![]() ![]() It was fast-the second American fighter (after the USAAF’s P-38 Lightning) to be capable of cruising faster than 400mph, making it roughly 100mph faster than the Wildcat and nearly twice as fast as a Zero. In service with the Marines in the Solomons, the Bent-Wing Bird turned out to be the right aircraft at the right time. The compromised visibility in the earlier Corsairs was later addressed in the later F4U-1A and F4U-1D Corsair variants, in which the faceted “birdcage” canopy of the F4U-1 was superseded by a one-piece “blown Plexiglas” bubble canopy that provided much better visibility. The US Navy decided late in 1942 to restrict the Corsair to land-based operations until techniques for carrier operations were figured out-and the aircraft, most promising in all other respects, was passed on to the Marines. ![]() ![]() ![]() This was where the plans for the Corsair abruptly changed. The extended nose of the Corsair compromised forward visibility for take-off and landing, and this became problematic on aircraft carriers. The aircraft in fact was developed by the US Navy as a carrier-based fighter, but with no immediate plan for it to go to the Marines. Just as the Marines were not supposed to have been the first line of air defense in the South Pacific in the first place, they were not intended to be the first to go into combat with the remarkable new Corsair. The aircraft F4U Corsair was developed by the US Navy as a carrier-based fighter, but with no immediate plan for it to go to the Marines.ĭuring World War II nothing better symbolized the Marine fighter aviation than the Vought F4U-1 Corsair, the aircraft destined to supersede the F4F Wildcat as the standard aircraft of Marine fighting squadrons.Īs told by Bill Yenne in his book America’s Few, Marine Aces of the South Pacific, the arrival of the Corsair in the South Pacific Area (SOPAC) happened not by a carefully laid plan, but almost by accident. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |