- 7 weeks ago
For educational purposes
Great Planes looks into the stories behind the most influential, innovative and intriguing machines that ever took flight.
The Vought Corsair F-4U, with its peculiar folding wing, was the scourge of the Japanese H12 in WWII, its pilots shot down over 2,000 Japanese planes; fewer than 200 Corsairs were lost.
Great Planes looks into the stories behind the most influential, innovative and intriguing machines that ever took flight.
The Vought Corsair F-4U, with its peculiar folding wing, was the scourge of the Japanese H12 in WWII, its pilots shot down over 2,000 Japanese planes; fewer than 200 Corsairs were lost.
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LearningTranscript
00:00The
00:30The
00:56The last, and possibly the greatest, propeller-driven fighter aircraft was the Vought F4U Corsair
01:02I. With their bent wings, the Corsairs are instantly recognizable, but the full extent
01:09of their capability is generally not as well recognized as that of other more famous types.
01:14However, the F4U could not only outfight the best of the Axis fighters, but also those
01:20on the Allied side.
01:26They were powerful, fast, well-armed, strong, and reliable. Ideal fighters.
01:39At the end of the war, orders for most aircraft types were cancelled, but the F4U remained
01:45at the heart of a busy development and production program. For those who like to argue the relative
01:50merits of World War II fighters, this continued development indicates the high regard in which
01:56it was held by the U.S. Navy and Marines.
02:03The Corsair not only continued in production and use into the jet age, but in Korea, they
02:10encountered jet fighters in combat, and the outcome was not always to the jet's liking.
02:16The F4U's peculiar wing reflects the nature of the team that designed it. Vought engineers
02:27have often resorted to the unconventional where it worked, perhaps reflecting the age of the
02:32company. Founded in June of 1917, Vought is the second oldest surviving aircraft company next
02:40to Boeing. Back in those days, intuition was as reliable as science in aircraft design, and
02:47Vought has never been in the habit of dismissing the unusual too hastily.
02:56Over the years, the company has made a tremendous contribution to aviation in general, and in particular,
03:02the United States Naval Aircraft.
03:09The first aircraft to take off from the deck of the U.S. Navy's original aircraft carrier, the Langley,
03:15on October 17, 1922, was a Vought plane, a VE-7. This was only one of a number of such historic events
03:24for the company. Earlier, VE-7s had equipped the Navy's first two fighter squadrons. The relationship
03:31between the Navy and the company has persevered to the benefit of both.
03:38The company's founder was Chance Milton Vought, born in New York on the 26th of February 1890. His father
03:52built sailing ships for a living, but the young man turned away from the sea after completing his
03:57mechanical engineering studies, and in 1910 started his association with flying machines.
04:04Chance Vought died young in 1930, but by then, he had built a thriving enterprise that has survived
04:12several moves around the U.S., as well as changes of ownership and management. The company's reputation
04:18for outstanding aircraft stretches back to their earliest designs, and the F4U was to continue this tradition.
04:25The company's first plane was built in a third-floor room of a disused ladies' stocking factory. It was lowered
04:46to the street in sections out of the windows, and then reassembled so the engine could be tested
04:53with the plane tethered to a telephone pole. Despite this unusual birth, it was a very successful design.
05:00The plane was the VE-7, VE for Vought Experimental, and 7 because it was Chance Vought's 7th design.
05:14It was modestly described as a two-seat advance train, but its reception by Army pilots in February 1918
05:21was so favorable that it was ordered into mass production as a fighter. After the war's end, some production
05:28of the VE-7 continued, including the first orders for the Navy. Several versions found their way into Navy use.
05:36There were twin-seat observation and float planes, and the single-seat fighters. Vought's next plane, the VE-8,
05:44was similar to the VE-7 in many respects. The company drew from the VE-7 in different ways, and the VE-7 family
05:53were produced into the 1930s, though not as a fighter. Vought continued to work on fighter designs, but to
06:02little avail. These aircraft were very impressive, and included the company's first all-metal plane. However,
06:09they were failures in the marketplace, and Vought was only kept alive by its successful sales of other aircraft,
06:16including a succession of observation planes called the Corsairs. This is a name that has become very closely associated
06:24with Vought. Through the 20s, and even the 30s, the Vought Company quietly prospered. It was small, and sometimes
06:36struggled to meet orders, but it continued to have successful designs under production. These included the Vindicator
06:43light bomber, and the Kingfisher catapult plane. But a successful fighter design continued to elude them.
