Why Did Britain Use American F4U Corsairs? The Full Story
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2024
- Britain, the powerhouse of aircraft development throughout the 1930s and 40s, with such legendary developments such as the Spitfire and Hurricane, opted to make significant use of the American F4U Corsair on their aircraft carriers. Here is the story of why these aircraft came to serve under the Fleet Air Arm, and what happened once they did.
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www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/dumpe...
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www.royalnavyresearcharchive....
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www.key.aero/article/white-en...
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www.armouredcarriers.com/
www.smithsonianmag.com/air-sp...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_...
www.quora.com/How-much-did-an...
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www.royalnavyresearcharchive....
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forum.largescalemodeller.com/...
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0:00 - 1:27 Introduction
1:28 - 4:40 Why Did Britain Choose The Corsair?
4:41 - 6:56 Early Days & Teething Problems
6:57 - 8:32 Modifications in British Service
8:33 - 9:10 Variants in Service
9:11 - 9:58 Camouflage Changes
9:59 - 15:26 Service Life With The FAA
15:27 - 17:10 Post-War Retirement
17:11 - 18:37 Conclusion - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
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How about hiring a real human being to do the narration?
@@ericthemauve A real human does do the narration
@@endi3386 Really? Why is he trying to imitate a Robovoice?
@@ericthemauve If you think that he sounds like a 'robovoice' I don't think you have any idea what they sound like lmao
@@ericthemauveNo, he's not imitating a robot - he just has a very dull, flat way of narration. if he'd try to imitate a Bot it MIGHT add some energy to his otherwise droning voice and give it some life, eh??
When I first started work, my office senior had flown Kitty Hawk and Corsairs with the RNZAF in the Pacific. He had some fascinating stories to tell over a beer or two! He really liked the Corsair. Sadly, he is now long gone - his name for remembrance was Richard Henderson Looker. RIP Dick.
Wish I could have heard his stories must have been epic
@straitjacket8689 I bet.
I got to meet Pappy Boyington during my service in the USMC. The man's career was legendary in so many ways, both good and bad.
One of the great fighters of WW2. A fantastic looking aircraft and desperately sad that so many were dumped at the end of the war.
But then the RAF, RNAS and all the allied Air Forces had more aircraft and pilots than were needed for peacetime operations. The pilots could be demobbed and sent home, the only thing to do with the aircraft was to scrap them. My dad's last trip was to fly a Spitfire MkVIII from Darwin to Oakey to join the pile of Spits which were scrapped at the unit in the years following the war. My dad, Flt Lt T.C. 'Nick' Carter 549 Sqn RAF came home, raised a family and lived until 6 June 1999.
Read the book "Hap Arnold" by Bill Yenne. At the end of WWII thousands of aircraft were scrapped not just the F4U Corsairs e.g B-17, B-24, B-29, P-51 etc. . This pull quote from page 285. "USAAF disposed of 33,600 aircraft, including 10,934 heavy bombers and 8,014 fighters."
It's worth noting that FAA 'fighters' like the Fulmar and later Firefly were built to a requirement for operations where they weren't expected to meet other fighters but long range patrol bombers far from land. Because of the length of flights involved they were specified with a navigator ('Observer' in FAA terms), so were two seaters - they were never going to be on a par with single seat fighters.
So it was miserable doctrine Raf mostly , not miserable carrier aircraft? OK! Thanks.
@@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qeNo-one can see into the future so they designed aircraft for the purpose they would serve according to the best knowledge they had at the time, and it was quite reasonably assumed that FAA fighters were likely to face slower long range bombers and torpedo aircraft, so they were designed to outperform those types.
Remember too that British naval aircraft were designed for use primarily over the North Atlantic where there were no nimble carrier based fighters such as those possessed by the Japanese.
@Kevin-mx1vi millions of lives at stake here. British invented carriers for Chist sake. Blame it on theRAF
@@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe What are you saying ? That the people who layed out the specification for the aircraft should have been superhuman and forseen the future ? Get real.
@Kevin-mx1vi It's just fine to lose a argument. You will do better next time. Have a great weekend! Don't ya know.
Fortunately, no one told the the swordfish it was hopelessly obsolete
Except the Luftwaffe during the Channel dash.
Also Taranto Harbour, now that story hasn't really been covered. Used by the Japanese as a model for Pearl Harbour.
@@charlesfaure1189 Only because a communications cock up lead to them attacking without fighter support.
My father was one of the Fleet Air Arm pilots who taught the Americans to land on carriers. He was a test pilot and flew all the planes you mentioned. He received a congratulatory telegram from the US for a job well done. Have all this in his log book to this day.
The USN & USMC owe a debt of gratitude to Airmen like your father. They figured out how to successfully make the Corsairs a fleet carrier aircraft.
A myth that has been debunked a thousand times
I doubt that.
Hampton Grey was attacking a destroyer thought to be about to evacuate the Japanese emperor hence the importance attached to it.
was killed and won the VC.
Two Corsairs in New Zealand. One fully restored and flying in it's original WWII Pacific campaign RNZAF markings, and one currently under restoration.
The one flying is the only surviving original Corsair out of approx 300+ that served with the Royal New Zealand Airforce against the Japanese.
That Corsair sat in a museum in Auckland, not in flying condition until it was sold to an American buyer who took it back to the US. He repainted it in US Navy livery and restored it to flying condition. It was again purchased by a NZ buyer and shipped back to NZ in 2004. It has recently been repainted back to it's WWII RNZAF livery and will be flying in airshows in NZ..
Excellent and well-told story. What a sad and ignominious end to such a wonderful aircraft in British service.
For the same reason they used Avengers, Hellcats, Liberators, Kittyhawks, Wildcats, Mitchells, and Havocs....they were very good aircraft.
There was at least one RAF fighter group flying P-47s.
Fleet Air Arm also used B17's for maritime patrol as well as search and rescue.
I will admit that I wasn’t expecting much from the video besides “The FAA got the Corsair because they needed good carrier planes” but this is a very well done and researched presentation. The narrative script and use of archival footage is exemplary.
