# F4U-4 vs YaK-9U



## Soren (May 6, 2008)

Been a long time since we one of these excellent debates, so we'll start with te below 

F4U-4 vs Yak-9U

So which one is the best ? And in a one on one fight with equally skilled pilots which will come out the victor ??


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## FLYBOYJ (May 6, 2008)

Without going into each aircraft's performance specs, I'd give maneuverability to the YAK, speed and probably climb to the Corsair. A four cannon Corsair would demolish a Yak but I think the Corsair would survive a few 20mm rounds from the Yak. Overall I'd take the Corsair.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 6, 2008)

Im with Joe, but this is ofcourse without looking further into performance, etc.

I dont believe these two aircraft have ever been compared in tests. Is that true?


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## Soren (May 6, 2008)

IMO the F4U-4 is the best, esp. seeing that it's faster, has a higher climb rate and offers allot more protection. As to maneuverability, well I think they're pretty close here, and the F4U-4 should, with 2,800 HP, be able sustain a slightly tighter turn.


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## drgondog (May 6, 2008)

Always hard to make these manueverabilty judgements on paper.

On paper, with no consideration for individual flight characteristics in a hard turn the W/L for the Yak-9U is close to 38#/ft>>2 at max weight, while the Corsair is 20% higher at 46.

The Yak-9 had less Hp but a lot less weight. I's power to weight loading is around .2 while the F4U was lower at .15 for max weight.

The F4U-4 had a higher rate of climb and presumably could dive faster - both had excellent speed at 20,000 feet and below, the F4U probably faster at 30,000 feet.

Speculatively the Yak 9 could out turn the F4U and out accelerate it, had less armor and firepower, less range, less high altitude speed and less diving speed.

I suspect the F4U was better in vertical and Yak 9 better in horizontal all pilot skill being equal.


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## parsifal (May 6, 2008)

Some basic stats about each A/C
*Yak-9U*
*Powerplant*: 1650 hp Klimov VK 107A V Piston engine
*Performance*: Max Sp 434 mph at 16000 ft, service ceiling 39040 ft, range 541 miles, initial climb unknown (well, from the one source I looked at
*Weights*: 5988 lb (empty), max T/O weight 6830 lb
*Dimensions*: span 32.25 ft, length 28.5 ft, Wing area 185 ft
*Armament*: 1 x 20 mm MP-20 Cannon and 2 x 0.5 in UBS MG
*F4U-4*
*Powerplant*: 2250 Hp Pratt Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp Radial
*Performance*: Max Sp 415 mph at 19500 ft, service ceiling 34000 ft, range 1562 miles, initial climb unknown (well, from the one source I looked at (same as the Yak)
*Weights*: 9100 lb (empty), max T/O weight 12100 lb
*Dimensions*: span 39.75 ft, length 33.33 ft, Wing area 305 ft
*Armament*: 4 x 0.5 in Browning MG

At a guess I am going to say the Yak can outclimb the F4U, but the wing area (which surprised me), probably means the Corsair out turns the YAK. I 
also believe that the Corsair will outdive the the Yak. The Yak appears to have the altitude advantage. Speed is also slihtly in the YAKs favour. There is very little to choose from in terms of the firepower each plan can generate, but the much heavier weight of the Corsair suggest that it has the ability to absorb a much greater amount of punishment.

Tentatively, I would back the Corsair, but its much closer than I had thought


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## marshall (May 6, 2008)

I think that there are some mistakes in the stats posted by parsifal.
F4U-4 max speed is rather closer to 450mph at alt than 415mph and it had 4 20mm cannons or 6 .50s. Initial climb rate around 4800fpm.

I voted for Corsair.


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## FLYBOYJ (May 6, 2008)

parsifal - your source for the Corsair's armamant - 4 x 0.5 - try 6 or 4 20mm.

From Wiki...

