overall more efficient wing. this also allows for much larger flaps, critical for lowering the stall speed for a carrier fighter which in turn allows for larger ailerons. this contributes to the excellent rolling capability of the corsair which was a quality noted both by those who flew it and who fought against it.
My favorite fighter come back thanks mhc keep up good work!
Magnificent. Lindberg is certainly an interesting character.
Simon Poynton Glad it was interesting!
This channel is fantastic. Can you please do JU-87. I think it's a fantastic weapon in the beginning of the war. To be used as part of the infantry was very smart
Thanks John, stay tuned for our other videos 👍
Amazing how many different planes they had in WWII
Our old Man was a wireless mechanic on the RNZAF F4U4 and served in J Force.., he said they loved their Corsairs…..
👍🙏🌹🇺🇸🇦🇺🇳🇿
My uncle, George Roy Hill, flew the radar-equipped night fighter version of the Corsair at MCAS Cherry Point during Korea. He also flew the Hellcat. He told me the Corsair was much more squirrly.
The corsair had considerably more performance than the hellcat though
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Thank you for the explanation, was sorry to see your videos disappear. I was very excited when you guys started uploading again. I can only speak for myself, I don’t mind that you’re uploading videos that I’ve already watched. I typically watch them multiple times anyhow.
@@Red379pete thanks for your support Kris 👍
@@MilitaryHistoryChannel1 your welcome, looking forward to future uploads
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Thank you for providing these videos. I had 2 Uncles in that war. One stationed on the USS Maryland that got bombed so he went to Guam. The other Uncle went off to Japan. Both survived but never spoke of it. My Dad was in the Marines and his group hopped onto Navy ships and blew up islands in the Pacific during the begging of the Korean War.
This might have been interesting if you didn't use an AI to read the script
I won't even watch an AI video. I was looking forward to this, and I saw your comment, well crap. Another potentially good video ruined due to laziness. Thanks for the heads up.
I agree.
I watched 👀 it because of my love of aircraft BUT the AI let it down.
Amazing stuff bro
It was a very good plane, but the F6F Hellcat had a better kill ratio. The F4U was probably
a better ground attack aircraft.
Good catch on that. I wasn't sure.
Timing was the reason for that, the F6 was a good,sturdy, reliable aircraft with good performance but the US had several with better performance including the F4U
No the hellcat wasn’t better it was only good for boom and zoom the Corsair was a better dog fighter it didn’t get to fight until 1944 if it had been earlier it would’ve had a lot higher kill ratio than a hell cat the hellcat was basically a jugg with wings like the thinderbolt they all three had the same pratt& Whitney R2800 engine
Everything I have read or seen from F4U pilots say it was a pig at low speed and that kind of rules out ground attacks.
@@GerryHartman no it don’t do your history that’s what they used it for in the koren war it was the longest serving prop plane in the U.S. military it was the a -10 warthog because the a10 warthog look it I promise you bro it’s facts it was the longest production to
I would so love to fly one of these! Brilliant plane. Brilliant pilots!
Best all around prop fighter ever in my opinion.
F8F was probably the best.
@@thecircusfreak5364 well , the Bear cat was good but it wasn't done in time for ww2. Also , if u do count post war property fighters then it would have to compete with the Super Corsair. I would still pick the Corsair to win. Its my opinion only however.
@@jayledermann7701it’d also have to compete with other superprops, such as the supermarine spiteful, the hawker sea fury, a number of soviet aircraft etc. the bearcat was in any rate a v flawed aircraft heavily optimised for an interceptor role and operation off smaller escort carriers as a replacement for the f4f wildcats still used on those throughout the war. there isn’t rly a best prop fighter because different aircraft perform very differently at different altitudes, have different roles etc that affect their performance in combat. the p39 airacobra was disliked by many US pilots but was the darling of many soviet pilots and holds the mantle of the US fighter with the highest number of kills in the war, largely because the very things that caused issues for US pilots in the pacific theatre (short range, poor high altitude performance due to the removal of the turbocharger and lack of a two stage supercharger for the allison engines at the time) were non issues on the eastern front where airbases were typically v close to frontlines and combat fought at low altitude and allowed the qualities the aircraft did have to shine
@fayY2K well if you are going to bri g up real late war super props , then I'd go with the super Corsair. I believe it was named FG1 Super Corsair or something like that. There were many great fighters, for sure. It's just my opinion that all around the Corsair was the best.