Thank you.
My grandad was a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Airframe Rigger and eventually got stationed at RNAS Coimbatore HMS Garuda in India.
He worked on a lot of different aircraft types including Swordfish, Wildcats and Seafires but loved the Corsair.
Easy to fix and didn't throw many problems up.
He passed away in 1988 when I was 20 but I was inquisitive enough to ask about these things when I was young.
Thanks for this video, it was far more thorough than most on the Corsair, its a pity that the best fighter of the war is so often overlooked. This aircraft had the agility of the spitfire and P51 but the ruggedness of the P47 with a very long range........ everything you could want in a fighter. The RNZAF operated 13 squadrons of Corsairs in the Pacific. Of the 424 aircraft we were supplied only 17 were lost to enemy action and 154 to accidents with 54 Pilots killed. So it won its battles and most of its accidents were survivable
I'm glad you Brit's figured out how to land the Corsair on carriers
They weren't the first.
@@kenneth9874 they may not have been the first to land on a carrier , after all it was built for the Navy but they figured out the pattern so pilots weren't blind and a few other things. Then the US Navy started using it again on our carriers
@@user-qt1kb2lp6f it had been done before.
It was a practice arrived at by previous experience with the Spitfire which had the same long nose, reducing visibility.
You can thank Eric Winkle Brown for that Sir 🇬🇧
FYI, ref the “Ensign Eliminator” moniker. Ensign, a naval rank, is pronounced like n-sun rather then on-sign.
Not gunna to lie, that really threw me. Was going to leave a similar comment
I thought he said “on-side eliminator”
Equivalent to midshipman.
@@francoistombeno, in US Naval service a midshipman is an officer cadet, an ensign is a the initial grade of the commissioned officer ranks.
The narration is probably by an AI 'bot.
The Fulmar was not a development of the Battle, but was derived from the Fairey P4/34, a different aircraft altogether. D
The Hampton Gray Corsair was originally a Goodyear replica. It was the pride and joy of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum and often few tandem with their Spit, Hurricane and Mustang or B25 on weekends. Never knew dark sea blue could look so cool. Gray now has a Royal Canadian Navy Icebreaker named after him. There are six in the class all named after Canadian War Heros
I recommend the book "Carrier Pilot" by Norman Hanson a FAA pilot, he flew Corsairs in the Pacific.
Yep..good book. Google Fleet Air Arm books..quite anumber written by WW2 pilots....
The RNZAF operated 364 Corsairs during WW2 & received another 60 US aircraft after the war which were used until 1948.
When I was a kid I loved the TV show Baa Baa Black sheep. Ever since I’ve loved this aircraft! I’m Australian, we never had them, but I’ve served in the RAN 30+ years ago and never knew there Corsairs dumped outside Sydney Harbour. I’ve transited through Sydney Heads and exercised in the Eastern Australian Exercise Area many times. 👍
NoName-ds5uq ; In 1959 when I was 14 years old, I received a flying model of the F4U Corsair. It had the .049 engine.
That's when I fell in love with that plane. Still ❤️ it.
And the P51, P47, P38, B25 B24 and the list goes on 😂.
@@harrisonmantooth7363 great story mate, love it! I have a massive soft spot for a few British types too… Bristol Beaufighter(the stories my grandfather told about those fromhis time in the army…) and De Havilland Mosquito, both used by Australia during the war. So was the Liberator. Also the Mustang, we had them into the 50s despite having jets by then and Australian P-51s based in Japan were the first allied aircraft into combat in the Korean War. A little outdated by then…
Wow, you too, I used to watch that show as well as a young boy, just to see the Corsairs, was my favorite show!!🇺🇸👍
A neighbor of mine worked on the cast as "Sgt. Randy Kline" (1977)
@@jackdaniel7465 it was mine too! I looked forward to every Friday night when it was on! I got to go to my grandparents place to watch it on their colour TV(we only had B&W) while Mum went to bingo… 🤣
the British carrier was called, Indefatigable "In dee fat a guble"
Which he said correctly. Get over accents they mean nothing to pronunciation.
@@Boric78No, you're absolutely wrong, the narrator distinctly said it incorrectly.
Also, your second sentence makes no sense.
@@Boric78 he wasn't even close.
@@orwellboy1958 I blame the parents ™
Pretty sure it's an AI 'bot. The pronunciations of several words were funny.
Robert Hampton Grey, Flew off of the HMS FORMIDABLE. August 9, 1945. R.I.P.
This Victoria Cross recipient was from Trail, BC. One thing I learned at the Internment Camp Museum at New Denver was that Trail was off limits to Japanese. I looked into it and found that was because there was a heavy water production facility there as part of the Manhattan Project.
@@tpxchallenger Yes and at CFB Comox there is a wax figure of Grey with a good history of him plus in Ottawa there is a row of ''Busts'' of Famous and honoured Canadians, including Grey and as well Mynarski.
At the height of the UK warbird scene in the mid-nineties, I remember seeing four Corsairs in formation at Duxford's Flying Legends air show.
Thanks for a nice video. As a Corsair enthusiast and RC aircraft modeler most of the story is well known to me but it was very well presented. I did not know about the attack at Bodø Norway. As a Norwegian it’s a bit special that the only place Corsairs operated in Europe during WW2 was in Norway.
That was new for me also, quite an important mission.
Don't forget the RNZAF also used Corsairs
Curving finals to left. That's an Empire thing that is. I wonder where else that is used.
RNZAF ought to be a lot larger than it is. I hope you're not needed.
To find out more about the Corsair's introduction into service & combat in the Pacific, I highly recommend the book "Carrier Pilot" by Norman A Hanson, who flew them out of HMS Illustrious. Its a great insight into how they flew & were used.
I agree, it's a great read.
My Farther in Law Richard A F Allen DFC and Bar was on that Turpitz raid flying flack suppression. A great guy who sadly passed away in 2014.
I asked him what it was like, deliberately flying at a gun sighted to kill you.