06:51The V-141 was a spectacular failure. Against engineering protests, the president of the corporation bought
07:03a questionable Northrop fighter design. Two test versions, under evaluation by the Army and Navy in 1935,
07:10had disappeared without a trace. The plane had appalling spin recovery, and despite the best efforts of the Vought
07:25men, it remained dangerous. Renamed the V-143 after stretching and being given a new tail, it still failed to impress
07:33any buyers. To recoup some of the loss, the plans were eventually sold to Japan, a decision the Japanese
07:40probably regretted from then on. The Vought Company vowed to stick to its own designs in the future.
07:46Meanwhile, in 1936, the company's chief engineer, Rex Bison, had commenced work on another fighter
08:01for the Navy. The design was completed and submitted in 1938. This would be the firm's sixth fighter submission,
08:09and the first one to be successful. Within the company, it was referred to as the V-166, but it was accepted
08:17for testing as the XF-4U.
08:25Beisel had devised the smallest practical aircraft around a Pratt & Whitney project for a gigantic
08:32supercharged double-wasp radial engine that would deliver 1,800 horsepower. At the time, this was the
08:39world's most powerful engine. After one major change, to place a fuel tank ahead of the cockpit, the design
08:47solidified and became what was to remain unmistakably the F-4U Corsair. It would be over four years after the
08:57first test order before the first production plane was delivered. In those four years, Europe had slid
09:03into a war that engulfed the world.
09:10With war raging, the company's pilots who took the early production planes for test flights
09:15did so certain that the Corsair would soon see conflict. They appreciated the ability of the plane
09:21and were eager to gain wider recognition.
09:35On the 1st of October, 1940, the original X-Plane became the first U.S. fighter to fly at over 400 miles
09:42per hour in level flight. This not only justified faith in the radial engine, but it confirmed for the Navy that this
09:50was the plane needed to fill the role of carrier fighting.
10:02The huge engine was not only central to the performance of the plane, it had a big effect on the way the plane came to look.
10:10It was matched to a very large three-bladed propeller. At 13 feet 4 inches, it was the largest on any fighter at that time.
10:17By comparison, the Messerschmitt 109 had a diameter just under 10 feet.
10:23The Vought Company was affiliated with Sikorsky under the umbrella of the United Aircraft Corporation.
10:29Pratt and Whitney, the makers of the plane's engine, were also part of the corporation. And so was the manufacturer of the Corsair's propeller, the Hamilton Standard Company.
10:50It's always easy to forget that today's old hat was yesterday's high tech. This is particularly so with something as outdated as a fighter's propeller.
11:08No matter how fine the engine, it was designed to do only one thing, drive a propeller. And it was a design test to match prop to power plant in order to get the best out of a plane.
11:26The Hamilton Standard Company employed the highest technology in the field. The props were built around a cold, stretched steel cord, with the skins then welded on with silver. The technology produced very exact results and enduring shape.
11:50As with all aspects of aircraft technology, propeller design was a combination of experience, knowledge and testing. This is a constant process of refining. The Corsair was the last great achievement of a specific technology, prop driven fighters.
12:15The Corsair's power plant was a twin row 18 cylinder air-cooled radial engine. With an initial bore of five and three quarter inches and stroke of six inches, it had a capacity of 2,804 cubic inches.
12:34By the end of the war, Pratt & Whitney engines were being produced at over 30 plants in the USA. 26 of these were within the company's control, and six other companies were producing the engines on a nominal wartime license fee.
12:59Pre-war fashions have dictated that the air-cooled engine was on the way out in the face of the liquid-cooled inline power plants favored by the Europeans.