@@jayledermann7701 the point of raising the others was for the other commenter in the thread. in general to you my overall point was to say: the best at what? the best carrier fighter? in that case it’s certainly in the running, though i’d personally maybe favour the sea fury slightly. the best fighter for the west european theatre? certainly not, though it would certainly hold its own against the bf109k and fw190d much better than the hellcat. the best for land based service? also disagree, the thunderbolt is a better US aircraft for the purpose between its better armament, survivability and lack of performance drop off above 15,000ft. best escort fighter? both the thunderbolt and mustang have it beaten. best for the eastern front? also not rly, the demands of the theatre were radically different to the pacific theatre. best one on one dogfighter? even amongst ww2 allied naval fighters it doesn’t hold that distinction, being beaten out by the spitfire on land and seafire at sea, though the seafire was ill suited to landing on carriers. night fighter? the night fighter variant was certainly interesting. the corsair airframe does have the best g-tolerance of any ww2 fighter and it’s engineering is incredibly impressive. none of my comments about it not being the best are to diminish that. but there can’t be an “overall best” because it is as incapable as performing some aircraft’s roles as they are of performing its. it’s also my partner’s favourite piston engines fighter of ww2, and my favourite carrier borne fighter of the war, and Captain Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown spoke highly of it and all of this is genuinely meant but there are way too many variables to really declare a best overall.
Among the last of the great radial engines... it was a great one!
Thank you
Thanks for watching!
My father flew these ... He helped in testing the little triangle that equalized the lift. Albert Hill Jones Jr
Would not have happened at sea without the British Royal Navy.
minor note for the voice over: .50 inch * or * 50 caliber. in us, caliber is defined as 1/100 inch. in uk calibre used to be 1/1000 inch.
"The Ensign Eliminator," it killed more of its pilots in accidents and landing incidents than the Japanese, North Koreans and Chinese combined. It was withheld from carrier duty for two full years till the Marines flying off land bases and the British could iron out its wrinkles. FAST! But the Hellcat was fair easier to land and shot down 2.5 Xs the number of Japanese aircraft and created far more aces. A great ground attack aircraft. Shoddily built, interestingly enough, and the first half of its run didn't even have a cockpit floor. Brewster actually lost its contract for making Corsairs, and went under. One of my favs even with the visibility, technical and landing problems.
Despite its admittedly temperamental nature, experienced Royal Navy pilots who flew both the F6F and F4U preferred the Corsair as the plane in which they wanted to face enemy fighters. In memoirs, they expressed regret when the US Navy took back Corsairs and gave them Hellcats instead. A good video about Brit Corsairs: ruclips.net/video/lH5XSwyb_EU/видео.html
To me it is by far the coolest looking and sound 💯👍😎
USS Wolverine was one of two carriers that were used for training on lake Michigan.
The best propeller fighter ever !!!
Nope.
The Corsair was a very good and effective aircraft in the hands of a skilled pilot. However, low-time pilots fresh out of training were often over-whelmed by the torque characteristics, the poor visibility during a carrier approach and the poorly designed oleo struts of the early models. The Corsair bore the nickname "Ensign Eliminator" for good reason just as the Hellcat was called the "Ace Maker", also for good reason. An 11:1 kill ratio is very good, to be sure, but remember that the Hellcat had a 19:1 kill ratio. Was the Hellcat a superior fighter? Depends on who's flying it. The Hellcat didn't do anything outstanding but it did do everything well and it made a rookie pilot look good giving him confidence in his plane and ability. One last thing, the only reason the Marines got the Corsair was the plane's unsuitibility for carrier use early on. The Corsair proved to be a very good ground based aircraft and it and the Marines who flew them made a name for themselves. Finally, it was the pilots of the Royal Navy who figured out how to bring aboard the Corsair onto a carrier deck with a minimum of losses.
Yes, and it was the aircraft mechanics of the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm who first fixed the undercarriage bounce. Corsairs became a good replacement for earlier RN fighter aircraft.
Beautiful
i didnt know that Limburg flew the corsair . He was big into flying the p-38 and made significant improvements to that program getting a few kills in the p38 before being sent back to the states , its odd he also would have flown the f4u as well
Lindbergh Flew the P. 38 on a mission too, optimising fuel consumption. Limburg is Rush 👍
Did he fly it before or after he invented his cheese?
Lindbergh was not a very good p-38 pilot. He damn near got his ass shot out from under him. To cocky and arrogant. If it weren’t for the other p-38 pilots there to save him that day he would have been K.I.A. I suggest you read a book called race of aces. It is a fantastic book and will tell you about Lindbergh with his time in combat.
