Vought F4U-1D Corsair

The Vought F4U Corsair was the fastest and most powerful carrier-based fighter of World War II, recognizable by its distinctive inverted gull wing and the whistling sound of air passing through its wing-root oil cooler intakes in a dive. Originally designed as a pure naval fighter, the Corsair's difficult carrier landing characteristics led to its initial deployment with land-based Marine Corps squadrons in the Solomon Islands, where it earned the Japanese nickname "Whistling Death."

The Corsair's combat record speaks for itself: an 11:1 kill ratio across the Pacific war. Marine and Navy pilots flew the big fighter in every major campaign from Guadalcanal to Okinawa, and its combination of speed, range, and bomb-carrying capability made it equally effective as a fighter-bomber. The F4U could carry 2,000 pounds of bombs or eight HVAR rockets, making it a devastating ground-attack platform against Japanese positions.

Remarkably, the Corsair remained in production for over a decade, longer than any other US piston-engine fighter. It flew combat missions in Korea, where it served as a close air support aircraft well into the jet age, and it was the last piston-engine fighter to see combat with the US military. Over 12,500 Corsairs were built by Vought, Goodyear, and Brewster, making it one of the most-produced American fighters of the war.

The F4U Corsair was designed by Vought's chief engineer Rex Beisel to meet a 1938 US Navy requirement for a high-performance carrier fighter. Beisel's team designed the smallest possible airframe around the largest available engine, the 2,000 hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp, and the biggest propeller that could be fitted to it, the 13-foot-4-inch Hamilton Standard Hydromatic. The inverted gull wing was the solution to keeping the landing gear short enough for carrier operations while providing clearance for that massive propeller.

The XF4U-1 prototype first flew on May 29, 1940, and became the first American fighter to exceed 400 mph in level flight during testing in October 1940. However, converting the hot prototype into a combat-ready carrier aircraft proved far more challenging than expected. The cockpit was moved three feet aft to accommodate a fuselage fuel tank, severely limiting forward visibility. The long nose, high landing speed, and tendency to bounce on landing made it a handful on carrier decks.

The US Navy initially rejected the Corsair for carrier operations, assigning it instead to land-based Marine squadrons. The Marines first took the F4U-1 into combat on February 13, 1943, with VMF-124 at Guadalcanal. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm, which received Corsairs under Lend-Lease, successfully operated them from carriers by developing approach techniques including a curved final approach to maintain visual contact with the deck.

The F4U-1D variant, entering production in early 1944, incorporated improvements including a new clear-view raised canopy, water injection for emergency power, centerline and wing hardpoints for bombs and rockets, and a frameless windscreen. By April 1944, the US Navy finally cleared the Corsair for carrier operations, and F4U-1Ds deployed aboard fleet carriers for the Marianas, Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa campaigns.