13:19However, for carrier use, the radial offered advantages in weight, maintenance, and supplies that justified its continued use.
13:28Despite the fashion of the times, two of the United States' best fighters of the war, and the first two to exceed 400 miles per hour, the P-47 Thunderbolt and the Corsair, had radial input.
13:41The F-4U was designed to be a brutally effective fighter, but it was not an easy airplane to land, a point of concern that led to delays in its full acceptance into service.
14:02For the Navy, there was no doubt about the plane's outstanding performance as a fighter.
14:27But there was a growing concern. Was it safe to operate from carriers?
14:34Landings on carriers have to take place very quickly and very precisely. Otherwise, you've not landed, you've crashed.
14:52One of the results of this is that pilots tend to slam the planes down hard, looking for a successful hooking.
15:01The pilot needs good visibility to position the plane and a strong plane to withstand the shock.
15:07The Vought engineers, with their long-standing relationship with the Navy, knew all about the business of carrier landings.
15:26They also knew all the things that could go wrong. The Navy filmed every landing on its carriers, and the collapsing of landing gear was captured on a lot of Navy film.
15:41The Vought designers had studied the behavior of aircraft under these extreme stresses closely, particularly since so many of the planes and Navy use were Vought designers.
15:52Even with slow and steady biplanes, landing on a ship was an exercise of considerable violence.
16:00There were remedies to the problem, including better landing gear, maximizing pilot visibility, and improving pilot training.
16:18The pilots were always going to be under stress while landing, and the responsibility rested with aircraft designers to lessen the dangers.
16:27Further, the Navy was very cautious about anything that might increase the demand on the pilot.
16:37The F4U was designed from the outset as a carrier fighter, and as a result, much consideration had gone into making its landing gear as strong as possible.
16:46The huge propeller demanded a lot of ground clearance. This would have meant a very high landing gear.
17:01The inverted gull wings were specifically designed to compensate. An unconventional wing was no obstacle to the Vought team.
17:09A fighter needed as much power as possible, and if this could be best delivered with a strange wing, then so be it.
17:31But the Navy was not convinced about the airplane's carrier safety. The cockpit was pushed a long way back down the fuselage, and visibility in landing was restricted.
17:41This meant that pilots would be blind on final approach. The landing gear would be taking stresses above the normal, and the pilots would be concentrating more than was necessary with other types.
17:52Despite impressively successful trials, the Navy was reluctant to commit its carriers to the Corsair's protection.
18:00The Grumman F6F Hellcat, a much more conventional plane, was preferred.
18:05Though designed as a carrier plane, the first U.S. Corsairs were restricted to land-based service with the Marines.
18:13The Pacific Theater, with its great distances and scattered islands, was dominated by aircraft.
18:38The possession of airspace would shape the course of the fighting, culminating in the island-hopping thrust, which broke into the Japanese Empire.
18:48The first of the major battles was fought around the airspace, but longer pointed, on the island of the Waddle Canal.
18:55The Japanese had begun work on the field, and the object of the Allied invasion had been to seize the field before Japanese planes could start to use them.
19:05As soon as the Marines went ashore, this was their target, and the airfield was to be the center of protracted fighting over the following five months.
19:14So desperate was the fighter, that despite the danger, planes were operating from the strip before it was finished.
19:20Predictably, accidents were frequent, and with combat damage and the ferocious ground warfare, the edge of the strip was soon littered with wrecked aircraft.
19:37The Marines were equipped with a selection of Navy types, including the Grumman F4F Wildcat as fighters.
19:52The Grumman's were clearly outclassed by the zero, and the Marine fighters relied on tactics and teamwork to hold their own with the Japanese.
20:00Throughout the campaign, the Japanese repeatedly made the mistake of underestimating the American strength around Waddle Canal.
20:14In the process of continuing small deployments, they committed a sizable total of men and machines to the battle.
20:21Had it all been committed to the battle at once, it may have been overwhelming.
20:26Instead, it was deployed in small packages and was mercilessly cut up by the U.S. forces.
20:32The cost to the U.S. was high.
