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209-559: The Vought F4U Corsair is an American fighter aircraft that saw service primarily in World War II and the Korean War . Designed and initially manufactured by Chance Vought , the Corsair was soon in great demand; additional production contracts were given to Goodyear , whose Corsairs were designated FG , and Brewster , designated F3A . The Corsair was designed and principally operated as

418-460: A carrier-based aircraft , and entered service in large numbers with the U.S. Navy and Marines in World War II. It quickly became one of the most capable carrier-based fighter-bombers of the war. Some Japanese pilots regarded it as the most formidable American fighter and U.S. naval aviators achieved an 11:1 kill ratio . Early problems with carrier landings and logistics led to it being eclipsed as

627-472: A "follower" on this cam wheel. At the same time the machine gun used was also changed – an lMG 08 machine gun, the so-called "Spandau", replacing the Parabellum used with the prototype gear. At this time the Parabellum was still in very short supply, and all available examples were required as observers' guns, the lighter and handier weapon being far superior in this role. The first victory using

836-581: A "meatball" by Allied aircrew) that is still in use to this day , the United States removed all areas of red color (specifically removing the red center to the roundel) and removed any sort of national fin/rudder markings , which at that time had seven horizontal red stripes , from the American national aircraft insignia scheme by 6 May 1942. The British did likewise, starting with a simple paintover with white paint, of their "Type C" roundel's red center, at about

1045-415: A "safe" period, when the blades of the propeller were well out of the way, and this adjustment had to be checked at intervals, especially if the propeller was changed or refitted, as well as after a major engine overhaul. Faults in this adjustment (for example, a cam wheel slipping a millimetre or two, or a pushrod flexing) could well result in every bullet fired hitting the propeller, a worse result than if

1254-482: A "safe" range before firing, otherwise risking speedy destruction of his propeller. The second requirement was for a gun that would reliably fire (or hold its fire) exactly when required. Not all automatic weapons were equally amenable to synchronization. When it was ready to fire, a synchronized machine-gun needed to have a round in the breech, the breech closed, and the action cocked (the so-called " closed bolt " position). Several widely used automatic weapons (notably

1463-494: A Dark Slate Grey/Extra Dark Sea Grey disruptive pattern on top and Sky undersides, but were later painted overall dark blue. As it had become imperative for all Allied aircraft in the Pacific Theater of World War II to abandon all use of any "red devices" in their national insignia — to prevent any chance of misidentification with Japanese military aircraft, all of which bore the circular, all-red Hinomaru insignia (nicknamed

1672-536: A Zero at slow speed, one on one. In these instances I considered myself fortunate to survive a battle. Of my 21 victories, 17 were against Zeros, and I lost five aircraft in combat. I was shot down three times and I crashed one that ploughed into the line back at base and wiped out another F4U. VMF-113 was activated on 1 January 1943 at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro as part of Marine Base Defense Air Group 41. They were soon given their full complement of 24 F4U Corsairs. On 26 March 1944, while escorting four B-25 bombers on

1881-693: A better fighter than the F4F Wildcat. For them, it was not as important that the F4U could be recovered aboard a carrier, as they usually flew from land bases. Growing pains aside, Marine Corps squadrons readily took to the radical new fighter. From February 1943 onward, the F4U operated from Guadalcanal and ultimately other bases in the Solomon Islands . A dozen USMC F4U-1s of VMF-124, commanded by Major William E. Gise, arrived at Henderson Field (code name "Cactus") on 12 February. The first recorded combat engagement

2090-565: A by now mediocre performance. The first Eindecker victory came on 1 July 1915, when Leutnant Kurt Wintgens , of Feldflieger Abteilung 6 on the Western Front, downed a Morane-Saulnier Type L. His was one of five Fokker M.5 K/MG prototypes for the Eindecker , and was armed with a synchronized aviation version of the Parabellum MG14 machine gun. The success of the Eindecker kicked off

2299-463: A cadre of exceptional pilots. In the United Kingdom, at the behest of Neville Chamberlain (more famous for his 'peace in our time' speech), the entire British aviation industry was retooled, allowing it to change quickly from fabric covered metal framed biplanes to cantilever stressed skin monoplanes in time for the war with Germany, a process that France attempted to emulate, but too late to counter

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2508-435: A competitive cycle of improvement among the combatants, both sides striving to build ever more capable single-seat fighters. The Albatros D.I and Sopwith Pup of 1916 set the classic pattern followed by fighters for about twenty years. Most were biplanes and only rarely monoplanes or triplanes . The strong box structure of the biplane provided a rigid wing that allowed the accurate control essential for dogfighting. They had

2717-429: A contract for 584 F4U-1 fighters, which were given the name "Corsair" – inherited from the firm's late-1920s Vought O2U naval biplane scout, which first bore the name – on 30 June of the same year. The first production F4U-1 performed its initial flight a year later, on 24 June 1942. It was a remarkable achievement for Vought; compared to land-based counterparts, carrier aircraft are "overbuilt" and heavier, to withstand

2926-588: A cyclic rate of 800 or 1,000 rounds a minute, it was necessary to supply at least one impulse (if not two) for every rotation of the propeller, making it more liable to failure. The intricate mechanism of a mechanical linkage system, especially of the "push rod" type, could easily shake itself to pieces when driven at this rate. The final version of the Fokker Eindecker, the Fokker E.IV , came with two lMG 08 "Spandau" machine guns ; this armament became standard for all

3135-587: A different opinion, stating that "In order to simplify spares problems and also to insure flexibility in carrier operations present practice in the Pacific is to assign all Corsairs to Marines and to equip FightRons [fighter squadrons] on medium and light carriers with Hellcats." VF-12 soon abandoned its aircraft to the Marines. VF-17 kept its Corsairs, but was removed from its carrier, USS Bunker Hill , due to perceived difficulties in supplying parts at sea. The Marines needed

3344-443: A difficult deflection shot. The first step in finding a real solution was to mount the weapon on the aircraft, but the propeller remained a problem since the best direction to shoot is straight ahead. Numerous solutions were tried. A second crew member behind the pilot could aim and fire a swivel-mounted machine gun at enemy airplanes; however, this limited the area of coverage chiefly to the rear hemisphere, and effective coordination of

3553-518: A flexible drive, a column of hydraulic fluid, a cable, or an electrical connection. Generally, mechanical systems were inferior to hydraulic or electric ones, but none were ever entirely foolproof, and synchronization gears at best always remained liable to occasional failure. The Luftwaffe ace Adolf Galland in his memoir of the war period The First and the Last describes a serious faulty synchronization incident in 1941. A pilot would usually only have

3762-552: A form that would replace all others in the 1930s. As collective combat experience grew, the more successful pilots such as Oswald Boelcke , Max Immelmann , and Edward Mannock developed innovative tactical formations and maneuvers to enhance their air units' combat effectiveness. Allied and – before 1918 – German pilots of World War I were not equipped with parachutes , so in-flight fires or structural failures were often fatal. Parachutes were well-developed by 1918 having previously been used by balloonists, and were adopted by

3971-645: A great deal of ground-attack work. In World War II, the USAAF and RAF often favored fighters over dedicated light bombers or dive bombers , and types such as the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and Hawker Hurricane that were no longer competitive as aerial combat fighters were relegated to ground attack. Several aircraft, such as the F-111 and F-117, have received fighter designations though they had no fighter capability due to political or other reasons. The F-111B variant

4180-415: A machine gun's rate of fire exactly proportional to the revolutions per minute of a spinning aircraft propeller, would require an impractical level of complexity. A machine gun normally fires a constant number of rounds a minute, and while this may be changed by modifying the gun, it cannot be varied at will while the gun is operating. The rate of rotation of an aircraft propeller, meanwhile, especially before

4389-627: A method of firing forward through a tractor propeller was the Swiss engineer Franz Schneider , formerly with Nieuport , but by then working for the LVG Company in Germany. The patent was published in the German aviation magazine Flugsport in 1914, meaning that the concept became public knowledge at an early stage. The linkage between the propeller and the gun is achieved with a spinning drive shaft, rather than

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4598-431: A number of twin-engine fighters were built; however they were found to be outmatched against single-engine fighters and were relegated to other tasks, such as night fighters equipped with radar sets. By the end of the war, turbojet engines were replacing piston engines as the means of propulsion, further increasing aircraft speed. Since the weight of the turbojet engine was far less than a piston engine, having two engines

4807-534: A part of military nomenclature, a letter is often assigned to various types of aircraft to indicate their use, along with a number to indicate the specific aircraft. The letters used to designate a fighter differ in various countries. In the English-speaking world, "F" is often now used to indicate a fighter (e.g. Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II or Supermarine Spitfire F.22 ), though "P" used to be used in

5016-564: A radio operator/navigator. The Royal Navy hurriedly adopted higher-performance single-seat aircraft such as the Hawker Sea Hurricane and the less robust Supermarine Seafire alongside, but neither aircraft had sufficient range to operate at a distance from a carrier task force. The Corsair was welcomed as a more robust and versatile alternative. In November 1943, the Royal Navy received its first batch of 95 Vought F4U-1s, which were given

5225-521: A raid over Ponape, they recorded their first enemy kills, downing eight Japanese aircraft. In April of that year, VMF-113 was tasked with providing air support for the landings at Ujelang . Since the assault was unopposed, the squadron quickly returned to striking Japanese targets in the Marshall Islands for the remainder of 1944. Corsairs were flown by the "Black Sheep" Squadron ( VMF-214 , led by Marine Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington ) in an area of

5434-622: A range of specialized aircraft types. Some of the most expensive fighters such as the US Grumman F-14 Tomcat , McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle , Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and Russian Sukhoi Su-27 were employed as all-weather interceptors as well as air superiority fighter aircraft, while commonly developing air-to-ground roles late in their careers. An interceptor is generally an aircraft intended to target (or intercept) bombers and so often trades maneuverability for climb rate. As