@@mikez3114 cool , he did come up with the mods that gave the p38 its range though
@@jonathansteadman7935 Limbaugh
I think all the World war II American fighters had their play in the war. Unlike the Axis who felt a few designs was enough we built to adapt.
My fav plane in Il-2 sim. Long range, very, very good bomb/droptank load, good to medium-high altitudes, decent at high speed, very nimble as far as US fighters go. If there ever was a do-it-all it was this plane. Only downside ever was torque and left wing stall issues at take-off. Once in the air it was all downhill from there.
I'm F4U Corsair buff. Thanks.
It has a very art deco profile.
The F4U is the sexiest machine ever designed. But the F6F had a much better kill ratio of 19:1.
As a child in my motherland, mes amis, I read the memoirs of a chap who was a combat pilote of one of these in WWII. He Claimed the flight manual said that the glide-characteristics were SO poor, that if the engine stopped, you should bail-out (if high enough) ... OR 'Whistle A Happy Tune and Kiss Your Ass Goodbye '! ... because a 'dead-stick’ landing was very iffy.
Absolutely accurate and true. The Zero started showing its age fighting F4Fs and Warhawks(the P-40 tore the zero a new orifice in china
Imagine you're the pilot during bounce landing with zero visibility. It literally jumps back and forth brrrrr....
Would be interesting to see it up against an Me-262 or even the TA-152
At high altitude, the engine probably would have been slightly out off breath and the relatvely thick wing of the F4U would have run into problems with supersonic flow pretty quickly. At low altitude, th COrsair definitely had the edge over both of them in manoeuverability. A 262 probably would just have run away from such a fight.
Ta 152 would win, it was a super prop
Well the corsair did have machine guns as Japanese aircraft were almost not armored. In Europe, all aircrafts were armored and had guns, so...
As American fighter planes, Brewster Buffalo in Finnish service had about 25/1 kill ratio against the Soviet air force. It was because we had only 44 of them, and we did not dare to lose them too much...
One of those Navy Korean War Corsair pilots, Ens. Jesse L. Brown should've been the name used for CVN-81.
The Corsair would EASILY be the premier fighter of the Pacific had it been able to more easily land on carriers. The Hellcat has been hailed as "the greatest" based on it's kill ratio of 19:1 but it is conveniently forgotten that by the time it was cleared for ops in late 1944, all the "pilots" they faced had minimal instruction. After Midway and then the ensuing campaign in the S Pacific, the men in the Corsair had swept the skies of all the Japanese talent.
Actually the Corsair could land on carrier decks. It was a British who actually took the time to figure out the best way to do it instead of just restricting the plane to land-based runways. But since America was an industrial powerhouse. They didn't need to bother to figure out how to effectively use the Corsair as a carrier-based plane. They had the hellcat which could be produced very quickly and was able to do an excellent job.
@tmendez31 didn't say it couldn't- simply that while Hellcats tore up the skies, the Corsair would have had more kills had it been more carrier friendly
@@tmendez31 amended to reflect your sentiment
@@ghand6158 agreed.
Solets discuss the wartime f4u1 it's was a medium altitude performer whoes top speed of 417mph fell rapidly off above 20,000ft.
In the big boys theatre of europe, most combat between fighters often started well above 20,000ft. The fw190 and bf109 simply out perform it at those altitude s. Down to 15000ft.
If you watch the analysis at Greg’s Airplanes… he determined based on a number of statistics that the F4U could compete with both German fighters; the F6F not so much.
So it was an aircraft made for a more specefic purpose, and largely only used for that purpose, that sounds like good planning to me.
Corsair and p-51 to best fighters of the war for the USA
One of the propeller driven aircraft that could shoot down faster jet fighter
The Big E … USS Enterprise the fighting city of steel . she pawned through pacific Japans Navy to Tokyo . such a beast Sooo good
would go nuts to have all the various allied fighters of WW 2 compete in a dogfight against each other, with several pilots rotating and flying each plane, to determine which plane was the best dogfighter. Wont happen of course but fun to daydream
Same for ground attack planes
My favorite World War Two aircraft. I think it's one hell of a gorgeous beast.
Semper Fi.
It depends on what and where. The top three Army Air Corps planes all had much better range. The 51 and especially the 47 had better performance above 20,000 feet. The 38 out climbed it by a substantial margin, had far better fire power and would out turn it at any speed and carry more ordinance
Below 20,000 feet it was probably the best all around dog fighter but again not in all situations.
The Corsair was unforgiving and killed a lot of low time pilots in ways that the Jug or the Lightning never would.