20:35Japanese losses were far greater.
20:38The airstrip on Waddle Canal, renamed Henderson Field, was completed and turned into a major asset in the continuing fighting in the Solomon Islands.
20:51Steel matting stabilized the surface and made operations safe.
20:56Green settled into a long occupation.
20:59When the Japanese gave up their attempts to evict the Marines from Waddle Canal in January 1943, they had already suffered severe losses.
21:18However, Japan continued to deploy strong forces.
21:22At that time, they still had planes that outclassed their American opponents, though pilot losses were eroding their efficiency.
21:29The contest was far from over, and there was bitter fighting ahead.
21:34Soon, the first Corsairs arrived in the theater to play their part in the conflict.
21:44The Marines were well aware of the reservations about the Corsair and initially approached their new planes with caution.
21:51This evaporated quickly, as the experience of flying the F-4U convinced the pilots of the machine's work.
21:59Marine pilots were soon proudly asserting that they were flying the best fighter in the world.
22:05Eventually, their voices would be heard.
22:08On the 12th of February 1943, the Corsair's combat career opened with the arrival of the squadron at Henderson Field.
22:22By night point, most of the pilots had logged nine hours in action.
22:27The next day, they escorted bombers to Bougainville, a mission that had previously been out of the question because of the short range of the available fighters.
22:36The Corsair's arrival changed a lot of things.
22:41Typical of the wartime Marine bases, conditions at Henderson remained fairly primitive, with most servicing being carried out in the open or in tents.
22:51The Corsair's were maintained and armed, refueled and turned around fast.
22:56As both shield and aggressive forces, they had to be constantly available.
23:01The first squadron on Guadalcanal, VMF 124, established the Corsair as a success.
23:12In their tour of duty, they shot down 68 Japanese planes against losses of 11 Corsairs and three pilots.
23:19The squadron provided the first F-4U Ace, Lieutenant Kenneth Walsh, who downed his fifth plane on the 13th of May.
23:27Walsh went on to have 21 combat victories confirmed.
23:39The Corsairs were now being produced in large numbers, and the enthusiastic Marines welcomed them.
23:45The F-4U's played very little part in the European theater.
23:49In the Pacific, they came to be a dominant factor in the combat.
23:54Throughout the long slogging campaign through the islands, the Corsairs gave the Marines the edge over the best of the Japanese types.
24:03In addition to securing air superiority, they were used as successful fighter bombers in close support of ground forces.
24:11In April of 1943, the first Navy Corsair squadron went into action. This was VF 17.
24:23The planes were still not cleared for carrier use, but were flown from land bases.
24:28In 79 days, the Corsairs shot down 154 aircraft. Twelve of the squadron's pilots became Aces.
24:37In May, in a letter to the Vought Company, Admiral Nimitz stated,
24:41the battles which are being waged daily in the South Pacific have already proved that the Corsair is a better plane than any version of the Zero.
24:54The Corsairs were armed with either six half-inch machine guns or four 20-millimeter cannon.
25:01Against the lightly-framed Japanese types, this gave the F-4U a devastating attack.
25:07In contrast to the fragility of the Japanese planes, the F-4U was built tough to absorb damage and hang together.
25:33The huge engine provided power to handle the weight of the armor.
25:38Self-sealing tanks and solid structure were incorporated into the plane.
25:43The Japanese pilot needed a lot of luck or a lot of persistence to bring a Corsair down.
25:54In the hands of the Marines, the Corsairs built up a formidable reputation in air-to-air combat.
26:01The Japanese recognized the significance of the Corsairs' arrival.
26:05They had lost the superiority they had enjoyed with the Zero, and they would have little chance to reclaim it.
26:11Victory rolls and swoops above Corsair bases were frequent as pilots celebrated their successes.
26:189,441 F-4U-1s were produced.
26:36This number included several subtypes and numerous modifications.
26:41Altogether, 500 major engineering changes and over 2,500 minor alterations were made during the production of the F-4U-1s.
26:50Corsairs were to be used by several countries during the war.