F4U-4
Performance
Maximum speed: 446 mph (388 knots, 718 km/h) 
Range: 1,005 mi (873 nm, 1,618 km) 
Service ceiling 41,500 ft (12,649 m) 
Rate of climb: 3,870 ft/min (19.7 m/s) 

Yak-9U
Performance
Maximum speed: 417 mph at altitude (672 km/h) 
Range: 420 miles (675 km) 
Service ceiling 35,000 ft (10,650 m) 
Rate of climb: 3,280 ft/min (16.7 m/s)


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## buzzard (May 6, 2008)

I only checked one of my references, and it gave the Yak an initial climb rate of 4528 fpm. The F4U-5 (yeah, I know...) initial climb rate was 3780 fpm. The other specs corresponded closely with parsifal's.

Given this, and what the experten had to say about the agility of the later Yak-9s, I'd probably put my money on the Yak in a classic dogfight. The Yak may not have had impressive firepower, but a lot of Corsairs were splashed by the similar armament of the Zero.

As an all-round combat AC, I think the Corsair was far superior.

I'm leaving for my fishing trip, so I won't be responding for a few days. I'll be too busy fending off the aerial attacks of the dreaded blackflies 

JL


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## buzzard (May 6, 2008)

FBJ,

Just saw your post. Quite the discrepancy in the RoC for the Yak. My specs are from Jane's.

Gotta go find my hip waders...


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## renrich (May 6, 2008)

Michael, the performance figures that FB posted are those for F4U4. Your's are probably for a F4U1a. I don't know which Yak 9 it was or who was flying them but, if memory serves, F4Us met Yak 9s in early going in Korea and shot them all down.


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## JoeB (May 6, 2008)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I dont believe these two aircraft have ever been compared in tests. Is that true?


A North Korean Yak-9P, all metal but basically similar performance to a U, was captured in Korea in September 1950 and tested in the US, but not in head to heads AFAIK, performance of prop planes probably wasn't such a hot issue by then. 

Also the the types, F4U-4 and Yak-9, very likely Yak-9P's, met in one daylight combat in Korea April 21 1951. A pair of VMF-312 F4U-4's, one piloted by Phillip DeLong, already an ace from WWII, claimed at least 3 of 4 Yak-9's that jumped them when they were carrying external stores, for some holes in one of the F4U's. The NK side of that combat isn't known but one Yak and its pilot's body were recovered from shallow water nearby. Of course it's only one incident and 'pilots equal' was highly unlikely to have been the case. 

Another Yak-9 was claimed in a night action by an F4U-5N whose Marine pilot also already had (F6F-5N) victories in WWII. 

Joe


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## kool kitty89 (May 6, 2008)

The Corsair also used the High lift NACA 23000 series airfoil (common to the F4F, F6F, F2A, Fw 190, and portions of the P-38 and P-39, all of the Mitchel wing P-38) with 15% thickness at root, 9% at tip. (CLmax decreases with thickness over 16% for this airfoil) The CLmax for the corsair's wing was nearly 1.6 iirc.

The Yak (and almost all soviet fighters) used a modified Clark Y airfoil (YH), the same as the Hawker Hurricane, which is a relatively simple design. (less lift or drag efficient than the NACA airfoils used, though better than the simple Clark Y) With thickness 14% at the root and 10% at tip. I don't have figures for CLmax, but I'd imagine it would be somewhere around 1.3-1.35.

The Incomplete Guide to Airfoil Usage

The AR of both a/c is very similar. (slight edge to the Yak, along with a high taper ratio)

Consdering the airfoil difference they should be about equal in lift loading.

Power loading at low alt goes to the Yak with 1,500 hp for the ~7,000 lb gross weight, compared to 2,450 hp for the F4U-4 (water injection) with 14,000 lbs gross weight.

But if you reduce the fuel load of the F4U to be the Yak's range it would be much closer, along with even better wing loading.

Of course actual aerodynamic test results would be needed to fully clarify the characteristics)

Armament of the F4U is good with 6x .50's with 420 rpg giving heavy firepower for a long firing time. (at 800 rpm ~31 sec) Able to easily tear the Yak apart, while even with the 20mm the Corsair would take a good pounding. I don't consider the 4x 20mm Corsair, as 1. there weren't a whole lot of them made, but more importantly 2. they had freezing problems at altitude, and 3. the 20mm M2 cannon was still not that reliable of a gun. (much better than the M1, but not close to the British Mk.2 Hispano, or the Soviet ShVak or B-20)

The F4U-4 also had an excellent roll-rate at over 100 degrees/s (similar to the P-47N).