He said they worked out a tactic that meant it was easy to mauve around the tracer as one would start a long straffing dive, as the guns turned on them a second aircraft would come in lower and to the left to deliver the actual straffing. It was very effective and the managed to knock out almost all of the AA.
In the early '70's, there were a few Corsairs in El Salvador's Air Force, stationed at Ilopango airport. I was working for Pan Am at the time, and enjoyed watching these planes fly by, land and taxi to their respective hangars across the field form me. Loved seeing them!
I think on the whole the Brits and USA worked together extremely well and especially when it came to enhancing each others aircraft. Us Brits back then were masters of craftmanship and through the likes of "uncle" Henry Ford the Americans were master of mass production - there are significant flaws in each of those approaches but when both areas of expertise can leveraged together some pretty unbeatable machines were created. The 51 Mustang is an excellent example of this too I believe.
Yeah, the RR Merlin made the P-51 the WORLDBEATER that it was! Your comment sums up what the "special relationship" between the UK and US is all about... 😀
@@markymarknj NO production Merlin Mustang used a RR Built merlin !!! All Mustang merlins were made by PACKARD in AMERICA as were 37.137 Packard Merlins for the Brits !! !
@@wilburfinnigan2142 I'm aware of the Packard Merlin, but it was still based on the RR design. Also, someone had the bright idea to marry the Merlin with the Mustang, so as to morph the airplane into the icon it became. Anyway, we both helped each other during the war!
@@markymarknj Actually the USA saved the Britd @$$'s in WWII with its industrial might and huge influx of men and machines into the ETO and the steady stream of war supplies from our factories !!!
My dad, RNVR 785 Squadron, were being trained in the USA and there final base being USN Bangor. They flew their aircraft to start their final carrier training, these were the touch n go training on the USS CHARGER, in Chesapeake Bay. He was training on Dive bombers. Sadly one of his best friends, was in a Corsair that did not only bounce past the arrestor hooks but over the netting and over the side into the bay.
The US Navy was aware of and had experimented with the curved landing approach of Corsairs sans British input. They had the option of the F6F Hellcat coming down the pike which was an easier airplane to fly and land on a carrier deck. Later, when the Navy did decide they wanted carrier based Corsairs, the US did utilize several other improvements pioneered by the British, particularly the improved canopy, that made carrier landings easier.
No, just more fairytale's.
Two US Navy squadrons VF-17 and VF-12 were both carrier qualified in the spring of 1943 and they landed their F4U's the same way they'd landed F4F's which was the standard way the Navy landed all their aircraft, read Tommy Blackburn's book Jolly Rogers, he was the first commander of VF-17 and had combat experience flying F4F's off of carrier's in the Mediterranean during Operation Torch, he trained his pilots to land the same way they landed all other US Navy aircraft on carrier's, pass the carrier on the downwind and count 30 seconds, make a 180° turn to line up with the carrier, at 200 yards from the carrier start watching the LSO who can easily be seen off to the left of the aircrafts nose, the big problem with landing the early "Birdcage" F4U was the struts which lacked proper rebound dampening and caused them to hop as high as 15 feet sometimes on a hard landing, while VF-17 was getting carrier qualified on a converted steamship, the USS Charger in Chesapeake Bay, they worked directly with Vought to improve the F4U resulting in the F4U-1A.
VF-17 was even on the newly commissioned USS Bunker Hill with their brand new F4U-1A's on it's way to the Solomon's when they put in at Pearl Harbor for provisions when they were informed that ComAirLand (the Navy department in charge of all US Navy aircraft) had ordered all F4U's removed from carrier service citing the lack of spare parts and qualified maintenance crews as the reason, not because of some nonsense about US Navy pilots not being able to land their own aircraft on their own carrier's.
The reason they were reinstated for carrier service was because in June of 1944 the Japanese launched their Kamikaze campaign in ernest, the thinking was to put an F4U squadron on each Essex class carrier and launch first once incoming Japanese aircraft were detected, using their superior climb rate and speed they'd intercept any incoming Kamikaze's first with F6F's launching behind them to intercept any that made it through the F4U's.
That's the true story about the service record of the F4U in the US Navy during WW2 and not some made up fairytale nonsense by people taking credit for something they don't deserve that can't be backed up beyond "We say so", there's no record's of US Navy pilots being sent somewhere to be trained by Royal Navy personnel, no copies of orders, not even any testimony from US Navy pilot's about being sent somewhere to be trained, only claims made by people that were printed in books by authors eager to tell a target audience something they'd want to hear for the sake of selling books that was later made famous by The History Channel that God knows has repeated every WW2 myth there is which over the past 20 years that have all been debunked one at a time, no wonder they switched to alien's, that's about as accurate as most everything they aired about WW2.
It's a nonsense story made up by braggers telling their children bedtime stories.
You will be claiming next, the captured egnima decoding machine was by a US navy sailor, aboard a US destroyer that rammed a U boat. And the sailor searched the U boat before it sank. All this did indeed happen, but it was Royal navy sailor. And a Royal Navy destroyer.
@@dukecraig2402According to wartime NAVAER ACPs and US Navy flight testing the F4U-1 and F6F-3/5 had very similar climb rates and climb speeds.
Do you have a source that Hellcat units were held in reserve during Kamikaze attacks? Being that it was the primary shipboard fighter until the EOW I find this hard to believe.
The Corsair was eventually placed on carriers during December 1944. This was after the first organized Kamikaze attacks in October 1944, not in June as you stated in your post.
But I do agree with you that it was VF-17 and not the FAA which was the primary source of the modifications making the F4U a more suitable carrier aircraft. Furthermore, British pilots were trained by the US Navy on how to fly the Corsair and this included the curved approach. It was a very common method utilized by carrier pilots by this time.
@@darrenwhiteside1619 The US Navy Evaluation Board recommended Corsairs replace the Hellcats on carriers in May of 1944. This is long before the kamikazes first appearance in October of ‘44. I agree that all British aircrews assigned Corsairs were trained in the US by US Navy instructors including ground and shipboard landing procedures. There were Corsair night fighter squadrons aboard Enterprise and Yorktown as early as January and February respectively 1944.