27:05In particular, well over 2,000 were obtained by the British for use with their fleet air arm.
27:11In contrast to the U.S. Navy, the English were quick to seize upon the potency of the plane.
27:19Whether it had ideal landing characteristics was secondary to its demonstrable power.
27:24Accordingly, they deployed the Corsair to their carriers.
27:28The British enthusiasm was to have a strongly persuasive effect when the U.S. Navy came to reconsider the Corsair for its carriers.
27:46The British had been pioneers in carrier aviation and had been very influential in its development.
27:53British experimentation and theorizing had led the way, and their opinions were treated with respect.
28:03In spite of their staid reputation, the British were often highly adventurous.
28:09Reducing the concept of a floating runway to the bare minimum is indicative of this.
28:15Although it also reflects a perhaps more indifferent approach to air crew losses.
28:20Certainly, the British were not daunted by the Corsair.
28:23They were soon flying them from tiny escort carriers, after cutting 8 inches off the wings to make them fit below decks.
28:37The British did not have an easy time of it at first.
28:40The pilot's seat was too low.
28:42And this, combined with being so far back, meant that the pilot had very poor visibility.
28:48In addition, the undercarriage had too much bounce.
28:51These were the very factors that had influenced the U.S. Navy to reject the plane for carriers.
28:57The British persisted in carrier trials and addressed the worst aspects of the design by adopting a curving landing approach.
29:07With the pilot losing sight of the deck only at the last moment, landings improved.
29:13Later modifications to raise the pilot's seat and stiffen the landing gear further reduced the risk in landing.
29:20In April 1944, reacting to the British experience and the enthusiasm of marine pilots, the U.S. Navy began a new series of Corsair trials aboard the escort carrier Gambia Bay.
29:35The success of these trials eventually worked to reverse the earlier decision, and the F4U was cleared for carrier service.
29:44The first Corsairs to operate from U.S. carriers in action had actually been land-based Navy planes, flown onto carriers to refuel and rearm on the 11th of November 1943.
30:05There had been other isolated incidents of Corsairs damaged below on fuel landing on the ships.
30:18The first U.S. carrier-based squadron went into action on the 3rd of January 1945 at Okinawa.
30:25These were marine pilots with Corsair experience who had been redeployed to fly from the USS Essex.
30:37The Corsairs were simply the most formidable fighter aircraft of England, and the Navy had great need for them.
30:44The fury of kamikaze attacks that had started in the Philippines would continue to the end of the war,
30:50and the Corsairs, as interceptors, were the best available forward defense.
31:05In the course of the Pacific fighting, U.S. Corsairs shot down 2,140 Japanese planes.
31:12The Marines shot down over 1,600 of these.
31:17In return, 189 Corsairs were lost in air-to-air combat.
31:22This gives a ratio of over 11 to 1 in the Corsairs' favor.
31:27In addition to the air-to-air losses, anti-aircraft fire and other causes saw a total of 768 American F4Us lost in action.
31:37When the F4Us entered carrier service in the lead-up to the Okinawa invasion,
31:52their primary mission was the protection of the Allied task forces from the growing menace of kamikaze attacks.
31:59Kamikazes confirmed the fears of the U.S. about Japanese fanaticism.
32:15Japanese soldiers had stunned their American opponents in fighting to the last man.
32:20Japanese sailors had swum away from ships trying to rescue them in shark-infested waters.
32:26Now, in the death throes of the Emperor, young men were flying their aircraft as guided bombs to crash into Allied ships.
32:35This was a truly alien and threatening phenomenon.
32:39Despite their losses, the kamikaze attacks did cause havoc.
32:56Even if 90% of an attacking force was shot down, the remaining 10% was still potentially lethal.
33:04The only ships relatively impervious to the raids were the battleships and some of the British carriers with armored decks.
33:12The attacks were so frequent and sometimes in such large numbers that the Allied fleets had to absorb a lot of damage.
33:21But at no stage did the campaign have any chance of effecting the outcome of the war.
33:27The Allied resources were far too great.
33:30Japan, by then, so weakened.