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## FLYBOYJ (May 6, 2008)

buzzard said:


> FBJ,
> 
> Just saw your post. Quite the discrepancy in the RoC for the Yak. My specs are from Jane's.
> 
> Gotta go find my hip waders...



My numbers were from Wiki and its what they had posted for the F4U-4, I don't rely too much on Wiki but from I seen elsewhere they seem about right.


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## parsifal (May 6, 2008)

it was 5 am down here....was barely functioning at the time


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## kool kitty89 (May 6, 2008)

For the F4U-1

F4U Performance Trials


F4U-4
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f4u/f4u-4.pdf

And the 2,250 hp figure was for the F4U-1D iirc (or w/out water injection), the F4U-4 had 2,450 with water injection.

Soren's 2,800 hp fig is for the R-2800-57 of the P-47M/N (and XP-47J) not used on the F4U.


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## renrich (May 6, 2008)

KK, good tech stuff in your post. However 14000 pounds for a F4U4 is pretty high. A combat load would be 12420. That would be full internal tank of 1404 pounds, 720 pounds of ammo, basic wgt. is 10076, the rest is water/alcohol, oil. Fighter with one external tank would be 13350 pounds.


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## kool kitty89 (May 6, 2008)

Yeah, but the top speed chart in that PDF of the repot seems low. (as does the cret alt, which should be ~24,000 ft)

I think the 14,000 lb weight is full internal load clean configuration, which is more than normal combat config.


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## renrich (May 6, 2008)

KK, the critical altitude for F4U4 at military power is about 27500 with a TAS of 425 mph. The CA at combat power is about 25500 with a TAS of almost 450 MPH. The bomber wgt. with 1000 pound bomb and 2 external tanks is 14515.Bomber with 2000 pound bomb and one external tank is 14412. All info from "America's Hundred Thousand," by Dean. The author's sources are given as Navair bulletins and manufacturer data.


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## claidemore (May 6, 2008)

Like the F4U-4, the Yak 9U also had two different weapon choices, the 20mm ShVAK + 2 x 12.7mm UB or the NS-37mm cannon +2 x 12.7mm UB (Yak 9UT, 282 produced). 

The modern Yak 9U-M, with Allison V1710 is listed as doing 434 mph. Thats 1500 hp and the VK-107A was 1650 (takeoff) 1500 normal, so pretty much the same. Some sources state 700kmh for Yak 9U (437mph), others show 672 (420mph). 

Climb rate was 5 min to 5000 meters(16400 ft), or 3280 ft/min. Thats a wee bit better than the F4U4's time to 16,000 ft of 5 min at normal power and a wee bit less than the F4U4 time to 16k at Military power. About equal in the climb department. 

According the the charts from Chance Vought, dated 1947, the highest speed I can see is 394 mph @ Combat power. Don't know much about Corsairs, and maybe I'm missing something, but thats what that chart says. 

F4U Performance Trials


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## FLYBOYJ (May 6, 2008)

The new Yak 9s must also weight way less - just think about the radios.....


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## kool kitty89 (May 7, 2008)

renrich, then the speed charts are even further off, look at the PDF.
Same for the power ratings. (they seem to be for the F4U-1A, but other pars seem the -4 it's weird)


Wait, it's knots not mph... oops 


And the maybe the engine ratings on the 1st page are at low blower, or maybe intermediate, that would make more sense, granted only normal and MIL power listed not WEP or with water injection. (the F4U had 3 blower settings, first the integral single stage single speed one, then add the engage the aux supercharger stage at low speed, then 3rd the aux at high speed)


And the document shows a top speed of ~450 mph at ~20,500 ft, and a max climb of ~4,800 ft/min from SL to ~11,000 ft. (according to the charts)

In the notes, Vmax is listed as 403 kts (463 mph) at 20,600 ft. in clean configuration.


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## claidemore (May 7, 2008)

FLYBOYJ said:


> The new Yak 9s must also weight way less - just think about the radios.....



True, empty weight original was 5526, modern is 5000, so lighter radios/avionics and no guns? 

Propeller is different on modern Yaks as well, not sure what effect it has. 

Of course, the 'old' Yak 9U speeds are still listed as somewhere between 420 and 437 regardless of the performance of the modern ones. I would tend to go with the 420 figure for the 9U, as the 437 lines up with the Yak3 with VK 107 engine. But that's just a logical guesstimate. lol

Interesting that the climb rates are apparently so similar on these two planes. The Soviets considered the Yak a much faster climbing plane than the FW 190, and in the tests of FW190 vs F4U-1 the 190 outclimbed it. I wish we had a nice graph with the Yak climb rates like we do for the F4U-4. 

I ended up voting for the Yak in any case. 



> In the words of German fighter ace Gerhard Barkhorn (301 victories) " I fought against all types of Soviet fighter, including those supplied under Lend-Lease (spitfire, hurricane, P-40, P-39, P-51), and the Yak-9 was the best".


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## claidemore (May 7, 2008)

Ahhh, the dreaded knots! No wonder. Duh.


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## KrazyKraut (May 7, 2008)

I never heard of Soviet lend-lease Mustangs, though.

I vote F4U, though it's kind of odd to rate the two against each other.


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## JoeB (May 7, 2008)

KrazyKraut said:


> I never heard of Soviet lend-lease Mustangs, though.


Only 4 actual Lend Lease Mustangs (Allison Mustang I's via the Brits) plus some USAAF P-51's left behind in the 'shuttle raids' to and from Ukranian bases, and tested by the Soviets. The former were evaluated in an operational unit in '42 but disliked and not used in combat, per "Red Stars Vol 4" by Guest and Petrov.

However, the Germans, and Finns, apparently mistakenly thought they encountered Mustangs in Soviet hands in some cases. And USAAF P-51's, on shuttle raids or 15th AF a/c from Italy, were being encountered by German units nominally in the 'East' by mid 1944.

Joe


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## Kruska (May 7, 2008)

```
claidemore; Like the F4U-4, the Yak 9U also had two different weapon choices, the 20mm ShVAK + 2 x 12.7mm UB or the NS-37mm cannon +2 x 12.7mm UB (Yak 9UT, 282 produced).
```

Hello claidemore,

I voted for the F4U-4 for being the overall much better a/c.

The data I have regarding the armament of the Jak9 differs from your post. I am not aware of a Jak-9UT with a 37mm plus two 12.7mm. From which source did you retrieve your info? I am not saying that this would not be correct, but I have no info on this.

Jak-9UT: 37 mm Nudelman-Suranov Canon and two 20 mm Berezin Cannon
Yak-9T: with one Nudelman-Suranov 37mm-Cannon and mountings for 5.5 pound bomblets
Jak-9U: one 23-mm-Cannon WJa-23 and two synchronized Beresin 12.7-mm-MG’s plus mountings for 2 x 100kg bombs.
Jak-9P: only one 23-mm WJa-23
Jak-9K: with 45 mm Cannon
Jak-9P: one 20mm ShVAK Cannon
Jak-9: one 20mm Cannon and two 12.7mm
Jak-9D: one 20mm Cannon and one 12.7mm
Jak-9TD: one 37mm Cannon and mountings for 4 x 50kg bombs
Jak-9B: 4 vertical pipes behind cockpit with 100kg bombs each or 3.3 pound bomblets

Regards
Kruska


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## renrich (May 7, 2008)

KK, I don't believe 463 mph for F4U4. Every good reference I have including Boone Guyton's (the test pilot for Vought) says 446 mph. Perhaps a specially prepared AC could go faster. The 463mph could be the F4U5 as I have seen 465-470 quoted for it as it had a different engine and supercharger set up than the 4. The Corsairs had a two speed two stage supercharger. The first stage compressed the fuel air mixture and worked whenever the engine turned over and was called neutral blower. It sufficed for takeoff and low altitude operation. The second stage had to be manually switched on by the the pilot, compressed the air going from the outside to the carburetor after going through an intercooler and had two speeds. Low blower was used from about 5000 feet to 18000 feet. High blower was used from 18000 feet up. Thus the charge air was compressed by two blowers, one ahead of the carb and one after it. It seems odd to me that the pilot in a Corsair had to manually switch modes when , for instance, in the Merlin Mustangs, the switching was all automatic. My suspicion is that the Navy was all into reliability and did not want to risk any auto stuff. Kind of like if I am on a serious 4-wheel drive trail, I want to be able to grab a lever and manually shift the tranny into low range, not push a button or have it be automatic.


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## HoHun (May 7, 2008)

Hi Renrich,

>KK, I don't believe 463 mph for F4U4. 

Maybe these datasheets are of interest:

Untitled Document

Maximum speed for the F4U-4 is given as 728 km/h @ 6250 m, which is slightly short of 463 mph. However, it appears that the presence of "two capped pylons" lowered the speed a bit below the maximum for a clean airframe.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## Soren (May 7, 2008)

KK,

The F4U's wing doesn't achieve nearly as high a Clmax as the FW-190's, the reason being the F4U's wing isn't as clean a design (Big LE intakes at roots and gull shape), and doesn't utilize the optimum TR's as the FW-190's wing does. (16 - 9%) 

Also note that the wing root TR is actually 18%, outside the optimum.

The F4U's wing most likely has a Clmax ranging between 1.49 - 1.51, still higher than the Yak's but lower than the 190's.

Now as for wing power-loading, there isn't the difference Bill suggests:

*F4U-4 *
Gross weight: 12,500 lbs (5,600 kg)
Wing area: 29.17 m^2
Power: 2,450 HP
___________________
WL = 191.7 kg/m^2
PL = 2.28 kg/hp

*Yak-9U *
Gross weight: 3,230 kg
Wing area: 17.2 m^2
Power: 1,500 HP
__________________
WL = 187.7 kg/m^2
PL = 2.15 kg/hp

So the difference in wing loading amounts to 2.1%, however the F4U's higher Clmax makes up for this. Meanwhile the difference in power-loading is 6%, however I'd suspect that F4U-4 prop is more efficient.


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## kool kitty89 (May 7, 2008)

Soren, got it. That sounds about right. (I knew that there was some lost wasn't sure how much)

But according to this The Incomplete Guide to Airfoil Usage the TR at root was 15% tip 9%

(same for the F4F and F6F, except 15.6 for the F6F's root, the F2A had 18% root 9% tip)

Though the Fw 190's would be higher as well as it had a continuous 15% thickness along the span. (15% being very close to maximum CL for the arfoil, as you've shown it drops above 16%)


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## HoHun (May 7, 2008)

Hi Koolkitty,

>But according to this The Incomplete Guide to Airfoil Usage the TR at root was 15% tip 9%

If it helps, the BuAer drawing referenced above features a drawing that names the airfoil designations for the F4U ...

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## Soren (May 7, 2008)

KK,

According the Vought's own specs it is 18%, so IAU's figure must be a typo.


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## kool kitty89 (May 7, 2008)

OK,

And Henning, the F4U (and all WWII US Navy fighters that I know of, along with most Navy a/c used the high lift NACA 23000 series airfoil, so the F4U should be 23018 root 23009 tip)


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## kool kitty89 (May 7, 2008)

Did the corsair use an intercooler?


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## renrich (May 7, 2008)

Thanks HoHun, interesting info. I have 3 references here, all books, "America's Hundred Thousand," by Dean, which, I believe is the best reference I have ever seen on all fighters used by the US in WW2. It is exhaustively researched with footnotes and references given at the end of each chapter. Dean is a aero engineer, degree from MIT, served USN and worked for Boeing and Curtis Wright in industry for 38 years. "The Great Book of WW2 Airplanes" a compendium of books about various AC of WW2. It has a whole section on the Corsair. "Whistling Death," by Boone Guyton, the test pilot for the Corsair program. He is the one who did a dead stick landing in the prototype on a golf course in 1940. After the plane was rebuilt he flew it over a measured course and clocked a little over 400 MPH. Anyway, all those sources have pretty much the identical same performance numbers for the Corsair. The numbers from your site look good to me as the Corsair is my favorite AC of all time but they look a little suspect. A question you might have the answer to: the inverted gull wing of the Corsair looks like it would have two lift vectors, one for the wing root structure which ties into the fuselage at 90 degrees and one for the rest of the wing. Obviously the other side has the same configuration. What effect do you think this has on flight characteristics of the Corsair?