Excellent video. No mention made of British pilots, trained in USA, flying from US carriers. I met one in 1979. He said the high stalling speed was a problem in deck landings. He would not talk about "action" but said planes returning after combat did not know if controls had been damaged until too late. He never flew again but retained a slight accent!
Video mentioned The Brits trained in USA on the corsairs !!! Not paying attention ????
Trained in US and then flew from UK carriers. How many remained with US navy?
The US Navy was still ordering new Corsairs in Korean War. Some Marine Reserve squadrons still flew Corsairs after Korea was over
That's why I was surprised that the presenter here said that the US didn't want the RN Corsairs back. We used them in the Korean War; in fact, it was one of the only WWII propeller types to still be in service in the Jet Age.
Keep in mind that there were so many surplus American aircraft at the close of WWII. Also, Korea was five years away. Some WWII Corsairs took part early in the Korean conflict, but several improvements to the F4U also took place in the years between the two wars.
@@markymarknj
It might also be because the RN cut about a foot off each wing to clear the low hangar overhead on British hangar decks.
@@fazole that's a good point.
@@markymarknj Yes, and no.... The AD Skyraider was DESIGNED during WWII but technically didn't enter production until after VJ Day, so one could make an argument about it being a WWII DESIGN.
Just the other day I was telling a friend that with the P-47 still in ANG service after WWII; it would have made a MUCH superior ground-attack plane in Korea than the vulnerable Mustang would have been.
My understanding is that instead of just having a crewman on the carrier deck signalling the pilot by waving “paddles “, the British Navy installed lights on the carrier deck that were only visible to the Corsair pilot if he was at the correct height off the deck. The combination of the lights plus their idea of turning into a landing position is what enabled the British to successfully use the Corsairs on carriers. My understanding is that after the USA Navy adopted these British solutions , then the Americans were able to use Corsairs on their carriers. (If I am mistaken, I welcome documentation that revises my understanding)
In the book Jolly Rogers, Tom Blackburn describes how as CO of VF 17 he lead the first ever carrier use of the Corsair on the Bunker Hill in Sept. 43.
Yes we used British tech to make it easier, later
My Father worked for the FAA as an engineer and worked on all of these. His story about this aircraft was having to stamp on the locking pins to make sure they dropped into the fixings before flight, or the wings would collapse in the first dive!
I once years ago saw 4 corsairs doing formation aerobatics at a warbirds airshow.
This was at Coventry airport in the UK.
An amazing sight that I will never forget.
Well Done Sir! You used footage that I have not seen before. A lot of content creators use the same footage over and over again.
My grandfather was a CPO on HMS Illustrious, in 45 he went over to the USS Saratoga for two months to train on maintaining the new US planes. By then most of their UK planes were clapped out. Once they had the new planes, they did joint us/uk task force mission to take out oil refineries in Indonesia.
My dad was on HMS Illustrious in the Indian ocean and Pacific he was an air frame fitter with 810 squadron
Excellent video, very informative. Well done
Good vid.
Thank you for posting.
A very interesting video the F4U was definitely a very capable carrier strike aircraft, after the British modifications something I wasn't aware of , your videos sometimes seem like the Dark skies video series but you have taken a lot more time in selecting the correct film scenes unlike the dark skies series who just use anything that looks like an aeroplane on black n white film.
They [Dark Skies] cater for people who don't know the first thing about aircraft...Aircraft recognition Zero...
I am sure Dark Skies just sticks his hand in a box marked "War Film Footage" and drags out a bit and says that will do without even viewing it. :))
And it's nonsense, VF-17 was the first carrier qualified squadron in the spring of 1943, during that time it was them that worked directly with Vought to improve the F4U resulting in the F4U-1A.
For doing so Vought gave them the very first F4U-1A's off the assembly line, armed with them VF-17 was assigned to the brand new USS Bunker Hill and departed the states on it bound for the Solomon Islands, but when they put in at Pearl Harbor for provisions they were told that ComAirLand, the department in charge of all US Navy aircraft, had ordered all F4U's removed from carrier service, so VF-17 was unloaded at Pearl and replaced with an F6F squadron, afterwards they were loaded onto another carrier that took them to Espiritu Santo where they operated off an airstrip there.
Later in June of 1944 when the Japanese launched their Kamikaze campaign in ernest it was decided that because of their superior climb rate and speed an F4U squadron would be put on every Essex class carrier, the thinking being that they would launch first to intercept incoming Kamikaze's and F6F's would launch behind them to intercept any that made it through the F4U's.
It was VF-17 and no one else that worked with Vought, and F4U's were removed from carrier service because of the lack of spare parts Vought had available to support them along with the lack of qualified maintenance crews, they weren't removed from carrier service because US Navy pilots couldn't master landing them and they weren't returned because someone taught them how, it's just another WW2 myth that was started by people taking credit for something they don't deserve and aviation writer's printing it who were eager to tell their target audience something they'd want to hear for the sake of selling books, there's not one shred of evidence to support it beyond "We say so", no copies of orders for US Navy pilots to report to some Royal Navy unit for training, no reports on such a program and no testimony from US Navy pike that they were ever part of some fictitious training program, it's just a myth started by braggers telling their children bedtime stories.
Read Tommy Blackburn's book Jolly Rogers to learn the truth about US Navy pilots becoming carrier qualified, their landing technique which was exactly the same as the way they landed F4F's and all other US Navy aircraft and who it was that worked with Vought to improve the F4U resulting in the F4U-1A, Blackburn was the commander of VF-17.
@dukecraig2402 did somebody violate your fanny ,your the best of American arseholes ive come across, nobody's taking anything away from the US forces so calm down Rambo
@@dukecraig2402 YES!!! Thank you for your INFORMED explanation. There are several good books on this topic. "Whistling Death" by Boone Guyto is one of several. Vought Sikorsky / Chance Vought was working closely with the navy e.g. Lt. Commander Blackburn.