5643-425: A reciprocating rod. The impulses needed to operate the trigger, or in this case to prevent the trigger from operating, are produced by a cam wheel with two lobes at 180° apart situated at the gun itself since firing is to be interrupted by both blades of the propeller. No attempt was made (so far as is known) to build or test an actual operating gear based on this patent, which attracted little or no official interest at

5852-719: A result, during the early months of these campaigns, Axis air forces destroyed large numbers of Red Air Force aircraft on the ground and in one-sided dogfights. In the later stages on the Eastern Front, Soviet training and leadership improved, as did their equipment. By 1942 Soviet designs such as the Yakovlev Yak-9 and Lavochkin La-5 had performance comparable to the German Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 . Also, significant numbers of British, and later U.S., fighter aircraft were supplied to aid

6061-453: A semi-automatic weapon rather than a completely automatic one. The third requirement is for a linkage between the "machines" (engine and gun) to be synchronized. Many early gears used an intricate and inherently fragile bell crank and push rod linkage that could easily jam or otherwise malfunction, especially when required to work at higher speeds than it had been designed for. There were several alternative methods, including an oscillating rod,

6270-638: A separate (and vulnerable) radiator, but had increased drag. Inline engines often had a better power-to-weight ratio . Some air forces experimented with " heavy fighters " (called "destroyers" by the Germans). These were larger, usually twin-engined aircraft, sometimes adaptations of light or medium bomber types. Such designs typically had greater internal fuel capacity (thus longer range) and heavier armament than their single-engine counterparts. In combat, they proved vulnerable to more agile single-engine fighters. The primary driver of fighter innovation, right up to

6479-521: A shore-based unit in the Solomon Islands, VF-17 reinstalled the tail hooks so its F4Us could land and refuel while providing top cover over the task force participating in the carrier raid on Rabaul . The squadron's pilots landed, refueled, and took off from their former home, Bunker Hill and USS  Essex on 11 November 1943. Twelve USMC F4U-1s arrived at Henderson Field (Guadalcanal) on 12 February 1943. The U.S. Navy did not get into combat with

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6688-403: A single gun, firing at a modest cyclic rate through a two-bladed propeller driven by a rotary engine, was becoming obsolete. Stangensteuerung gears for "stationary", i.e. , in-line engines, worked from a small cam immediately behind the propeller (see illustration). This produced a basic dilemma: A short, fairly robust push rod meant that the machine gun had to be mounted well forward, putting

6897-420: A single operator, who flew the aircraft and also controlled its armament. They were armed with one or two Maxim or Vickers machine guns, which were easier to synchronize than other types, firing through the propeller arc. Gun breeches were in front of the pilot, with obvious implications in case of accidents, but jams could be cleared in flight, while aiming was simplified. The use of metal aircraft structures

7106-404: A single shot. The majority of these impulses would catch the gun in the process of ejecting a spent round or loading a fresh one, and would thus have no effect; but as soon as the firing cycle was completed, the gun would be ready to fire as soon as it received the next impulse from the synchronizing gear. The delay between the end of the firing cycle and the arrival of the next firing impulse slowed

7315-408: A synchronized "aircraft" gun such a delay can produce a rogue firing, sufficiently "out of time" for it to risk hitting the propeller. A very similar problem could arise where the mass of a special round (such as an incendiary or explosive one) was different enough to produce a substantial difference in muzzle velocity. This was compounded by the additional risk to the integrity of the propeller due to

7524-525: A synchronized gun-equipped fighter is now believed to have occurred on 1 July 1915 when Leutnant Kurt Wintgens of Feldflieger Abteilung 6b , flying the Parabellum-armed Fokker M.5K/MG aircraft "E.5/15", forced down a French Morane-Saulnier Type L east of Lunéville . Exclusive possession of a working gun synchronizer enabled a period of German air superiority on the Western Front known as

7733-531: A total of 21 kills during the war. He remembered: I learned quickly that altitude was paramount. Whoever had altitude dictated the terms of the battle, and there was nothing a Zero pilot could do to change that — we had him. The F4U could outperform a Zero in every aspect except slow speed manoeuvrability and slow speed rate of climb. Therefore you avoided getting slow when combating a Zero. It took time but eventually we developed tactics and deployed them very effectively... There were times, however, that I tangled with

7942-477: A wide spread of fire that would have been impossible to match with the "safe zone" between the whirling propeller blades. Fokker's initial answer to this was the fitting of extra "followers" to the Stangensteuerung's large cam wheel, to (theoretically) produce the "ripple" salvo necessary to ensure that the guns were aimed at the same point on the propeller disc. This proved a disastrously unstable arrangement in

8151-402: Is a fast, heavily armed and long-range type, able to act as an escort fighter protecting bombers , to carry out offensive sorties of its own as a penetration fighter and maintain standing patrols at significant distance from its home base. Bombers are vulnerable due to their low speed, large size and poor maneuvrability. The escort fighter was developed during World War II to come between

8360-539: Is able to defend itself while conducting attack sorties. The word "fighter" was first used to describe a two-seat aircraft carrying a machine gun (mounted on a pedestal) and its operator as well as the pilot . Although the term was coined in the United Kingdom, the first examples were the French Voisin pushers beginning in 1910, and a Voisin III would be the first to shoot down another aircraft, on 5 October 1914. However at

8569-616: Is known as an interceptor . Recognized classes of fighter include: Of these, the Fighter-bomber , reconnaissance fighter and strike fighter classes are dual-role, possessing qualities of the fighter alongside some other battlefield role. Some fighter designs may be developed in variants performing other roles entirely, such as ground attack or unarmed reconnaissance . This may be for political or national security reasons, for advertising purposes, or other reasons. The Sopwith Camel and other "fighting scouts" of World War I performed

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8778-422: Is likely that an aircraft which is capable of shooting at an enemy machine will have the advantage. The most suitable weapon is a light, air-cooled machine-gun What was not generally agreed on was the superiority, at least for an attacking aircraft, of fixed forward-firing guns, aimed by pointing the aircraft at its target, rather than flexible weapons, aimed by a gunner other than the pilot. The idea of coupling

8987-540: The Inspektion der Fliegertruppen ( Idflieg ) at Döberitz near Berlin . Inspection of the propeller from Garros' machine prompted Idflieg to attempt to copy it. Initial trials indicated that the deflector wedges would not be sufficiently strong to cope with the standard steel-jacketed German ammunition, and representatives from Fokker and Pfalz, two companies already building Morane copies (although, strangely, not Schneider's LVG concern) were invited to Döberitz to inspect

9196-540: The Combined Bomber Offensive . Unescorted Consolidated B-24 Liberators and Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers, however, proved unable to fend off German interceptors (primarily Bf 109s and Fw 190s). With the later arrival of long range fighters, particularly the North American P-51 Mustang , American fighters were able to escort far into Germany on daylight raids and by ranging ahead attrited

9405-579: The Dutch East Indies . In July and August 1945, Corsair naval squadrons 1834, 1836, 1841, and 1842 took part in a series of strikes on the Japanese mainland, near Tokyo. These squadrons operated from Victorious and Formidable. On 9 August 1945, days before the end of the war, Corsairs from Formidable attacked Shiogama harbor on the northeast coast of Japan. Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve pilot, Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray , of 1841 Squadron

9614-582: The Fokker Scourge . The German high command was protective of the synchronizer system, instructing pilots not to venture over enemy territory in case they were forced down and the secret revealed, but the basic principles involved were already common knowledge, and by the middle of 1916 several Allied synchronizers were already available in quantity. By this time, the Fokker Stangensteuerung gear, which had worked reasonably well for synchronizing

9823-610: The German D-type scouts starting with the Albatros D.I . From the appearance of the Sopwith Camel and the SPAD S.XIII in mid-1917, right through to the end of gun synchronization in the 1950s, a twin gun installation was the international norm. Having the two guns firing simultaneously would obviously not have been a satisfactory arrangement. The guns needed to both fire at the same point on

10032-572: The Junkers D.I , made with corrugated duralumin , all based on his experience in creating the pioneering Junkers J 1 all-metal airframe technology demonstration aircraft of late 1915. While Fokker would pursue steel tube fuselages with wooden wings until the late 1930s, and Junkers would focus on corrugated sheet metal, Dornier was the first to build a fighter (the Dornier-Zeppelin D.I ) made with pre-stressed sheet aluminum and having cantilevered wings,

10241-536: The Lewis gun and the Italian Revelli ) were triggered from an open bolt , with an unpredictable interval between triggering and firing, and were thus not suitable for synchronization without extensive modification. In practice it was found necessary for the gun to be fired in semi-automatic mode. As the propeller revolved, a series of firing impulses was transmitted to the gun, each of which could trigger it to fire

10450-642: The New Hebrides . From April, these workshops became responsible for assembling all Corsairs for the RNZAF units operating the aircraft in the South West Pacific; and a Test and Despatch flight was set up to test the aircraft after assembly. By June 1944, 100 Corsairs had been assembled and test flown. The first squadrons to use the Corsair were 20 and 21 Squadrons on Espiritu Santo, operational in May 1944. The organization of

10659-466: The Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp twin-row, 18-cylinder radial engine , rated at 1,805 hp (1,346 kW) went ahead quickly, as the first airframe ever designed from the start to have a Double Wasp engine fitted for flight. When the prototype was completed, it had the biggest and most powerful engine, largest propeller, and probably the largest wing on any naval fighter to date. The first flight of

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10868-502: The RAF and the USAAF against German industry intended to wear down the Luftwaffe. Axis fighter aircraft focused on defending against Allied bombers while Allied fighters' main role was as bomber escorts. The RAF raided German cities at night, and both sides developed radar-equipped night fighters for these battles. The Americans, in contrast, flew daylight bombing raids into Germany delivering