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## renrich (May 7, 2008)

KK, see my post #28 for intercooler question.


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## claidemore (May 7, 2008)

Kruska,

My mistake. Yak 9U with NS 37cannon had only *ONE *12.7 UB.


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## Kruska (May 7, 2008)

claidemore said:


> Kruska,
> 
> My mistake. Yak 9U with NS 37cannon had only *ONE *12.7 UB.



Hello claidemore,

I wouldn't know of that 9U armament arrangement either  but who knows what "individual" frontline arrangement some aircraft maybe had.

Regards
Kruska


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## kool kitty89 (May 8, 2008)

Didn't the inverted Gull wing contribute to the dangerous spin characteristics of some of the early corsairs?


Ant it's interesting that the prototypes of the first 2 US fighter a/c to exceed 400 mph both crash landed dead stick onto golf courses.  Though at leas it didn't delay the Corsair as it did the Lightning, and it wasn't totaled like the lightning. And both the P-38 and F4U have been on topics against the Yak-9.  (I don't think I've heard the whole story of the XF4U's crash though)



Oh, yeah I missed your thing on the intercooler the first time.


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## renrich (May 8, 2008)

KK, the crash landing of the XF4U happened when Boone Guyton took the AC out over the Atlantic to run some tests. Because of the speed of the Corsair he went slightly farther than planned and the weather turned bad. He was dodging thundestorms and realised he was running out of gas. He finally decided he was not going to make the field and selected a golf course to land on while he still had power. Boone was a former carrier qualified pilot and executed a full stall to approach landing just in front, if memory serves, of the tee box on a par four. Everything was fine except when he applied the brakes. The grass was wet from the rain and the plane just kept skidding. He finally skidded over the green and into a wooded ravine. The trees ripped the wings off and he wound up upside down hanging from his harness. Was rescued by a passerby. The plane did not catch on fire because the tanks were almost dry. He did not have a par on the hole. I believe it took about 6 months to rebuild the AC. I don't know if the inverted gull wing contributed to the spin characteristics or not. With my limited knowledge of aerodynamics, it seems to me that particular wing design might have an impact on longitudinal stability,(like wing dihedryl.)


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## renrich (May 8, 2008)

During the developmental stages of the Corsair, the R2800 engine caused a lot of problems. It was new and the Corsair was one of the first to use it. Among other problems, one of the cylinders (I can't remember which one and the book is packed) kept overheating and causing engine failure. Guyton became proficient at dead stick landings. Once and I believe this was after production had begun, he just failed to make the runway, hit a dike, the plane was totaled and Boone was propelled down the runway still strapped to his seat. He barely survived and spent many months in the hospital. Guyton was 6'4" which explains some of the dimensions of the cockpit. He flew an A6M and could not close the canopy. An interesting point is that Vought spent around 700 flight test hours perfecting the ailerons on the Corsair which showed up in it's roll rate, allegedly perhaps the best of US WW2 fighters. Or course AC which used the R2800 later such as P47 and F6F benefited from Vought's experience.


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## kool kitty89 (May 8, 2008)

For Roll it was either the F4U or P-47N, inless you count the P-80.


Too bad he didn't take it in for a belly landing, still ended up better than the XP-38 though.


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## renrich (May 8, 2008)

Why would the P47N have a good roll rate? With the extended wing span, I would think that the roll rate would be slower than the P47D. The problem with the F4U and roll rate is concerned is that my reference says that very little data exists which quantifies the roll rate of that AC. All there is to go on basically is testimony by pilots who say that it had a very high roll rate with some claiming a two second 360 degree roll at higher speeds. I rolled an L39 twice at 250 knots and the specs say it will do one second rolls. All I can say is that it rolls plenty fast!


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## HoHun (May 8, 2008)

Hi Renrich,

>The numbers from your site look good to me as the Corsair is my favorite AC of all time but they look a little suspect. 

Hm, they seem to be official BuAer numbers, and if I were BuAer, I'd have checked them before release. However, I'm not BuAer 

You could try to contact F4UDOA over here: http://bbs.hitechcreations.com

He has probably seen most data anyone could dig up by perseverant and inspired internet research, and he'll probably be able to give you an accurate assessment of F4U-4 performance.