As a 250 hour Lt JG coming into combat for the first time, give me a Lightning or a Jug. As a 1,000 hour Capt with 30 combat missions…maybe a Corsair
Do you have a hard citation for the 'Whistling Death' nom de guerre? I've asked every channel where that is referenced with no luck.
Pappy flew the plane in the worst condition, what a guy!
@6:32 F6F Hellcat? Really? Would love to hear how it came by that livery.
F6F Hellcat 19 to 1 kill ratio
Oh yes! Hellcat video very soon, thanks for watching!
The difference in the air war in the pacific vs Europe is interesting.
Tactics and equipment.
Vought did excellent with the f4 and the f8 crusader , the f8 was a much better fighter than the f4 phantom it just did not have the multirole payload abilities but it was a much better fighter against the migs
A much better CLOSE range dogfighter. The F-4 ruled in BVR as well as being able to much more.
The F4U was probably the most formidable Navy warbird, though the Hellcat pilots would argue that with good reason. The 1943 and later iterations of the P-47 were comparable, if not better. It's always a fun comparison. hoppish088 makes the critical observation. The Japanese pilots would prefer dying to living to fight another day, it was a significant failure in ideology.
11:05 I like to look at the R-4360, but it didn't go in the Corsair.
A great aircraft…if it didn’t kill you! We can thank the Royal Navy Fleet Air arm for the original taming of it. Performance galore!
'just clip it's wings old chap, that should sort her out"! ...said by some F A.A. officer...... possibly 😆
@@jonathansteadman7935 Not only that. They developed the landing technique on aircraft carriers.
Ok, we'll give the Royal Navy credit when the British give the American engineers credit for keeping the merlin engine and Spitfire competitive by giving it the Bendix pressure carburetor, 100 octane fuel and a two-stage supercharger technology
@@sturdevantphotography5726 …. The western allies worked together. They were truly allied. Take the Mustang. An American designed aircraft. Ordered by the British. Modified with a Rolls Royce engine. Flown out of England. Ordered by the US USAAF in the thousands. Flown by air forces into the 1960’s.
@@Idahoguy10157 Named Mustang by the British
My fave fighter. With the Lightning and Spitfire tying for second.
And the old tv show about the Black Sheep is how I first learned of them. For me, it was must-see tv.
Almost no information is on you tube about WWII ships like the Naval aviation training aircraft carries U.S.S. Wolverine or the U.S. escort carriers U.S.S. Core and U.S.S. Challenger, mentioned at 5:51 . Someone could find informstion and make videos about those U.S. Navy ships... ? 😉
Thank you for this video!
☺
Recently added is a video on the USS Wolverine, Great Lakes Aircraft Carrier. Very interesting.
Why does the channel have to run the Abrams Tank clip ten times a hour? It’s driving everyone nuts!
Probably WHY these things were pretty well Instantly reduced to secondary usages ie; strafing grounders.
Who would win a Japan Zero or A German Me 109?
I am the only person i know that liked the Corsair more than the Mustang or Spitfire. 👍
Corsairs stated in the Marine Reserves after Korea was over. Don’t know how for how long. Till 1960?
Excellent!...Very Informative!!👍👍
Fairey Firefly at 4:43?
The "Whistling Death" thing is a myth.
A marketing tool of Chance Vought or the real deal? Boone Guyton, Vought's test pilot and primary F4U Test pilot wrote a book entitled, "Whistling Death."
What happened to all your other videos?
Kris, thanks for your comment. Please take a look at our TOP comment with explanation about this 🙏
Hellcat Kill Ratio 18 - 1, Corsair 11 - 1 What was P-38, P-40, P-47, P-51 ?
Have to tease a little. Can you guess which fighter has a kill ratio of 33:1
This channel: The F4U Corsair is the most formidable fighter plane ever.
F-15: Am I a joke to you? I can fly stably and land with only 1 wing, have 104 air to air victories with no defeats, and can shoot down satellites in orbit.
Don't get me wrong, the Corsair was an amazing machine. There are just too many great WWII fighter planes that were just so different that comparing them and claiming one was above all of them is just incorrect.
The 1st production fighter to use the R-2800, and perhaps the last, in 1956. Many fighters kicked a$$ in WW2, but only one was produced well after that war, and into the mid-1950s. It didn't have the same kill ratio as the Hellcat, but it was in the double digits, and the Corsair was produced 10 years after the Hellcat was done. The Corsair wasn't just a top fighter, but even more, a top aircraft of all time. How many designs from 1940 (not production) survived WW2 contracts and went on to be produced well into the 1950s?