11077-569: The Sopwith Tabloid and Bristol Scout . The French and the Germans didn't have an equivalent as they used two seaters for reconnaissance, such as the Morane-Saulnier L , but would later modify pre-war racing aircraft into armed single seaters. It was quickly found that these were of little use since the pilot couldn't record what he saw while also flying, while military leaders usually ignored what

11286-598: The Stangensteuerung in German, for "pushrod control system") devised by the engineers of Anthony Fokker 's firm was the first system to enter service. It would usher in what the British called the " Fokker scourge " and a period of air superiority for the German forces, making the Fokker Eindecker monoplane a feared name over the Western Front , despite its being an adaptation of an obsolete pre-war French Morane-Saulnier racing airplane, with poor flight characteristics and

11495-620: The Americans. In all, out of 18 carrier-based squadrons, eight saw combat, flying intensive ground attack/interdiction operations and claiming 47.5 aircraft shot down. At the end of World War II, under the terms of the Lend-Lease agreement, the aircraft had to be paid for or to be returned to the U.S. As the UK did not have the means to pay for them, the Royal Navy Corsairs were pushed overboard into

11704-643: The British Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force referred to them as " scouts " until the early 1920s, while the U.S. Army called them "pursuit" aircraft until the late 1940s (using the designation P, as in Curtiss P-40 Warhawk , Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and Bell P-63 Kingcobra ). The UK changed to calling them fighters in the 1920s , while the US Army did so in the 1940s. A short-range fighter designed to defend against incoming enemy aircraft

11913-569: The British, the Americans, the Spanish (in the Spanish civil war) and the Germans. Given limited budgets, air forces were conservative in aircraft design, and biplanes remained popular with pilots for their agility, and remained in service long after they ceased to be competitive. Designs such as the Gloster Gladiator , Fiat CR.42 Falco , and Polikarpov I-15 were common even in the late 1930s, and many were still in service as late as 1942. Up until

12122-429: The Corsair entered service. Carrier suitability was a major development issue, prompting changes to the main landing gear, tail wheel, and tailhook . Early F4U-1s had difficulty recovering from developed spins, since the inverted gull wing's shape interfered with elevator authority. It was also found that the Corsair's left wing could stall and drop rapidly and without warning during slow carrier landings. In addition, if

12331-470: The Corsair was "...an excellent carrier type and very easy to land aboard. It is no different than any other airplane." Two Navy units, VF-12 (October 1942) and later VF-17 (April 1943) were equipped with the F4U. By April 1943, VF-12 had successfully completed deck landing qualification. At the time, the U.S. Navy also had the Grumman F6F Hellcat, which did not have the performance of the F4U, but

12540-432: The Corsair's payload and range in the attack role and to help evaluate future viability of single- versus twin-engine fighter design for Vought. Lindbergh managed to get the F4U into the air with 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg) of bombs, with a 2,000 pounds (910 kg) bomb on the centerline and a 1,000 pounds (450 kg) bomb under each wing. In the course of such experiments, he performed strikes on Japanese positions during

12749-525: The Corsair, was considered simpler to land on a carrier by an inexperienced pilot and proved to be successful almost immediately after introduction. The Navy's decision to choose the Hellcat meant that the Corsair was released to the U.S. Marine Corps. With no initial requirement for carrier landings, the Marine Corps deployed the Corsair to devastating effect from land bases. Corsair deployment aboard U.S. carriers

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12958-590: The European battlefield, played a crucial role in the eventual defeat of the Axis, which Reichmarshal Hermann Göring , commander of the German Luftwaffe summed up when he said: "When I saw Mustangs over Berlin, I knew the jig was up." Synchronization gear There were many practical problems, mostly arising from the inherently imprecise nature of an automatic gun 's firing, the great (and varying) velocity of

13167-504: The F4U had equipped all ten Pacific-based fighter squadrons of the RNZAF. Fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft (early on also pursuit aircraft ) are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat . In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace . Domination of the airspace above a battlefield permits bombers and attack aircraft to engage in tactical and strategic bombing of enemy targets, and helps prevent

13376-478: The F4U were given different armaments. While most Corsair variants had the standard armament of six .50 caliber M2 Browning machine guns, some models (like the F4U-1C) were equipped with four 20 millimeter M2 cannons for its main weapon. While these cannons were more powerful than the standard machine guns, they were not favored over the standard loadout. Only 200 models of this particular Corsair model were produced, out of

13585-540: The F4U-1D, but not separately designated in British use). 430 Brewster Corsairs (334 F3A-1 and 96 F3A-1D), more than half of Brewster's total production, were delivered to Britain as the Corsair Mk III. 857 Goodyear Corsairs (400 FG-1/-1A and 457 FG-1D) were delivered and designated Corsair Mk IV. The Mk IIs and Mk IVs were the only versions to be used in combat. The Royal Navy cleared the F4U for carrier operations well before

13794-642: The F4U-1s were assembled by Unit 60 with a further batch assembled and flown at RNZAF Station Hobsonville . In total there were 336 F4U-1s and 41 F4U-1Ds used by the RNZAF during the Second World War. Sixty FG-1Ds arrived late in the war. The first deliveries of lend-lease Corsairs began in March 1944 with the arrival of 30 F4U-1s at the RNZAF Base Depot Workshops (Unit 60) on the island of Espiritu Santo in

14003-483: The German flying services during the course of that year. The well known and feared Manfred von Richthofen , the "Red Baron", was wearing one when he was killed, but the allied command continued to oppose their use on various grounds. In April 1917, during a brief period of German aerial supremacy a British pilot's average life expectancy was calculated to average 93 flying hours, or about three weeks of active service. More than 50,000 airmen from both sides died during

14212-606: The German invasion. The period of improving the same biplane design over and over was now coming to an end, and the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire started to supplant the Gloster Gladiator and Hawker Fury biplanes but many biplanes remained in front-line service well past the start of World War II. While not a combatant in Spain, they too absorbed many of the lessons in time to use them. The Spanish Civil War also provided an opportunity for updating fighter tactics. One of

14421-673: The Italians developed several monoplanes such as the Fiat G.50 Freccia , but being short on funds, were forced to continue operating obsolete Fiat CR.42 Falco biplanes. From the early 1930s the Japanese were at war against both the Chinese Nationalists and the Russians in China, and used the experience to improve both training and aircraft, replacing biplanes with modern cantilever monoplanes and creating

14630-642: The Japanese Nakajima Ki-27 , Nakajima Ki-43 and Mitsubishi A6M Zero and the Italian Fiat G.50 Freccia and Macchi MC.200 . In contrast, designers in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States believed that the increased speed of fighter aircraft would create g -forces unbearable to pilots who attempted maneuvering dogfights typical of the First World War, and their fighters were instead optimized for speed and firepower. In practice, while light, highly maneuverable aircraft did possess some advantages in fighter-versus-fighter combat, those could usually be overcome by sound tactical doctrine, and

14839-509: The Luftwaffe to establish control of the skies over Western Europe. By the time of Operation Overlord in June 1944, the Allies had gained near complete air superiority over the Western Front. This cleared the way both for intensified strategic bombing of German cities and industries, and for the tactical bombing of battlefield targets. With the Luftwaffe largely cleared from the skies, Allied fighters increasingly served as ground attack aircraft. Allied fighters, by gaining air superiority over

15048-637: The Luftwaffe, and while the Luftwaffe maintained a qualitative edge over the Red Air Force for much of the war, the increasing numbers and efficacy of the Soviet Air Force were critical to the Red Army's efforts at turning back and eventually annihilating the Wehrmacht . Meanwhile, air combat on the Western Front had a much different character. Much of this combat focused on the strategic bombing campaigns of

15257-474: The Pacific War, this was due in part to operational circumstances; it primarily faced air-to-air combat in the Solomon Islands and Rabaul campaigns (as well as at Leyte and for kamikaze interception), but as operations shifted north and its mission shifted to ground attack the aircraft saw less exposure to enemy aircraft, while other fighter types were exposed to more air combat. Against the best Japanese opponents,

15466-545: The Pacific without tailhooks installed. Corsairs also served well as fighter-bombers in the Central Pacific and the Philippines. By early 1944, Marine pilots were beginning to exploit the type's considerable capabilities in the close-support role in amphibious landings. Charles Lindbergh flew Corsairs with the Marines as a civilian technical advisor for United Aircraft Corporation in order to determine how best to increase

15675-550: The Parabellum gun, synchronized with the first version of the Fokker gear. This prototype gear had such a short life that a redesign was necessary, producing the second, more familiar, production form of the gear. The gear used in the production Eindecker fighters replaced the oil pump's mechanical driveshaft-based system with a large cam wheel, almost a light flywheel, driven directly from the spinning rotary engine's crankcase . The push rod now took its reciprocating motion directly from

15884-600: The R-2800. But whereas the P-47 achieved its highest speed at 30,020 feet (9,150 m) with the help of an intercooled turbocharger , the F4U-1 reached its maximum speed at 19,900 ft (6,100 m) using a mechanically supercharged engine. The U.S. Navy received its first production F4U-1 on 31 July 1942, though getting it into service proved difficult. The framed "birdcage" style canopy provided inadequate visibility for deck taxiing, and

16093-437: The RNZAF in the Pacific and New Zealand meant that only the pilots and a small staff belonged to each squadron (the maximum strength on a squadron was 27 pilots): squadrons were assigned to several Servicing Units (SUs, composed of 5–6 officers, 57 NCOs, 212 airmen) which carried out aircraft maintenance and operated from fixed locations: hence F4U-1 NZ5313 was first used by 20 Squadron/1 SU on Guadalcanal in May 1944; 20 Squadron

16302-506: The Saulnier patent, Fokker's gear was designed to actively fire the gun rather than interrupt it, and, like the later Vickers-Challenger gear developed for the RFC, it followed Saulnier in taking its primary mechanical drive from the oil pump of a rotary engine. The "transmission" between the motor and the gun was by a version of Saulnier's reciprocating push-rod. The main difference was that instead of