He might also be your best hope regarding reports on the Corsair's wings - I have not seen anything relating specifically to the inverted gull shape, I'm afraid.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## JoeB (May 8, 2008)

Kruska said:


> ```
> The data I have regarding the armament of the Jak9 differs from your post. Jak-9P: one 20mm ShVAK Cannon
> [/QUOTE]
> There were two different 'Yak-9P' , one a prototype M-105PF powered a/c during WWII and one the postwar production model, essentially an all-metal Yak-9U, VK-107A powered. The former type per most sources had 2*20mm, but the latter type is the one of interest here since the postwar metal Yak-9P was the only Yak-9 to actually meet F4U-4's in combat, and was again essentially the same a/c as the Yak-9U besides having metal wings.
> ...


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## Kruska (May 8, 2008)

Hello JoeB,

That is some good and interesting info, thanks.

Regards
Kruska


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## kool kitty89 (May 8, 2008)

Well firstly the increase in span of the N over the normal P-47 wing was only 40 feet 9 3/8 inches standard to 42 ft 7 in for the N's wing. 

But there's a wole lot more to the story:

Seversky Aircraft and Republic Aviation


> Fortunately, Republic had been paying attention to developments with the P-51 and were hard at work on a long range Thunderbolt as early as November of 1943. The same P-47C-5-RE that had been used as development mule for the Pratt Whitney R-2800 C series was fitted with 27 inch long extension inserts in each wing. This was done largely to test the handling of the aircraft. No provision was made to carry any additional fuel in the wings. These tests revealed that the roll rate had suffered and the wings were clipped at the tips and a squared off cap was fitted.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




And against the F4U-4:

Chance Vought F4U-4 Corsair


> The F4U also rolled well. When rolling in conjunction with powerplant torque, in other words, rolling left, it was among the very fastest rolling fighters of the war. In the inventory of American fighters, only the P-47N rolled faster, and only by 6 degrees/second.


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## FLYBOYJ (May 8, 2008)

JoeB said:


> There were two different 'Yak-9P' , one a prototype M-105PF powered a/c during WWII and one the postwar production model, essentially an all-metal Yak-9U, VK-107A powered. The former type per most sources had 2*20mm, but the latter type is the one of interest here since the postwar metal Yak-9P was the only Yak-9 to actually meet F4U-4's in combat, and was again essentially the same a/c as the Yak-9U besides having metal wings.
> 
> The armament of the postwar all-metal Yak-9P VK-107 was 1*20mm ShVAK and 2*12.7mm UBS. Captured North Korean documents list the type and serial numbers for the weapons in various individual Yak-9P's in inventory just before the Korean War, so that armament is about 100% certain. It's not 100% certain that the Yak's met later by the F4U's (April 1951) were also 9P's but it's highly likely IMO.
> 
> ...



If I remember a post war production model that was captured during the Korean War was sitting in a museum on the east cost somewhere....


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## kool kitty89 (May 8, 2008)

Also note that removing the wing tanks from the Corsair (present on all F4U-1's iirc) increased its roll rate. As did the continual aileron improvements. 


And the higher speed figure should be for the F4U-5 with the reduced drag at high speed due to the all metal construction.


iirc the F4U-1 used wooden (high strength plywood) ailerons, flaps and elevators, and a fabric covered rudder. (along with the fabric covered outer wing pannels)

I don't know if the control surfaces changed changed in the F4U-4 though (the F4U-5 being all metal of course). But the wooden surfaces should work as well as metal covered ones. (both free of the deforming problems of fabric)


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## JoeB (May 8, 2008)

FLYBOYJ said:


> If I remember a post war production model that was captured during the Korean War was sitting in a museum on the east cost somewhere....


A Yak-9P was captured by the Marines at Kimpo a/f during the Inchon campaign in September 1950, shipped back to the US for study (at Cornell) and a later flight test program (of around 23 hrs in 16 flights) at Wright-Patterson AFB. AFAIK though it was junked in the late '50's, unfortunately. Other Yak-9P's still exist in former east bloc countries though and one is a prominent display in the 'Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum' in Pyongyang. 

Joe


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## Soren (May 9, 2008)

KK,

Regarding the F4U-4's control surfaces, I'm fairly certain they're all metal.