A good video, well presented and detailed, thank you.
Great content, thanks for your effort in producing it
Glad you enjoy it!
Also worth noting the British lessened the port wing stall trouble by adding a 6" triangular 'stall strip' to the starbord wing leading edge outboard of the guns. With this added both wings would stall at the same point. They initially added these themselves made from wood but later they came from the factory already fitted.
Read Boone Guyton's book "Whistling Death." Guyton was the Corsair PRIMARY TEST PILOT working for Chance Vought in Stratford, Connecticut. On page 176 March 1944 Guyton notes that the "6 inch wedge attached to the leading edge of the right wing". Guyton also mentions the people Vought was working with on this modification. Remind me again. When did the Royal Navy get Corsairs?
Great video, thanks for the history.
Glad you enjoyed it
The tendency for the left (port) wing to stall on landing was overcome by the addition of a short piece of right-angled alloy at a specific position on the leading edge of the right (starboard) wing.
Very excellent. Thank You
Excellent video, thank you.
Glad you liked it!
Nice presentation. I liked the use of the real aircraft photos to match your discussions rather than any old photo. Earned my sub and like. Thanks.
Great video
Your videos are ever increasing in scope. The information you gathered about the end-of-life of the Royal Navy Corsairs was very interesting, a topic rarely covered in aircraft overview videos.
Also, great selection of original footage.
Thanks so much!
Great stuff
Thanks!
This is an unusual aviation video, as almost all of its content was unknown to me. Excellent presentation!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I freakin LOVE the corsair!!
I don't care for most US WWII aircraft, but the F4U Vought Corsair? It's beautiful and AWESOME!!
The Corsair stayed in U.S. navy service through the Korean war as fighter bombers even changing their designation to AUs.
The Corsair has always been my favorite plane. I was never aware Britain had then, though I shouldn't be surprised.
The reverse gull wing also has significant aerodynamic value. It meets the cylindrical fuselage at the centreline. Therefore no need for fancy fairings to smooth airflow around what is normally an aerodynamically noisy connection.
Not a reverse gull wing... just a gull wing.
All news to me. Thanks!
I live in Brunswick Maine and the old naval air base here was used to train Royal. Navy corsair Pilots. There are a few at least 2 anyways in sebago Lake that collided in mid-air during a training flight that are still there to this day with their pilots. And I do believe it's considered a uk war grave.
Really?
Not saying you are lying, but I know Sebago like the back of my hand and never heard of it.
Do you know where exactly?
@Johnnycdrums I don't know the exact location in the lake but it's Documented. A guy sent an rov down and got pictures of the wreck and remains of the pilot still in it. That video is on youtube if you want to look for the sebago lake corsair. He wanted to bring the aircraft up but it's considered a war grave by the u k so they're going to stay down there I guess.
@Johnnycdrums sebago lake corsair jt160, first result when I searched youtube. It's a bit of a rabbit hole once you get into researching it but quite Interesting.
Why did the British use the Corsair??? Because the British did not have a good Aircraft carrier fighter and it was a damn good aircraft!!
Great visual design, good art
Fascinating.
They used it because it was the best fighter in WWII. Not the Mustang, Thunderbolt, Spitfire or any of the other ones people gravitate to. Or as USN said in their trials: The F4U-1 airplane appears to be the superior fighter for Naval or Marine employment, either land for ship-based except in the case where substantially all the fighting occurs above 25,000. Simply put, it out-climbed, out-turned and out-gunned everything and only the P51 out-performed it as an escort fighter. It was a hell of airplane and I am so glad the Royal Navy helped unlock its full potential.
still am amazed the martlet/wildcat only once late in the war mixed it up with 109s you would think in the med there might be same for the corsair
Excellent job! I did not know that the Corsairs were flown by the British in WW2.
and loved by them. If the Fleet Air Arm had a vote the Corsair would have won it hands down, until the arrival of the Fury. Eric Brown (worlds greatest fighter pilot) thought it was wonderful. And he thought the Zeros and Me109 were a "bit shit".
And not used exclusively in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.
Excellent.
I knew a lovely old gent that flew these in the Fleet Air Arm. He’s long gone now but I remember him with a glass of red as good company. He flew Seafires in the Mediterranean, then the Corsair. I remember him talking about the torque of the engine being severe before take offs.
He didn’t talk too much about the war, but he mentioned losing friends in the Mediterranean whilst strafing. He had a DFC or DSC too, can’t remember which.
there is a story, late in the war, pacific theater, a Corsair pilot on his way to his unit stopped at a depot. there were many Corsairs parked. He asked what was up. A serviceman said these had reached 500 hours on the engine and were being sent back for rebuild. He asked if he could swap. the man said sure. He thought for a moment, but decided against it. The Corsairs being sent back were US Navy blue, and his was Royal Air sea green. Their Corsairs were operated to 2500 hours on the engine before rebuild
Nonsense story, engine's had log's that determined when they'd be replaced, not the entire aircraft sent somewhere, but when the engine would be replaced according to how much time was spent at different throttle settings, and the engine manufacturers laid down the specifications for everything not whatever country had the aircraft.
And you just didn't "stop in to some depot out of the clear blue" and swap aircraft.
Not only is it a nonsense story every aspect about it is nonsense, like the fact that the crew chief is who signed for the plane and if you came back with a different one there'd be some serious problems with it.
My uncle! FAA ( DSO ) apparently trained American pilots in the British technique to land Corsair on carriers ! But using Brewster Buffalo’s ,
Because they were obsolete, !
Good story!
How about a video about British use of the P-47 Thunderbolt next? I know they were used, but they're hardly ever mentioned, while British use of the various Mustang versions get mentioned fairly often. Lots of British Mustang color schemes online, don't ever recall seeing a British Thunderbolt.
The Mustang was developed solely to satisfy RAF requirements not USAAF
@@edhoward-bearder3081 True. Nevertheless, Britain was a minor user of the Merlin variants, though of course they probably used far more Mustangs than they did Thunderbolts.