33:36The Corsair's arrival on the carriers coincided with a crescendo of kamikaze missions.
33:42Around Okinawa, the Japanese defiantly threw in massed raids as well as the normal smaller ones.
33:48Ten massed attacks totaled some 1,500 sorties out of a total of around 3,000 attacks in three months.
33:56Over 400 ships were hit.
33:59This works out at around one strike for every eight aircraft lost.
34:03If the Japanese had not run out of aircraft first, they would eventually have run out of volunteers.
34:15Despite the success of the Corsairs in intercepting the incoming attacks, the kamikaze still got through in significant numbers.
34:23With F4Us now flying from all carrier task groups, some Corsairs also burned in the kamikaze flames.
34:32The best place for a burning plane is somewhere astern, underwater.
34:37Damage and fire control became the finely honed skills of professionals in the course of the war.
34:44Early carrier losses on both sides had reflected a certain neglect of the importance of these measures.
34:51By 1945, things had changed.
34:55Pre-war theory and methods had been repeatedly tested and tempered in the all-too-real fires of practice.
35:10U.S. Corsairs conducted a total of over 4,500 attacks on Japanese shipments, with over 500 of these against portions.
35:19The hammering of the F4U's guns on unarmed merchantmen was highly effective.
35:24Even armored ships were vulnerable to attack with rockets and bombs.
35:29By the end of the war, the term Japanese transport had become a contradiction.
35:34The havoc at sea and on land caused by the unchecked rampage of Allied aircraft was totaled.
35:39The end of the war coincided with a critical moment in the history of aviation.
35:40With the arrival of the jet, the Japanese transport had become a contradiction.
35:42By the end of the war, the term Japanese transport had become a contradiction.
35:44The havoc at sea and on land caused by the unchecked rampage of Allied aircraft was totaled.
35:51The end of the war coincided with a critical moment in the history of aviation.
36:06With the arrival of the jet, propeller-driven aircraft was suddenly aerodynamically inefficient.
36:13The U.S. didn't want the Royal Navy Lend-Lease Corsairs, and the British didn't want to pay for them.
36:19To satisfy the letter of the law, it was agreed that the British pushed them over the side.
36:25Everyone was cutting back military establishment.
36:29In particular, everyone was cutting back on propeller-driven aircraft.
36:45Although the Corsair seems to dwarf the Phantom Jedi, it weighs only 2,000 pounds more.
36:51However, it could carry a larger load of more varied weapons for approximately twice the jet's range.
36:57In addition, the Phantom was only 30 miles per hour faster than the Corsair.
37:02Obviously, prop planes retained areas of considerable advantage over the new jets, and some would still be needed.
37:09The U.S. Navy and Marines chose the Corsair as the plane they wanted to keep on.
37:14And it was not just a question of the wartime aircraft.
37:18New models would be developed and produced.
37:21The F-4U was still being produced and backflying combat missions in America's next war, Korea.
37:27The constant close intervention of the Corsairs, operating from the carriers and from within the encirclement at Pusan, was an important factor in that war.
37:55With the other World War II types, like the Mustangs and Invaders, the F-4U's could carry large loads and loiter for hours.
38:04They could deliver accurate close support and tie up road and rail links.
38:08As had so often been the case during World War II, the carriers played a major part in asserting control of the skies over Korea.
38:35This was ultimately decisive.
38:38China's massive reserves could not realistically be risked under the fierce umbrella of American air superiority.
38:45The Chinese had to balance their losses in maintaining the stalemate that developed.
38:50Even then, Chinese and North Korean casualties were enormous.
39:05From its earliest manifestations as a fighter aircraft, the Corsair had grown remarkably diverse.
39:10The Marines had turned it into a dive bomb and rocket platform.
39:15By the time of Korea, it could be armed with napalm, 4,000 pounds of bombs, or 10 rockets.
39:21This was in addition to its four 20-millimeter cannon.
39:25The carrier attack squadrons of Corsairs and Duggar Sky Raiders provided a powerful mixture.