16511-638: The Solomon Islands called " The Slot ". Boyington was credited with 22 kills in F4Us (of 28 total, including six in an AVG P-40 , although his score with the AVG has been disputed). Other noted Corsair pilots of the period included VMF-124's Kenneth Walsh , James E. Swett , Archie Donahue , and Bill "Casey" Case; VMF-215 's Robert M. Hanson and Donald Aldrich ; and VF-17's Tommy Blackburn , Roger Hedrick , and Ira Kepford . Nightfighter versions equipped Navy and Marine units afloat and ashore. One particularly unusual kill

16720-484: The Soviet Polikarpov I-16 . The later German design was earlier in its design cycle, and had more room for development and the lessons learned led to greatly improved models in World War II. The Russians failed to keep up and despite newer models coming into service, I-16s remaining the most common Soviet front-line fighter into 1942 despite being outclassed by the improved Bf 109s in World War II. For their part,

16929-529: The Soviet war effort as part of Lend-Lease , with the Bell P-39 Airacobra proving particularly effective in the lower-altitude combat typical of the Eastern Front. The Soviets were also helped indirectly by the American and British bombing campaigns, which forced the Luftwaffe to shift many of its fighters away from the Eastern Front in defense against these raids. The Soviets increasingly were able to challenge

17138-518: The U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics published two requests for proposal for twin-engined and single-engined fighters. For the single-engined fighter, the Navy requested the maximum obtainable speed, and a minimum stalling speed not higher than 70 miles per hour (110 km/h). A range of 1,000 miles (1,600 km) was specified. The fighter had to carry four guns, or three with increased ammunition. Provision had to be made for antiaircraft bombs to be carried in

17347-494: The U.S. Navy and showed that the Corsair Mk II could be operated with reasonable success even from escort carriers . It was not without problems; one was excessive wear of the arrester wires, due both to the weight of the Corsair and the understandable tendency of the pilots to stay well above the stalling speed. A total of 2,012 Corsairs were supplied to the United Kingdom. Fleet Air Arm (FAA) units were created and equipped in

17556-531: The U.S. and British, the Corsair was also used by the Royal New Zealand Air Force , French Naval Aviation , and other air forces until the 1960s. From the first prototype delivery to the U.S. Navy in 1940, to final delivery in 1953 to the French, 12,571 F4U Corsairs were manufactured in 16 separate models. Its 1942–1953 production run was the longest of any U.S. piston-engined fighter. In February 1938,

17765-545: The US for pursuit (e.g. Curtiss P-40 Warhawk ), a translation of the French "C" ( Dewoitine D.520 C.1 ) for Chasseur while in Russia "I" was used for Istrebitel , or exterminator ( Polikarpov I-16 ). As fighter types have proliferated, the air superiority fighter emerged as a specific role at the pinnacle of speed, maneuverability, and air-to-air weapon systems – able to hold its own against all other fighters and establish its dominance in

17974-529: The United States, Russia, India and China. The first step was to find ways to reduce the aircraft's reflectivity to radar waves by burying the engines, eliminating sharp corners and diverting any reflections away from the radar sets of opposing forces. Various materials were found to absorb the energy from radar waves, and were incorporated into special finishes that have since found widespread application. Composite structures have become widespread, including major structural components, and have helped to counterbalance

18183-474: The United States, at Quonset Point or Brunswick and then shipped to war theaters aboard escort carriers. The first FAA Corsair unit was 1830 NAS , created on the first of June 1943, and soon operating from HMS  Illustrious . At the end of the war, 18 FAA squadrons were operating the Corsair. British Corsairs served both in Europe and in the Pacific. The first, and also most important, European operations were

18392-873: The XF4U-1 was made on 29 May 1940, with Lyman A. Bullard, Jr. at the controls. The maiden flight proceeded normally until a hurried landing was made when the elevator trim tabs failed because of flutter. On 1 October 1940, the XF4U-1 became the first single-engined U.S. fighter to fly faster than 400 mph (640 km/h) by flying at an average ground speed of 405 mph (652 km/h) from Stratford to Hartford . The USAAC 's twin engine Lockheed P-38 Lightning had flown over 400 mph in January–February 1939. The XF4U-1 also had an excellent rate of climb, although testing revealed some requirements would have to be rewritten. In full-power dive tests, speeds up to 550 mph (890 km/h) were achieved, but not without damage to

18601-492: The ability to gather information by reconnaissance over the battlefield. Early fighters were very small and lightly armed by later standards, and most were biplanes built with a wooden frame covered with fabric, and a maximum airspeed of about 100 mph (160 km/h). A successful German biplane, the Albatross, however, was built with a plywood shell, rather than fabric, which created a stronger, faster airplane. As control of

18810-448: The action of a semi-automatic weapon. It has been pointed out that this was a practical design that should have worked, but it did not. Apart from possible inconsistencies in the ammunition supplied, the real problem was that the gun used to trial the gear, a gas-operated Hotchkiss 8 mm (.323 in) machine gun borrowed from the French army, was fundamentally unsuitable for "semi-automatic" firing. Following initial unsuccessful tests,

19019-782: The added benefit of minimizing complexity. (These Corsairs’ wings could still be manually folded.) A second option was to remove the folding mechanism in the field using a kit, which could be done for Vought and Brewster Corsairs as well. On 6 December 1943, the Bureau of Aeronautics issued guidance on weight-reduction measures for the F4U-1, FG-1, and F3A. Corsair squadrons operating from land bases were authorized to remove catapult hooks, arresting hooks, and associated equipment, which eliminated 48 pounds of unnecessary weight. While there are no data to indicate to what extent these modifications were incorporated, there are numerous photos in evidence of Corsairs, of various manufacturers and models, on islands in

19228-510: The advantages of fighting above Britain's home territory allowed the RAF to deny Germany air superiority, saving the UK from possible German invasion and dealing the Axis a major defeat early in the Second World War. On the Eastern Front , Soviet fighter forces were overwhelmed during the opening phases of Operation Barbarossa . This was a result of the tactical surprise at the outset of the campaign,

19437-407: The advent of the constant-speed propeller , could vary widely, depending on the throttle setting and what maneuvers were being performed. Even if it had been feasible to pick a particular point on an aircraft engine's tachometer at which a machine gun's cyclic rate would permit it to fire through the propeller arc, this would be very limiting. It has been pointed out that any mechanism that achieved

19646-560: The aircraft claimed a 12:1 kill ratio against the Mitsubishi A6M Zero and 6:1 against the Nakajima Ki-84 , Kawanishi N1K -J, and Mitsubishi J2M combined during the last year of the war. The Corsair bore the brunt of U.S. fighter-bomber missions, delivering 15,621 short tons (14,171 metric tons) of bombs during the war (70% of total bombs dropped by U.S. fighters during the war). Corsair losses in World War II were as follows: In

19855-534: The airspace over armies became increasingly important, all of the major powers developed fighters to support their military operations. Between the wars, wood was largely replaced in part or whole by metal tubing, and finally aluminum stressed skin structures (monocoque) began to predominate. By World War II , most fighters were all-metal monoplanes armed with batteries of machine guns or cannons and some were capable of speeds approaching 400 mph (640 km/h). Most fighters up to this point had one engine, but

20064-481: The arc of the propeller, and even efforts, doomed to failure, to synchronize the Lewis Gun which was at the time the "standard" British aircraft weapon  – was the expedient of firing straight through the propeller arc and "hoping for the best". A high proportion of bullets would in the normal course pass the propeller without striking the blades, and each blade might typically take several hits before there

20273-406: The arc of the propeller. In the late 1930s, however, the main role of the fighter was increasingly seen as the destruction of large, all-metal bombers , for which this armament was inadequate. Since it was impractical to fit more than two guns in the limited space available in the front of a single-engine aircraft's fuselage , guns began to be mounted in the wings instead, firing outside the arc of

20482-494: The basis for an effective "fighter" in the modern sense of the word. It was based on small fast aircraft developed before the war for air racing such with the Gordon Bennett Cup and Schneider Trophy . The military scout airplane was not expected to carry serious armament, but rather to rely on speed to "scout" a location, and return quickly to report, making it a flying horse. British scout aircraft, in this sense, included

20691-551: The battle for the Marshall Islands. By the beginning of 1945, the Corsair was a full-blown "mudfighter", performing strikes with high-explosive bombs, napalm tanks, and HVARs . It proved versatile, able to operate everything from Bat glide bombs to 11.75 in (298 mm) Tiny Tim rockets. The aircraft was a prominent participant in the fighting for the Palaus , Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In November 1943, while operating as

20900-468: The blades of a spinning propeller, and the very high speed at which any gear synchronizing the two had to operate. In practice, all known gears worked on the principle of actively triggering each shot, in the manner of a semi-automatic weapon . Design and experimentation with gun synchronization had been underway in France and Germany in 1913–1914, following the ideas of August Euler , who seems to have been

21109-414: The bombers and enemy attackers as a protective shield. The primary requirement was for long range, with several heavy fighters given the role. However they too proved unwieldy and vulnerable, so as the war progressed techniques such as drop tanks were developed to extend the range of more nimble conventional fighters. The penetration fighter is typically also fitted for the ground-attack role, and so

21318-404: The breech of the gun out of the pilot's reach for clearing jams. If the gun was mounted in the ideal position, within easy reach of the pilot, a much longer push rod was required, which tended to bend and break. The other problem was that the Stangensteuerung never worked well with more than one gun. Two (or even three) guns , mounted side by side and firing simultaneously , would have produced

21527-523: The case of three guns, and was rather less than satisfactory, even for two. Most of the early Fokker and Halberstadt biplane fighters were limited to a single gun for this reason. In fact, the builders of the new Albatros twin-gunned stationary-engine fighters of late 1916 had to introduce their own synchronization gear, known as the Hedtke gear or Hedtkesteuerung , and it was evident that Fokker were going to have to come up with something radically new. This

21736-532: The control surfaces and access panels, and in one case, an engine failure. The spin recovery standards also had to be relaxed, as recovery from the required two-turn spin proved impossible without resorting to an antispin chute. The problems clearly meant delays in getting the design into production. Reports coming back from the war in Europe indicated an armament of two .30 in (7.62 mm) synchronized engine cowling-mount machine guns, and two .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns (one in each outer wing panel)

21945-630: The cowl flaps across the top of the engine compartment, diverting oil and hydraulic fluid spray around the sides of the fuselage. The curved approach used with the Seafire was also adopted for landing Corsairs, ensuring the flight deck was kept in sight as long as possible. The Royal Navy initially received 95 "birdcage" F4U-1s from Vought which were designated Corsair Mk I in Fleet Air Arm service. Next from Vought came 510 "blown-canopy" F4U-1A/-1Ds, which were designated Corsair Mk II (the final 150 equivalent to

22154-405: The current historical consensus points to a synchronization device having been in development by Fokker's team (including engineer Heinrich Lübbe ) prior to the capture of Garros's machine. Whatever its ultimate source, the initial version of the Fokker synchronization gear (see illustration) very closely followed, not Schneider's patent, as claimed by Schneider and others, but Saulnier's . Like

22363-464: The deckhead. The change in span brought about the added benefit of improving the sink rate , reducing the F4U's propensity to "float" in the final stages of landing. The Royal Navy developed a number of modifications to the Corsair that made carrier landings more practical. Among these were a bulged canopy (similar to the Malcolm Hood ), raising the pilot's seat 7 in (180 mm), and wiring shut

22572-601: The defense budgets of modern armed forces. The global combat aircraft market was worth $ 45.75 billion in 2017 and is projected by Frost & Sullivan at $ 47.2 billion in 2026: 35% modernization programs and 65% aircraft purchases, dominated by the Lockheed Martin F-35 with 3,000 deliveries over 20 years. A fighter aircraft is primarily designed for air-to-air combat . A given type may be designed for specific combat conditions, and in some cases for additional roles such as air-to-ground fighting. Historically

22781-415: The deflector blades must have put undesirable stress on the engine's crankshaft. On 1 April 1915 Garros shot down his first German aircraft, killing both the crew. On 18 April 1915, after two more victories, Garros was forced down (by ground fire) behind German lines. Although he was able to burn his aircraft, Garros was captured and his special propeller was sufficiently intact to be sent for evaluation by

22990-656: The design approach of the Italians and Japanese made their fighters ill-suited as interceptors or attack aircraft. During the invasion of Poland and the Battle of France , Luftwaffe fighters—primarily the Messerschmitt Bf 109 —held air superiority, and the Luftwaffe played a major role in German victories in these campaigns. During the Battle of Britain , however, British Hurricanes and Spitfires proved roughly equal to Luftwaffe fighters. Additionally Britain's radar-based Dowding system directing fighters onto German attacks and

23199-599: The designation "Corsair [Mark] I". The first squadrons were assembled and trained on the U.S. East Coast and then shipped across the Atlantic. The Royal Navy put the Corsair into carrier operations immediately. They found its landing characteristics dangerous, suffering a number of fatal crashes, but considered the Corsair to be the best option they had. In Royal Navy service, because of the limited hangar deck height in several classes of British carrier, many Corsairs had their outer wings "clipped" by 8 in (200 mm) to clear

23408-605: The dominant carrier-based fighter by the Grumman F6F Hellcat , powered by the same Double Wasp engine first flown on the Corsair's initial prototype in 1940. The Corsair's early deployment was to land-based squadrons of the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Navy. The Corsair served almost exclusively as a fighter-bomber throughout the Korean War and during the French colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria . In addition to its use by

23617-516: The early 1960s since both were believed unusable at the speeds being attained, however the Vietnam War showed that guns still had a role to play, and most fighters built since then are fitted with cannon (typically between 20 and 30 mm (0.79 and 1.18 in) in caliber) in addition to missiles. Most modern combat aircraft can carry at least a pair of air-to-air missiles. In the 1970s, turbofans replaced turbojets, improving fuel economy enough that

23826-469: The early days of World War II, Royal Navy fighter requirements had been based on cumbersome two-seat designs, such as the fighter/dive-bomber Blackburn Skua (and its turreted derivative the Blackburn Roc ) and the fighter/reconnaissance Fairey Fulmar , since it was expected that they would encounter only long-range bombers or flying boats and that navigation over featureless seas required the assistance of

24035-421: The end of the war indicate that the F4U and FG flew 64,051 operational sorties for the U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy through the conflict (44% of total fighter sorties), with only 9,581 sorties (15%) flown from carrier decks. F4U and FG pilots claimed 2,140 air combat victories against 189 losses to enemy aircraft, for an overall kill ratio of over 11:1. While this gave the Corsair the lowest loss rate of any fighter of

24244-586: The enemy from doing the same. The key performance features of a fighter include not only its firepower but also its high speed and maneuverability relative to the target aircraft. The success or failure of a combatant's efforts to gain air superiority hinges on several factors including the skill of its pilots, the tactical soundness of its doctrine for deploying its fighters, and the numbers and performance of those fighters. Many modern fighter aircraft also have secondary capabilities such as ground attack and some types, such as fighter-bombers , are designed from

24453-433: The extreme stress of deck landings. The F4U incorporated the largest engine available at the time, the 2,000 hp (1,500 kW) 18-cylinder Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial . To extract as much power as possible, a relatively large Hamilton Standard Hydromatic three-blade propeller of 13 feet 4 inches (4.06 m) was used. To accommodate a folding wing, the designers considered retracting

24662-470: The failings of the first form of the gear had become clear, Fokker's team had adapted the new system to the new Parabellum MG14 machine gun, and fitted it to a Fokker M.5K , a type which was at the time serving in small numbers with the Fliegertruppen as the A.III. This aircraft, bearing IdFlieg serial number A.16/15 became the direct forerunner to the five M.5K/MG pre-production prototypes built, and

24871-414: The feat of firing between the whirling blades of a propeller without striking them could be described as "interrupting" the fire of the gun (to the extent that it no longer actually works as an automatic weapon at all), and also as "synchronizing", or "timing" its fire to coincide with the revolutions of the propeller. A typical synchronizing gear had three basic components. First, a method of determining

25080-513: The fighter. Rifle-caliber .30 and .303 in (7.62 and 7.70 mm) calibre guns remained the norm, with larger weapons either being too heavy and cumbersome or deemed unnecessary against such lightly built aircraft. It was not considered unreasonable to use World War I-style armament to counter enemy fighters as there was insufficient air-to-air combat during most of the period to disprove this notion. The rotary engine , popular during World War I, quickly disappeared, its development having reached

25289-448: The firing impulses were sometimes timed to occur at every two or three revolutions of the propeller, or, especially in the case of hydraulic or electric gears, at the rate of two or more for each revolution. The diagrams in this section assume, for simplicity's sake, one impulse for one revolution, so that each synchronized round is "aimed" at a single spot on the propeller disc. The timing of each impulse had to be adjusted to coincide with

25498-450: The firing mechanism to the propeller's rotation is an affectation. The objection is the same as to any gun position which is fixed along the longitudinal axis of the aircraft: the pilot is forced to fly directly at the enemy in order to fire. Under certain circumstances this is highly undesirable. As late as 1916, pilots of the DH.2 pusher fighter had problems convincing their senior officers that

25707-594: The first to suggest mounting a fixed armament firing in the direction of flight (in 1910). However, the first practical – if far from reliable – gear to enter operational service was that fitted to the Fokker Eindecker fighters , which entered squadron service with the German Air Service in mid-1915. The success of the Eindecker led to numerous gun synchronization devices, culminating in

25916-415: The form of steel wedges which deflected the bullets which might otherwise have damaged the propeller, or ricocheted dangerously. Garros himself and his personal mechanic Jules Hue are sometimes credited with testing and perfecting the "deflectors". This crude system worked after a fashion, although the wedges diminished the propeller's efficiency, and the not inconsiderable force of the impact of bullets on

26125-426: The forward-firing armament of their aircraft was more effective if it was fixed to fire forward rather than being flexible. On the other hand, August Euler had patented the idea of a fixed gun as early as 1910 – long before tractor aircraft became the norm, illustrating his patent with a diagram of a machine gun-armed pusher . Whether directly inspired by Euler's original patent or not, the first inventor to patent

26334-407: The gear pauses, or "interrupts" the fire of the gun at the point where one of the blades of the propeller passes in front of its muzzle. Even the relatively slowly revolving propellers of First World War aircraft, however, typically turned twice or even three times for each shot a contemporary machine gun could fire. A two-bladed propeller would therefore obstruct the gun six times every firing cycle of

26543-532: The gun had to be returned, and the experiments ceased. When the pilots of the British Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service arrived in France in 1914, they were equipped with pusher aircraft too underpowered to carry machine guns and still have a chance of overtaking the enemy, and tractor aircraft which were difficult to arm effectively because the propeller was in the way. Among other attempts to get around this – such as firing obliquely past

26752-407: The gun is situated at the engine (driven in this case by the same spindle that operated the oil pump and the tachometer) and the impulses themselves are transmitted by a reciprocating rod rather than Schneider's rotating shaft. The idea of literally "interrupting" the firing of the gun gives way (probably as the result of experience) to the principle of pulling the trigger for each successive shot, like

26961-423: The gun was fired through the propeller with no control at all. The other main type of failure resulted in fewer or no firing impulses, usually due to the generator or linkages either jamming or breaking. This was a common cause of synchronized guns "jamming". The speed of the propeller, and thus the distance that it travelled between the firing of the gun and the arrival of the bullet at the propeller disc, varied as