@@edhoward-bearder3081 The Mustang was the brain child of Dutch Kindelberger and Lee Atwood that they had mostly developed and sold to the Brits who were desperate for fighters and took what they could get, and this info from the people at North merican, not some Butt hurt embarassed Brit....The Brits wanted the P40 and North American refused to build an obsolete plane.
@@iskandartaib Brits used about 3,000 mustangs and all but the first 618 were Merlin verions !! !
Thank you Royal navy for showing us Americans how to land our plane on a carrier lol.
It is my favorite plane of the war, an uncle worked on a carrier deck in the Pacific during the war and he taught me about the Corsairs when I was in grade school.
The Sweetheart of Okinawa.
This was a very good video, I watch quite a lot of WW2 documentaries, this was top notch!
The Americans knew very well of the angled approach, it was just simpler to pass the Corsair on to the Marines and other ground based squadrons and use the new Hellcat onboard instead.
It wasn't until the US Navy saw it's superior potential as a fighter-bomber and as an interceptor (superior to Hellcat) that they really wanted to try carrier decks again.
So no, as much as folks would love to give the Brits credit for something, hard fail here.
@@JD-tn5lzsource - "trust me bro"
Another BS WW2 myth, VF-17 and VF-12 were both carrier qualified in the spring of 43, VF-17 is who worked directly with Vought to improve the F4U resulting in the F4U-1A, they were given the very first F4U-1A's off the assembly line when they were assigned to the USS Bunker Hill, before leaving for their assignment in the Solomon's the skipper of the Bunker Hill told VF-17's commander Tommy Blackburn that he'd heard through the pipeline that the Navy had intended to pull all F4U's from carrier service citing the lack of spare parts and qualified maintenance crews, he ask Blackburn what he intended to do, request for VF-17 to be switched to F6F's so they could stay with the Bunker Hill or request that they be allowed to keep their F4U's and take whatever land based assignment they got, Blackburn told him if he had things his way they'd stay on the Bunker Hill and get to keep the aircraft they'd spent so much time with and had total faith in, the Bunker Hill's skipper told him "That's just what I wanted to hear, let's go talk to the Admiral", after pleading their case the Admiral in charge of the task force said he'd see to it that VF-17 got to keep their F4U'S and get to stay on the Bunker Hill, as a result the USS Bunker Hill departed the states with VF-17 onboard along with their F4U'S, but when they put in at Pearl Harbor on the way to the Solomon's to take on provisions they were told that ComAirLand (the department in the US Navy that was in charge of all naval aircraft) had ordered all F4U's removed from carrier service because of the lack of spare parts and qualified maintenance crews, as a result VF-17 and their F4U's were unloaded from the Bunker Hill at Pearl and replaced with a carrier qualified F6F squadron, afterwards they were loaded onto a carrier that took them to the Solomon's where they occupied and operated out of an airstrip on the island of Espiritu Santo.
During just 76 days of combat VF-17 had a confirmed score of 154.5 Japanese aircraft with a kill to loss ratio of over 11 to 1, and during that period 13 VF-17 pilots made ace status, that exceeded the Blacksheep Squadron by a factor of ⅓ more.
It was after the Japanese launched their Kamikaze campaign in ernest in June of 1944 that the Navy decided to return F4U's to carrier service, their superior climb rate and speed over the F6F was utilized to intercept incoming Kamikaze's, the thinking was to start by putting an F4U squadron on every Essex class carrier that would launch first to intercept incoming Kamikaze's with F6F's launching behind them to intercept any that made it through them, that's why the US Navy removed F4U's from carrier service in the first place and then returned them later, not because US Navy pilots couldn't master landing them on carrier's and later returning them to carrier service after someone taught them how, that fairytale is not only absolutely laughable but there's not one shred of evidence that it's true beyond "We say so", there's no record's of US Navy pilots being trained by Royal Navy personnel on how to land F4U's on carrier's, there's no copies of orders assigning them to be trained by the Royal Navy, and there's no testimony whatsoever from US Navy pilots who were sent anywhere to be trained by Royal Navy personnel, it's just another WW2 myth made famous by the producers of The History Channel that God knows never fact checked anything, like ball turret gunner myths and M4 Sherman myths it's just more nonsense that was born in the years after the war from people taking credit for something they had no right to printed in books by authors eager to make a target audience happy for the sake of selling books, but at the end of the day it's nothing more than a nonsense yarn born from braggers telling their children bedtime stories.
It's the most ridiculous claim ever made in military history that pilots like that needed someone to teach them how to land their own aircraft on their own carrier's, US Navy pilots combat record's speak to their flying skills, along with the fact that they've done other things such as landing on the moon, which is probably the evening that the F4U myth was started by someone who experienced a jealous rage when he saw ex US Navy pilot Neil Armstrong pilot the Eagle to a landing on the moon.
There's not one bit of truth nor is there one bit of evidence beyond "We say so" to the nonsense myth that the Royal Navy had to teach US Navy pilots how to land their own aircraft on their own carrier's, and no one can come up with one shred of evidence beyond hollow claims because it simply isn't true.
I think your response has taken that rather too literally. The spirit of it is that the US Navy didn’t routinely use the Corsair at sea until the Royal Navy showed that it could be done routinely. I don’t think there was any suggestion that the RN formally trained the US Navy. The only evidence I have is LtCdr Norman Hanson RNVR who stated in carrier pilot that the US Navy felt that the Corsair needed a higher than average pilot to land it on a deck, whereas the Hellcat was much more straightforward and was therefore the more logical choice.
@@guypenrose5477 that was my takeaway also.