39:32The closely coordinated activities of the Marines in Korea also served to illustrate the outstanding virtues of the Corsair.
39:48The big workhorses handled the unsophisticated strips and their buckling matting without complaint.
39:54But the severity of the winter caused many problems.
40:03There were periods of the war when all aerial activity was suspended.
40:07The planes were frozen.
40:09By the same token, even the Chinese could not make very much progress in conditions like these.
40:16The demand for the Corsair services was such that during the war, many of the planes were recalled from reserve units for use in combat.
40:38Their virtues in the close support role were unmatched.
40:41The Navy needed them in the front line.
40:44Perhaps there were some regrets about the heap of ex-British Corsairs rusting deep in the Pacific.
40:58During the critical period of the first 10 months of the war, Corsairs flew 82% of the Navy and Marines tactical support missions.
41:07One squadron, VNF 323, flew over 1,100 missions in a month.
41:13The first Corsair strikes in the war took place on the 3rd of July 1950, only eight days after the outbreak of hospitals.
41:27This saw the beginning of a series of successful raids on northern transport and supplies.
41:43In addition, the North's airfields were put out of operation.
41:47North Korean airfields were crippled.
41:49North Korean airfields were crippled.
41:53In August 1952, Captain Jesse G. Fulmer became the first American to shoot down a MiG-15 with a propeller driven plane.
42:03Another MiG promptly wrecked his Corsair, but he had written another chapter into the F4U's legend.
42:21Airstrikes by U.S. Marines and Navy Corsairs continued up to the last day of the conflict, the 27th of July 1953.
42:37By the end of the war, the Corsairs' days were clearly numbered.
42:49Production had finally ceased in December 1952.
42:53The last Corsairs in fighter and attack squadron service were relegated to reserve units in December 1954.
43:01The reserves would fly them until 1957, and the French continued to use them until October 1964.
43:08An impressive set of dates, with 1938 design.
43:20In Korea, jets were new and still developing, whereas props were well established and refined.
43:26F4U's did the desperate defensive work early in the campaign, and the aggressive work of the latter phases equally convincingly.
43:35Post-war models had increasingly reflected the needs of ground attack, and had shed the trappings of the fighter.
43:42The Corsairs had become even tougher, but at the cost of some performance.
43:52In retirement, some Corsairs have been rebuilt to exceed the old parameters.
43:56The sturdy airframes have been adapted.
43:59This plane, rebuilt as a pylon racer, has been fitted with an enormous 4,000-horsepower radio.
44:06The engine comes from a massive post-war cargo plane, and the prop from an AD Skyrader.
44:12The aircraft is very fast indeed.
44:14The honor of being the last U.S. Navy user of the F4U went to Squadron VC-4, which flew its last Corsair, a night fighter F4U-5N, in December 1955.
44:33The last reserves flight was by the Akron, Ohio unit in July 1957.
44:40Apart from a few still flying in private hands, and a few preserved in museums, the Corsairs are gone.
44:4912,571 Corsairs were produced.
45:027,830 of these were built by Vaught, most of the rest by Goodyear, and a few by the Brewster Company.
45:10There were 36 major subtypes, and thousands of minor variations between batches of planes.
45:20Their decline from being the world's finest fighter only saw them become the world's finest ground support aircraft.
45:27They also served well as night fighters.
45:30Both Japanese and American pilots acknowledge the Corsair as the Allies' finest fighter, and also agree they were better than anything the Japanese have.
45:55Their limited impact in Europe has seen them often overlooked in the World War's finest fighter stakes.
46:02In this debate, protagonists often brandish the merits of the Fogboots, Mustangs, and Spitfires.
46:09This tends to reflect the European experience.
46:13Veterans from the Pacific campaigns, the Marines in particular, often support a different nominee.
46:20The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:22The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:23The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:24The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:25The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:27The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:29The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:30The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:31The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:33The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:35The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:45The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:46The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:47The Chance Vot Corsair.
46:48I don't know.
47:18I don't know.
47:48I don't know.
48:18I don't know.
48:48I don't know.
49:18I don't know.
49:48I don't know.
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