27170-419: The gun, a four-bladed one twelve times. A gun set up this way would be interrupted more than forty times per second, while firing at only around seven rounds per second. Unsurprisingly, the designers of so-called interrupter gears found this too problematic to be seriously attempted, as the gaps between "interruptions" would have been too short to allow the gun to fire at all. True synchronization, though, with

27379-546: The gun. The firing button for the gun simply engaged a clutch at the engine which set the flexible drive (and thus the trigger motor) in motion. In some ways this brought the new gear closer to the original Schneider patent (q.v.) . A major advantage was that the adjustment (to set where on the propeller's disc each bullet was to impact) was now in the gun itself. This meant that each gun was adjusted separately, an important feature, since twin synchronized guns were not set to be fired in strict unison, but when they were pointing at

27588-406: The guns were subjected). Shooting with this traditional arrangement was also easier because the guns shot directly ahead in the direction of the aircraft's flight, up to the limit of the guns range; unlike wing-mounted guns which to be effective required to be harmonised , that is, preset to shoot at an angle by ground crews so that their bullets would converge on a target area a set distance ahead of

27797-433: The innovations was the development of the " finger-four " formation by the German pilot Werner Mölders . Each fighter squadron (German: Staffel ) was divided into several flights ( Schwärme ) of four aircraft. Each Schwarm was divided into two Rotten , which was a pair of aircraft. Each Rotte was composed of a leader and a wingman. This flexible formation allowed the pilots to maintain greater situational awareness, and

28006-504: The interceptor. The equipment necessary for daytime flight is inadequate when flying at night or in poor visibility. The night fighter was developed during World War I with additional equipment to aid the pilot in flying straight, navigating and finding the target. From modified variants of the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2c in 1915, the night fighter has evolved into the highly capable all-weather fighter. The strategic fighter

28215-420: The last piston engine support aircraft could be replaced with jets, making multi-role combat aircraft possible. Honeycomb structures began to replace milled structures, and the first composite components began to appear on components subjected to little stress. With the steady improvements in computers, defensive systems have become increasingly efficient. To counter this, stealth technologies have been pursued by

28424-564: The leadership vacuum within the Soviet military left by the Great Purge , and the general inferiority of Soviet designs at the time, such as the obsolescent Polikarpov I-15 biplane and the I-16 . More modern Soviet designs, including the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 , LaGG-3 and Yakolev Yak-1 , had not yet arrived in numbers and in any case were still inferior to the Messerschmitt Bf 109 . As

28633-428: The legs allowed the hydraulic pressure to be released gradually as the aircraft landed. The Corsair was not considered fit for carrier use until the wing stall problems and the deck bounce could be solved. Meanwhile, the more docile and simpler-to-build F6F Hellcat had begun entering service in its intended carrier-based use. The Navy wanted to standardize on one type of carrier fighter, and the Hellcat, while slower than

28842-559: The long "hose nose" and nose-up attitude of the Corsair made it difficult to see straight ahead. The enormous torque of the Double Wasp engine also made it a handful for inexperienced pilots if they were forced to bolter . Early Navy pilots called the F4U the "hog", "hosenose", or "bent-wing widow maker". Carrier qualification trials on the training carrier USS Wolverine and escort carriers USS Core and USS Charger in 1942 found that, despite visibility issues and control sensitivity,

29051-476: The main landing gear rearward, but for the chord of wing that was chosen, making the landing gear struts long enough to provide ground clearance for the large propeller was difficult. Their solution was an inverted gull wing , which considerably shortened the required length of the struts. The anhedral of the wing's inboard section also permitted the wing and fuselage to meet at the optimum angle for minimizing drag , without using wing-root fairings. The bent wing

29260-473: The mechanism and suggest ways that its action might be duplicated. Anthony Fokker was able to persuade Idflieg to arrange the loan of a Parabellum machine gun and ammunition so that his device could be tested, and for these items to be transported forthwith to the Fokker Flugzeugwerke GmbH at Schwerin (although probably not in his railway compartment or "under his arm", as he claimed after

29469-410: The mid-1930s, the majority of fighters in the US, the UK, Italy and Russia remained fabric-covered biplanes. Fighter armament eventually began to be mounted inside the wings, outside the arc of the propeller, though most designs retained two synchronized machine guns directly ahead of the pilot, where they were more accurate (that being the strongest part of the structure, reducing the vibration to which

29678-495: The most modern weapons, against an enemy in complete command of the air, fights like a savage…" Throughout the war, fighters performed their conventional role in establishing air superiority through combat with other fighters and through bomber interception, and also often performed roles such as tactical air support and reconnaissance . Fighter design varied widely among combatants. The Japanese and Italians favored lightly armed and armored but highly maneuverable designs such as

29887-409: The nature of the round. The "trigger motor" could theoretically take two forms. The earliest patent (Schneider 1913) assumed that the synchronization gear would periodically prevent the gun from firing , thus operating as a true, or literal "interrupter". In practice all "real-life" synchronization gears, for which we have reliable technical details, directly fired the gun : operating it as if it were

30096-607: The opposition. Subsequently, radar capabilities grew enormously and are now the primary method of target acquisition . Wings were made thinner and swept back to reduce transonic drag, which required new manufacturing methods to obtain sufficient strength. Skins were no longer sheet metal riveted to a structure, but milled from large slabs of alloy. The sound barrier was broken, and after a few false starts due to required changes in controls, speeds quickly reached Mach 2, past which aircraft cannot maneuver sufficiently to avoid attack. Air-to-air missiles largely replaced guns and rockets in

30305-488: The outbreak of World War I , front-line aircraft were mostly unarmed and used almost exclusively for reconnaissance . On 15 August 1914, Miodrag Tomić encountered an enemy airplane while on a reconnaissance flight over Austria-Hungary which fired at his aircraft with a revolver, so Tomić fired back. It was believed to be the first exchange of fire between aircraft. Within weeks, all Serbian and Austro-Hungarian aircraft were armed. Another type of military aircraft formed

30514-454: The outer) meant the location of the wing fuel tanks had to be changed. In order to keep the fuel tank close to the center of gravity , the only available position was in the forward fuselage, ahead of the cockpit. Accordingly, as a 237 US gal (897 L) self-sealing fuel tank replaced the fuselage mounted armament, the cockpit had to be moved back by 32 in (810 mm) and the fuselage lengthened. Later on, different variants of

30723-451: The outset for dual roles. Other fighter designs are highly specialized while still filling the main air superiority role, and these include the interceptor and, historically, the heavy fighter and night fighter . Since World War I, achieving and maintaining air superiority has been considered essential for victory in conventional warfare . Fighters continued to be developed throughout World War I, to deny enemy aircraft and dirigibles

30932-479: The period of rapid re-armament in the late 1930s, were not military budgets, but civilian aircraft racing. Aircraft designed for these races introduced innovations like streamlining and more powerful engines that would find their way into the fighters of World War II. The most significant of these was the Schneider Trophy races, where competition grew so fierce, only national governments could afford to enter. At

31141-433: The period, going from a typical 180 hp (130 kW) in the 900 kg (2,000 lb) Fokker D.VII of 1918 to 900 hp (670 kW) in the 2,500 kg (5,500 lb) Curtiss P-36 of 1936. The debate between the sleek in-line engines versus the more reliable radial models continued, with naval air forces preferring the radial engines, and land-based forces often choosing inlines. Radial designs did not require

31350-440: The pilot with a limited rear view over his shoulders. A rectangular Plexiglas panel was inset into the lower center section to allow the pilot to see directly beneath the aircraft and assist with deck landings. The engine used was the more powerful R-2800-8 (B series) Double Wasp which produced 2,000 hp (1,500 kW). On the wings the flaps were changed to a NACA slotted type and the ailerons were increased in span to increase

31559-406: The pilot's maneuvering with the gunner's aiming was difficult. This option was chiefly employed as a defensive measure on two-seater reconnaissance aircraft from 1915 on. Both the SPAD S.A and the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.9 added a second crewman ahead of the engine in a pod but this was both hazardous to the second crewman and limited performance. The Sopwith L.R.T.Tr. similarly added a pod on

31768-451: The pilots reported. Attempts were made with handheld weapons such as pistols and rifles and even light machine guns, but these were ineffective and cumbersome. The next advance came with the fixed forward-firing machine gun, so that the pilot pointed the entire aircraft at the target and fired the gun, instead of relying on a second gunner. Roland Garros bolted metal deflector plates to the propeller so that it would not shoot itself out of

31977-410: The point where rotational forces prevented more fuel and air from being delivered to the cylinders, which limited horsepower. They were replaced chiefly by the stationary radial engine though major advances led to inline engines gaining ground with several exceptional engines—including the 1,145 cu in (18,760 cm ) V-12 Curtiss D-12 . Aircraft engines increased in power several-fold over

32186-404: The position of the propeller at a given instant was required. Typically, a cam , driven either directly from the propeller shaft itself, or from some part of the drive train revolving at the same speed as the propeller, generated a series of impulses at the same rate as the propeller's revolutions. There were exceptions to this. Some gears placed the cam within the gun trigger mechanism itself, and

32395-516: The propeller arc was evident even before the outbreak of war and inventors in both France and Germany devised mechanisms that could time the firing of the individual rounds to avoid hitting the propeller blades. Franz Schneider , a Swiss engineer, had patented such a device in Germany in 1913, but his original work was not followed up. French aircraft designer Raymond Saulnier patented a practical device in April 1914, but trials were unsuccessful because of

32604-461: The propeller arc. Wing guns were tried but the unreliable weapons available required frequent clearing of jammed rounds and misfires and remained impractical until after the war. Mounting the machine gun over the top wing worked well and was used long after the ideal solution was found. The Nieuport 11 of 1916 used this system with considerable success, however, this placement made aiming and reloading difficult but would continue to be used throughout