The problem with the Corsair as a carrier fighter was the poor forward visibility over the long nose when landing on the deck. The Brits solved this by landing on the deck at a somewhat sideways angle just before touchdown, so the pilots could see along one side of the fuselage instead of straight ahead over the nose, to be better able to see the approaching deck. You can see them doing that at 7:27
Royal Navy teaches the U.S. Navy the curved approach to the aircraft carrier? Read "F4U Corsair at War" by Richard Abrams. Go to the chapter "Corsairs with the Royal Navy" by Lieutenant Commander (A) Norman S. Hanson. Yes, Lieutenant Commander Hanson also wrote the book "Carrier Pilot." These pull quotes from "F4U Corsair at War". Deck landing on a full-sized deck essayed by the first two squadrons when they joined HMS Illustrious in December 1943, proved to be distinctly hazardous." Further; "Illustrious" Captain decided that further deck-landing training was essential." Also NOTE "the fact that the current RN landing "pattern" was totally unsuited for the Corsair." If you have the book "Whistling Death" by Boone Guyton you will find the U.S. Navy was instructing the Corsair curved approach BEFORE the Royal Navy had Corsairs.
I saw one at the warbirds museum Wanaka Airport NZ. Sometime about the mid nineties
A very informative video indeed. One small error is seen when discussing the Blackburn Roc, wherein it is stated that the turret had only a single Browning .303 machine gun. Actually, the turret - the same Boulton Paul power-operated turret as fitted to the firm's Defiant - was equipped with four .303 machine guns. The main problem with the Roc was its pathetically slow speed, and its lack of any forward facing armament.
think he was referring to the single rear gun of the Skua
@ kjg2626: You wonder why the Blackburn company prewar & during the war didn’t match up their own planes to fly & operate with Rolls Royce Merlin Engines too that would have definitely made up for any shortfalls in engine-power output deficiencies in their models that were nearly all specifically built for naval/ carrier operations??!! It would have been logistically easier to supply & upkeep them too, as with other numerous British-made aircraft then at those times??!!
@@trevorfuller1078 finite number of Merlins to go round and the Merlin wasn't a done deal at the time the Roc and Skua were designed. A radial might be specified for particular reasons eg for operations in tropics where liquid cooled engines don't perform as well. And even as the Roc and Skua were being built and entered service, the aircraft to succeed them was under development. Fulmar and Firefly first flying in 1940 and 41. Add to that, Blackburn didn't build the Roc, it was Boulton Paul who did the detailed design work and manufactured them.
@@gleggett3817 : True but RR Merlin’s were also being manufactured by one or two companies in the States under licence as well as in Canada & Australia too I believe! The Blackburn company could also produce good planes but sometimes quite often in fact, they were late to the party in design concepts for anticipating future needs & requirements!!
@@trevorfuller1078Packard didn't get their verrsion of Merlin running until 1941. Specification for Skua was drawn up by Air Ministry in 1934 two years before first production Merlin engine took a plane into the air
Thanks!
Have a completely restored Korean WAR CORSAIR ON AN AIRPORT NEAR MY HOME.What a Beautiful Aircraft to watch,sounds so powerful and impressive!
Great video, thanks! I watched a different channel (In their Own Words) and the British pilot veterans had some disparaging remarks about American pilots. Looking at your video I see a few British crashes as well!
The British Empire had a Corsair like design prototype known as the Bristol Type 133 which if modifed to increase its length and re-engined could have been the British Vought Corsair
Because the twin-engined 'fighters' sucked in air-to-air combat and the early-model Seafire conversions were awful. On top of that, the Americans didn't want it because they had the F6F Hellcat, which was better at landing on carriers - at least to begin with.
@11:23 look at the props that boat is a rocking
Counter rotating smaller props would have been an interesting if expensive modification for this awesome aircraft to give it more prop to deck clearance on landing.
British Corsairs were made in the Brewster Aircraft Factory in Warminster, PA just outside Philadelphia. The Company went Bankrupt in 1944 for mismanagement and labor issues.
Watch the video again, and pay attention this time.
I was watching the original “War of the Worlds “ . At the very beginning they showed a few aircraft of World War Ii Supermarine Seafire with a fuel Drop Tank under the fuselage. It was interesting to see it show up in this old film.
Hi, liked your F4U Doc.
My father served with Corsairs with the Royal Navy.
I have original official photos he had kept.
There was no mention however of HMS Venerable Carrier, on which he served with them.
With the American fleet under Admiral Halsey for part of this.
He also came out to Australia, where I live now, (he eventually moved here after the war).
He was cheif artificer to the Fleet Air Arm crews, often accompanying them to land bases, including one they established near Sydney.
My father was an airframe rigger with the FAA, served thoughout the war, there are photos of his time in Australia, I asked why he was there, as some appear to be on a cattle farm! He said they were waiting for the invasion of Japan, where they would be on forward air bases, but fortunately the war ended before this happened.
I'm not aware of any proof of the Brewster built Corsairs having their wings fall off in flight. From what I understand, the Brewster Corsairs were built just as well as those by Vought, but Brewster was woefully understaffed and could not keep up with production demands.
I've read the same thing about Brewster built Corsairs but I don't know what the source material was for that book.
at the end of corsair program you show a DAF spitfire squadron which is RCAF 417 could show some thing about them/or the spitfire which would be great thanks
The inventiveness of the British during wartime cannot be underestimated, they also got the P-51 working by spooning a Melin into it
36. ... According to them, the Allison is averaging 1500 hours between bearing failures as compared to 500 to 600 hours for the Merlin. The Allison, they have found, will drag them home even with the bearing ruined.
PART 7 MUSTANG VARIANTS OF THE RAF AND RAAF
Mustangs for the RAF (P-51A)
th-cam.com/video/usqV_zUpGCs/w-d-xo.html
@@nickdanger3802 only iff the Allison didn't catch fire or throw a con rod first. The Allisons were not very reliable until late in the war when the intake manifold was redesigned. Even then, it wasn't the best or reliable at high altitude, not even in the P-82 in Korea.
The Spitfire went through improvements and strengthened throughout the war, far surpassing the Allison. The Merlin 66 was up to a reliable 2000 hp by 1944 with water injection and 150 octane.
@@bobsakamanos4469 Can you source anything on problems with Allison engines ?
RR Merlins benefited from products made in the USA.
"It had been intended to utilise the evaporative cooling system but was replaced by the more reliable ethylene glycol liquid cooling system developed in the United States."