32813-406: The propeller blades were fitted with metal wedges to protect them from ricochets . Garros' modified monoplane first flew in March 1915 and he began combat operations soon after. Garros scored three victories in three weeks before he himself was downed on 18 April and his airplane, along with its synchronization gear and propeller was captured by the Germans. Meanwhile, the synchronization gear (called

33022-505: The propeller disc , which means that one had to fire a tiny fraction of a second later than the other. This is why early gears designed for a single machine gun needed to be modified in order to control two guns satisfactorily. In practice, at least part of the mechanism had to be duplicated, even if the two weapons were not synchronized separately. From the beginnings of practical flight, possible military uses for aircraft were considered, although not all writers came to positive conclusions on

33231-455: The propeller so not requiring synchronising. Synchronizing became unnecessary on all aircraft with the introduction of propellerless jet propulsion . A mechanism to enable an automatic weapon to fire between the blades of a whirling propeller is usually called an interrupter or synchronizer gear. Both these terms are more or less misleading, at least insofar as explaining what happens when the gear functions. The term "interrupter" implies that

33440-426: The propensity of the machine gun employed to hang fire due to unreliable ammunition. In December 1914, French aviator Roland Garros asked Saulnier to install his synchronization gear on Garros' Morane-Saulnier Type L parasol monoplane . Unfortunately the gas-operated Hotchkiss machine gun he was provided had an erratic rate of fire and it was impossible to synchronize it with the propeller. As an interim measure,

33649-409: The push rod passing directly from the engine to the gun itself, which would have required a tunnel through the firewall and fuel tank (as shown in the Saulnier patent drawings), it was driven by a shaft joining the oil pump to a small cam at the top of the fuselage. This eventually proved unsatisfactory, as the oil pump's mechanical drive spindle was insufficiently robust to take the extra load. Before

33858-410: The question of synchronization. Early synchronized guns of the 1915–1917 period had a rate of fire in the region of 400 rounds per minute. At this comparatively leisurely rate of fire a synchronizer can be geared down to deliver a single firing impulse every two or three turns of the propeller, rendering it more reliable without unduly slowing the rate of fire. To control a faster gun, with, for example,

34067-491: The rate of engine revolutions changed. Where muzzle velocity was very high, and the guns were sited well forward so that the bullets had a very short distance to reach the disc of the propeller, this difference could be largely ignored. But in the case of relatively low muzzle velocity weapons, or any gun sited well back from the propeller, the question could become critical, and in some cases the pilot had to consult his tachometer, taking care that his engine revolutions were within

34276-565: The rate of fire in comparison with a free-firing machine gun, which fires the moment it is ready to do so; but provided the gear functioned correctly, the gun could fire fairly rapidly between the whirling propeller blades without striking them. Some other machine-guns, such as the Austrian Schwarzlose and the American Marlin , proved less than perfectly adapted to synchronization, although eventually predictable "single shot" firing

34485-535: The reasonably reliable hydraulic British Constantinesco gear of 1917. By the end of the First World War , German engineers were well on the way to perfecting a gear using an electrical rather than a mechanical or hydraulic link between the engine and the gun, with the gun triggered by an electro-mechanical solenoid . From 1918 to the mid-1930s the standard armament for a fighter aircraft remained two synchronized rifle-calibre machine guns , firing forward through

34694-402: The right wing to stall at the same time as the left. Other problems were encountered during early carrier trials. The combination of an aft cockpit and the Corsair's long nose made landings hazardous for newly trained pilots because of the lack of visibility due to said features. During landing approaches, it was found that oil from the opened hydraulically powered cowl flaps could spatter onto

34903-436: The roll rate, with a consequent reduction in flap span. IFF transponder equipment was fitted in the rear fuselage. These changes increased the Corsair's weight by several hundred pounds. The performance of the Corsair was superior to most of its contemporaries. The F4U-1 was considerably faster than the Grumman F6F Hellcat and only 13 mph (21 km/h) slower than the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt . All three were powered by

35112-658: The sea in Moreton Bay off Brisbane, Australia. Equipped with obsolescent Curtiss P-40s , Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) squadrons in the South Pacific performed impressively, in particular in the air-to-air role. The American government accordingly decided to give New Zealand early access to the Corsair, especially as it was not initially being used from carriers. Some 424 Corsairs equipped 13 RNZAF squadrons, including No. 14 Squadron RNZAF and No. 15 Squadron RNZAF , replacing Douglas SBD Dauntlesses as well as P-40s. Most of

35321-723: The series of attacks ( Operation Tungsten ) in April, July, and August 1944 on the German battleship  Tirpitz , for which Corsairs from HMS  Victorious and HMS  Formidable provided fighter cover. It appears the Corsairs did not encounter aerial opposition on these raids. From April 1944, Corsairs from the British Pacific Fleet took part in several major air raids in South East Asia beginning with Operation Cockpit , an attack on Japanese targets at Sabang island, in

35530-532: The skies above the battlefield. The interceptor is a fighter designed specifically to intercept and engage approaching enemy aircraft. There are two general classes of interceptor: relatively lightweight aircraft in the point-defence role, built for fast reaction, high performance and with a short range, and heavier aircraft with more comprehensive avionics and designed to fly at night or in all weathers and to operate over longer ranges . Originating during World War I, by 1929 this class of fighters had become known as

35739-498: The skinning for the top and bottom of each outer wing, aft of the main spar and armament bays, and for the ailerons , elevators , and rudder . The elevators were also constructed from plywood. The Corsair, even with its streamlining and high-speed abilities, could fly slowly enough for carrier landings with full flap deployment of 50°. In part because of its advances in technology and a top speed greater than existing Navy aircraft, numerous technical problems had to be solved before

35948-417: The sky and a number of Morane-Saulnier Ns were modified. The technique proved effective, however the deflected bullets were still highly dangerous. Soon after the commencement of the war, pilots armed themselves with pistols, carbines , grenades , and an assortment of improvised weapons. Many of these proved ineffective as the pilot had to fly his airplane while attempting to aim a handheld weapon and make

36157-408: The steady increases in aircraft weight—most modern fighters are larger and heavier than World War II medium bombers. Because of the importance of air superiority, since the early days of aerial combat armed forces have constantly competed to develop technologically superior fighters and to deploy these fighters in greater numbers, and fielding a viable fighter fleet consumes a substantial proportion of

36366-486: The subject. By 1913, military exercises in Britain, Germany, and France had confirmed the likely usefulness of aircraft for reconnaissance and surveillance, and this was seen by a few forward looking officers as implying the need to deter or destroy the enemy's reconnaissance machines. Thus aerial combat was by no means entirely unanticipated, and the machine gun was from the first seen as the most likely weapon to be used. It

36575-462: The target in his sights for a fleeting moment, so a concentration of bullets was vital for achieving a "kill". Even flimsy First World War aircraft often took a surprisingly large number of hits to shoot down, and later, larger aircraft were even harder propositions. There were two obvious solutions – to fit a more efficient gun with a higher cyclic rate of fire , or increase the number of guns carried. Both of these measures impinged on

36784-416: The throttle were suddenly advanced (for example, during an aborted landing ) the left wing could stall and drop so quickly that the fighter could flip over with the rapid increase in power. These potentially lethal characteristics were later solved through the addition of a small, 6 in (150 mm)-long stall strip to the leading edge of the outer right wing, just outboard of the gun ports. This allowed

36993-477: The time the U.S. Navy removed the red-center from their roundel. Later, a shade of slate gray center color replaced the white color on the earlier roundel. When the Americans starting using the added white bars to either side of their blue/white star roundel on 28 June 1943; SEAC British Corsairs, most all of which still used the earlier blue/white Type C roundel with the red center removed, added similar white bars to either side of their blue-white roundels to emulate

37202-463: The time. The exact form of the synchronization gear fitted to Schneider's LVG E.I of 1915 and its relationship to this patent is unknown, since no plans survive. Unlike the Schneider patent design, Saulnier's device was actually built, and may be considered the first practical synchronization gear to be tested. For the first time, the cam producing the to-and-fro movement conveying firing impulses to

37411-480: The top wing with no better luck. An alternative was to build a "pusher" scout such as the Airco DH.2 , with the propeller mounted behind the pilot. The main drawback was that the high drag of a pusher type's tail structure made it slower than a similar "tractor" aircraft. A better solution for a single seat scout was to mount the machine gun (rifles and pistols having been dispensed with) to fire forwards but outside

37620-457: The total of 12,571. Other variants were capable of carrying mission specific weapons such as rockets and bombs. The F4U was able to carry up to a total of eight rockets, or four under each wing. It was able to carry up to four thousand pounds of explosive ordnance. This helped the Corsair take on a fighter bomber role, giving it a more versatile role as a ground support aircraft as well as a fighter. In addition, 150 lb (68 kg) of armor plate

37829-460: The two Rotten could split up at any time and attack on their own. The finger-four would be widely adopted as the fundamental tactical formation during World War Two, including by the British and later the Americans. World War II featured fighter combat on a larger scale than any other conflict to date. German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel noted the effect of airpower: "Anyone who has to fight, even with

38038-742: The type until September 1943. The work done by the Royal Navy 's FAA meant those models qualified the type for U.S. carrier operations first. The U.S. Navy finally accepted the F4U for shipboard operations in April 1944, after the longer oleo strut was fitted, which eliminated the tendency to bounce. The first US Corsair unit to be based effectively on a carrier was the pioneer USMC squadron VMF-124 , which joined Essex in December 1944. They were accompanied by VMF-213 . The increasing need for fighter protection against kamikaze attacks resulted in more Corsair units being moved to carriers. U.S. figures compiled at

38247-536: The very end of the inter-war period in Europe came the Spanish Civil War . This was just the opportunity the German Luftwaffe , Italian Regia Aeronautica , and the Soviet Union's Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily needed to test their latest aircraft. Each party sent numerous aircraft types to support their sides in the conflict. In the dogfights over Spain, the latest Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters did well, as did

38456-473: The war as the weapons used were lighter and had a higher rate of fire than synchronized weapons. The British Foster mounting and several French mountings were specifically designed for this kind of application, fitted with either the Hotchkiss or Lewis Machine gun , which due to their design were unsuitable for synchronizing. The need to arm a tractor scout with a forward-firing gun whose bullets passed through

38665-487: The war). The story of his conception, development and installation of the Fokker synchronization device in a period of 48 hours (first found in an authorised biography of Fokker written in 1929) is not now believed to be factual. Another possible explanation is that Garros's Morane, partly destroyed by fire as it was, had sufficient traces of the original synchronization gear remaining for Fokker to have guessed how it worked. For various reasons this also seems unlikely, and

38874-443: The war. Fighter development stagnated between the wars, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom, where budgets were small. In France, Italy and Russia, where large budgets continued to allow major development, both monoplanes and all metal structures were common. By the end of the 1920s, however, those countries overspent themselves and were overtaken in the 1930s by those powers that hadn't been spending heavily, namely

39083-589: The wheel atop the lower end of the strut when retracted. A pair of rectangular doors enclosed each wheel well, leaving a streamlined wing. This swiveling, aft-retracting landing gear design was common to the Curtiss P-40 (and its predecessor, the P-36 ), as adopted for the F4U Corsair's main gear and its Pacific War counterpart, the Grumman F6F Hellcat . The oil coolers were mounted in the heavily anhedraled inboard section of

39292-421: The windscreen, severely reducing visibility, and the undercarriage oleo struts had bad rebound characteristics on landing, allowing the aircraft to bounce down the carrier deck. The first problem was solved by locking the top cowl flaps in front of the windscreen down permanently, then replacing them with a fixed panel. The undercarriage bounce took more time to solve, but eventually a "bleed valve" incorporated in

39501-459: The wing. These small bombs would, according to thinking in the 1930s, be dropped on enemy aircraft formations. In June 1938, the U.S. Navy signed a contract with Vought for a prototype bearing the factory designation V-166B , the XF4U-1, BuNo 1443. The Corsair design team was led by Rex Beisel . After mock-up inspection in February 1939, construction of the XF4U-1 powered by an XR-2800-4 prototype of

39710-440: The wings, alongside the supercharger air intakes, and used openings in the leading edges of the wings, rather than protruding scoops. The large fuselage panels were made of aluminum and were attached to the frames with the newly developed technique of spot welding , thus mostly eliminating the use of rivets. While employing this new technology, the Corsair was also the last American-produced fighter aircraft to feature fabric as

39919-514: Was a better deck landing aircraft. The Corsair was declared "ready for combat" at the end of 1942, though qualified to operate only from land bases until the last of the carrier qualification issues were worked out. VF-17 went aboard the USS ; Bunker Hill in late 1943, and the Chief of Naval Operations wanted to equip four air groups with Corsairs by the end of 1943. The Commander, Air Forces, Pacific had

40128-589: Was achieved, typically by modifying the trigger mechanism to emulate "closed bolt" firing. Most weapons that were successfully synchronized (at least in the First World War period) were (like the German Parabellum and Spandau guns and the British Vickers ) based on the original Maxim gun of 1884, a closed bolt weapon operated by barrel recoil. Before these distinctions were fully understood, much time

40337-584: Was awarded the Navy Cross . At war's end, Corsairs were ashore on Okinawa , combating the kamikaze , and also were flying from fleet and escort carriers. VMF-312 , VMF-323 , and VMF-224 and some other Marine units met with success in the Battle of Okinawa . Since Corsairs were being operated from shore bases, while still awaiting approval for U.S. carrier operations, 965 FG-1As were built as "land planes" without their hydraulic wing folding mechanisms, hoping to improve performance by reducing aircraft weight, with

40546-424: Was delayed until late 1944, by which time the last of the carrier landing problems, relating to the Corsair's long nose, had been tackled by the British. Production F4U-1s featured several major modifications from the XF4U-1. A change of armament to six wing-mounted .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns (three in each outer wing panel) and their ammunition (400 rounds for the inner pair, 375 rounds for

40755-407: Was designed in late 1916 and took the form of a new synchronization gear without any rods at all. The cam that generated the firing impulses was moved from the engine to the gun; the trigger motor in effect now generated its own firing impulses. The linkage between the propeller and the gun now consisted of a flexible drive shaft directly connecting the end of the engine camshaft to the trigger motor of

40964-563: Was effectively the prototype of the Fokker E.I – the first production single-seat fighter aircraft armed with a synchronized machine gun. This prototype was demonstrated to IdFlieg by Fokker in person on 19–20 May 1915 at the Döberitz proving ground near Berlin. Leutnant Otto Parschau was test flying this aircraft by 30 May 1915. The five production prototypes (factory designated M.5K/MG and serialed E.1/15 – E.5/15 ) were undergoing military trials shortly thereafter. These were all armed with

41173-414: Was heavier and more difficult to construct, however, offsetting these benefits. The Corsair's aerodynamics were an advance over those of contemporary naval fighters. The F4U was the first U.S. Navy aircraft to feature landing gear that retracted into a fully enclosed wheel well. The landing gear oleo struts —each with its own strut door enclosing it when retracted—rotated through 90° during retraction, with

41382-415: Was hit by flak but pressed home his attack on the Japanese destroyer escort Amakusa , sinking it with a 1,000 lb (450 kg) bomb but crashing into the sea. He was posthumously awarded Canada's last Victoria Cross , becoming the second fighter pilot of the war to earn a Victoria Cross as well as the final Canadian casualty of World War II. FAA Corsairs originally fought in a camouflage scheme with

41591-402: Was installed, along with a 1.5 in (38 mm) bullet-proof windscreen which was set internally, behind the curved Plexiglas windscreen. The canopy could be jettisoned in an emergency, and half-elliptical planform transparent panels, much like those of certain models of the Curtiss P-40 , were inset into the sides of the fuselage's turtledeck structure behind the pilot's headrest, providing

41800-485: Was insufficient. The U.S. Navy 's November 1940 production proposals specified heavier armament. The increased armament comprised three .50 caliber machine guns mounted in each wing panel. This improvement greatly increased the ability of the Corsair to shoot down enemy aircraft. Formal U.S. Navy acceptance trials for the XF4U-1 began in February 1941. The Navy entered into a letter of intent on 3 March 1941, received Vought's production proposal on 2 April, and awarded Vought

42009-499: Was much danger of its failing, especially if it were bound with tape to prevent splintering (see diagram below, and illustration to the left). After his early synchronization experiments failed, Saulnier pursued a method trusting rather less to statistics and luck by developing armoured propeller blades that would resist damage. By March 1915, when French pilot Roland Garros approached Saulnier to arrange for this device to be installed on his Morane-Saulnier Type L , these had taken

42218-420: Was no longer a handicap and one or two were used, depending on requirements. This in turn required the development of ejection seats so the pilot could escape, and G-suits to counter the much greater forces being applied to the pilot during maneuvers. In the 1950s, radar was fitted to day fighters, since due to ever increasing air-to-air weapon ranges, pilots could no longer see far enough ahead to prepare for

42427-404: Was on 14 February 1943, when Corsairs of VMF-124 under Major Gise assisted P-40s and P-38s in escorting a formation of Consolidated B-24 Liberators on a raid against a Japanese aerodrome at Kahili . Japanese fighters contested the raid and the Americans got the worst of it, with four P-38s, two P-40s, two Corsairs, and two Liberators lost. No more than four Japanese Zeros were destroyed. A Corsair

42636-472: Was originally intended for a fighter role with the U.S. Navy , but it was canceled. This blurring follows the use of fighters from their earliest days for "attack" or "strike" operations against ground targets by means of strafing or dropping small bombs and incendiaries. Versatile multi role fighter-bombers such as the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet are a less expensive option than having

42845-501: Was pioneered before World War I by Breguet but would find its biggest proponent in Anthony Fokker, who used chrome-molybdenum steel tubing for the fuselage structure of all his fighter designs, while the innovative German engineer Hugo Junkers developed two all-metal, single-seat fighter monoplane designs with cantilever wings: the strictly experimental Junkers J 2 private-venture aircraft, made with steel, and some forty examples of

43054-452: Was responsible for one of the kills, albeit due to a midair collision. The fiasco was referred to as the "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre". Despite the debut, the Marines quickly learned how to make better use of the aircraft and started demonstrating its superiority over Japanese fighters. By May, the Corsair units were getting the upper hand, and VMF-124 had produced the first Corsair ace, Second Lieutenant Kenneth A. Walsh , who would rack up

43263-483: Was scored by Marine Lieutenant R. R. Klingman of VMF-312 (the "Checkerboards") over Okinawa. Klingman was in pursuit of a Japanese twin-engine aircraft at high altitude when his guns jammed due to the gun lubrication thickening from the extreme cold. He flew into and chopped off the enemy's tail with the large propeller of the Corsair. Despite smashing five inches (130 mm) off the end of his propeller blades, he managed to land safely after this aerial ramming attack. He

43472-610: Was then relocated to 2 SU on Bougainville in November. In all there were ten front line SUs plus another three based in New Zealand. Because each of the SUs painted its aircraft with distinctive markings and the aircraft themselves could be repainted in several different color schemes, the RNZAF Corsairs were far less uniform in appearance than their American and FAA contemporaries. By late 1944,

43681-404: Was wasted on attempts to synchronize unsuitable weapons. Even a closed bolt weapon needed reliable ammunition. If the primer in a cartridge is faulty to the extent of delaying the firing of the gun for a tiny fraction of a second (quite a common case in practice with mass-produced ammunition) this is of little consequence in the case of a gun in use by infantry on the ground, but in the case of

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