"The Merlin XX incorporated a number of revisions based on early operational experience and the availability of 100 octane fuel from America."
Spitfire Society Technical page
"For the next important and powerful Merlin 66 engine, Rolls Royce finally decided to use the Bendix-Stromberg Injection carburettor. The American Bendix-Stromberg pressure carburettor was developed in the mid 1930’s and was in production from 1938. This carburettor was designed to operate as a fully pressurised fuel system that dispensed with the problematic float controlled fuel level with its emulsion tubes and diffusers. Negative G had no effect on fuel flow or carburettor function. The pressurised and metered fuel flow was delivered as a spray into the inlet air stream just in front of the supercharger inlet. This feature virtually removed the risk of carburettor icing, in fact the throttles and chokes of the injection carburettor did not need heating by hot oil or coolant circulation at all and their deletion removed several other problems associated with the previous provision of those heating circuits.
Rolls Royce had been aware of the Bendix-Stromberg Pressure type of carburettor for several years and versions of the carburettor were used on many American engines including the Allison V-1710. Notably, Packard built their Merlins in the USA with a version of the Bendix PD16 from the very start of Packard Merlin production."
ROLLS-ROYCE MERLIN CARBURETTOR DEVELOPMENT
There are a number of significant flaws in this video. The FAA did NOT come up with the curved approach for the Corsair. There are photos and film of American navy aircraft using the curved approach in the late 1930s, and there are photos and film of the USN using the curved approach with the Corsair when it was undergoing carrier trials in 1942.
The Corsair was not disapproved for carrier operations by the USN in 1942-1943. The reason it was decided to use the Corsair from land is carrier logistics and maintenance. There was and still is limited storage space for spare parts on an aircraft carrier and limited space for additional maintenance personnel, and the decision was made to ‘pure fleet’ the carrier borne fighters with the F6F Hellcat.
yes, you are correct
In the book Jolly Rogers, Tom Blackburn describes how as CO of VF 17 he lead the first ever carrier use of the Corsair on the Bunker Hill in Sept. 43.
@@perh8258 Yes, 100%. Plus Boone Guyton in his book "Whistling Death" mentions the "curved approach" while monitoring a navy carrier training exercise. All this BEFORE the British had Corsairs.
My favourite American aeroplane. There's just something about it, especially considering that it took both British and American engineers to get it to it's best whilst a Canadian is possibly one of the aircraft's most famous pilots.
Excellent, The British Navy in the Pacific flying possible the best navy fighter of WW2...a point overlooked by many documentary's...mostly American...about the War in the east..
The last thing the Corsair design had was "Carrier-based practicality" (00:29); which was why it was confined the shored based operation with the USMC before the Brits worked out how to get around the Ensign-killer characteristics inherent in the design; good landing gear and folding wings aside.
To expand on the reason for using the curved approach, in a descending turn an aircrafts inside wing is flying at a lower angle of attack than the outside wing during the turn so is far less likely to stall.
Thanks! :D
I'd like to point out something that is almost always left out when discussing the Corsair's bent wing. The aerodynamic benefits of a wing protruding more or less at 90 degrees from the fuselage was at least as important as the benefit of shorter landing gear/greater propeller diameter. The same principle is demonstrated by the mid-fuselage wing on the Mig-15. I have read that this consideration was primary and the consequent benefit of shorter landing gear functioned to seal the deal, so to speak.
Do you have references? I'm curious.
@@rocketguardian2001 I'm afraid I don't remember where I saw this but I definitely did see it and as I recall, the source was reputable. I hope you can forgive me!
Having said that, the aerodynamics of the wing protruding directly out of the fuselage being superior is beyond question. Witness even the difference the F4F and the F6F where the low wing compromise was made to accommodate the larger propeller on the F6F. That much I saw on Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles channel.
Edited for completeness.
@@johnklatt3522 Thanks for swooping in and rescuing my credibility!
ITS CALLED INTERFERENCE DRAG, AND IS WHY F4F'S HAVE A 90 DEGREE ATTACHMENT SEE" GREG'S PLANES" FOR A DETAILED ENGINEERING REPORT@@rocketguardian2001
GREG'S AUTOS AND AIRPLANES@@johnwiles4391
Robert Hampton Grey was the last Canadian to win the VC. This is in terms of his actions leading to the award. The last Canadian to chronologically win the VC was CSM Osborne at Hong Kong in 1941 but because his exploits were not made known until at the end of the war he did not receive the award (also posthumously) until after the war.
The exact same propeller was also on the Grumman F6F Hellcat aka a conventional carrier aircraft, the gull wing design was for a higher top speed. The F4U and the F6F not only shared the same prop but the exact same engine, the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp. Because of its better aerodynamics, it's gull wings, the F4U was more slippery in the air giving it in some estimates 40 mph more than the Hellcat 417 mph for the Corsair to the Hellcat's 380 mph.
@@johnklatt3522 Thank you for the more succinct information. Do you know the diameter of the prop of the earlier dash -1 F4Us? I thought they were the same between the Grumman and the Chance-Vought ships, with the one on the Corsair being an inch longer in some of the stuff I read.
@@johnklatt3522 Here is a film from 1944 has some Nakajima Ki-43, some Buffaloes and a P-40 or two, it's called Kato's Hayabusa Sen-tai th-cam.com/video/NdD6DezelBs/w-d-xo.html
@@johnklatt3522 Thank you so very much.
Fairey Swordfish was contemporary with Hawker Hunter. It was built as a heavy lift STOL machine in the days before helicopters existed. It was in use throughout WW2. So much for it being obsolete.
The Hunter entered service 9 years after the Swordfish was retired... I'm not sure what you're getting at here..?
The Corsair is the most beautiful and stately of American Naval aircraft. And oh what a power plant. Would love to catch a ride in one.
You could probably make a video by itself on how the lend lease terms of "pay for plane or return" turned into "dump them in sea" just by itself. Although that might be a tad off topic for an aviation channel. Good video!