Also the F4U-4 was or could be equipped with ailerons boosters IIRC.


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## kool kitty89 (May 9, 2008)

Ok so the only fabric left was on the wings then. And no wood. (even the flaps) ?


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## Graeme (May 9, 2008)

JoeB said:


> AFAIK though it was junked in the late '50's, unfortunately.



North Korean Yak-9P, thought to be manufactured at State Factory No. 286 at Kamensk-Uralsk. Captured, as you mentioned, and given a USAF serial. T2-3002. Books of the late 60s and early 70s vintage, illustrate this photo describing it as _"on display at the USAF Museum at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base"_.


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## FLYBOYJ (May 9, 2008)

kool kitty89 said:


> Ok so the only fabric left was on the wings then. And no wood. (even the flaps) ?


I believe the trim tabs were made of wood up to the -5 models - we had this conversation previously.


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## renrich (May 9, 2008)

Thanks, KK, good info.


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## JoeB (May 9, 2008)

Graeme said:


> North Korean Yak-9P, thought to be manufactured at State Factory No. 286 at Kamensk-Uralsk. Captured, as you mentioned, and given a USAF serial. T2-3002. Books of the late 60s and early 70s vintage, illustrate this photo describing it as _"on display at the USAF Museum at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base"_.


I read it was disposed of in 1958 (someone on web quoting a book), but the USAF Museum doesn't have it now or any time in the last 20 years or so at least. A number of Russian sources say the Yak-9P was only produced at Factory 153 in Novosibirsk. I would like to review the original evaluations of the captured one, see if and why they concluded otherwise, haven't gotten around to that. The tail numbers of NK a/c were apparently a simple sequence based on when the a/c arrived from the Soviet Union, so this as single digit was one of the earlier ones. If as appears it's 9, it was already on inventory in February 1950 with the 1st Bn of the Fighter Regiment. Many of the initial OOB of Yak-9P's were received only from March 1950. A smaller number of 1944 production Yak-9M's left behind by Soviet occupation units leaving NK ca. 1948 were also still on hand just before the war (they had their own separate tail no. sequence).

A less often seen photo of the same plane as captured:






Joe


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## renrich (May 9, 2008)

I saw a Yak at some air races. Not sure which model but seems like it had a radial engine. I have a photo but it is packed somewhere. He was in the Gold (unlimited) class. He had an engine problem and did not get off the ground. I believe that "Dago Red" won the race.


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## Marcel (May 9, 2008)

renrich said:


> I saw a Yak at some air races. Not sure which model but seems like it had a radial engine. I have a photo but it is packed somewhere. He was in the Gold (unlimited) class. He had an engine problem and did not get off the ground. I believe that "Dago Red" won the race.



Probably a Yak11?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Jak_11_D-FYAK.jpg/300px-Jak_11_D-FYAK.jpg


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## Marcel (May 9, 2008)

renrich said:


> I saw a Yak at some air races. Not sure which model but seems like it had a radial engine. I have a photo but it is packed somewhere. He was in the Gold (unlimited) class. He had an engine problem and did not get off the ground. I believe that "Dago Red" won the race.



Probably a Yak11?


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## kool kitty89 (May 9, 2008)

But why in an air race it's a trainer with a relatively small engine and modest top speed. ( ~280 mph)

Unless it was modified with a larger engine, and a new prop.


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## renrich (May 9, 2008)

No, not a Yak 11. This was an AC that would be able to motor. These planes in the Gold race were approaching 500 mph when they crossed the start line in a shallow dive.


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## fly boy (May 9, 2008)

in over all f4u in production yak and in looks well that not a contest f4u


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 9, 2008)

Unless you are going to say something people can understand, please do not post anything at all.


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## claidemore (May 9, 2008)

Here's a radial Yak 3U. 

Photos: Yakovlev Yak-3U Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

Not a production plane, more of a hot rod!



> Yak-3U
> 
> Rebuilt aircraft with the ASh-82FN radial engine and twin B-20 cannon. Despite the fact the engine was heavier than the previous engines, this version actually weighted less than the standard Yak-3. During a series of test flights started on 12 May 1945, the aircraft achieve a maximum speed of 441 mph (710 km/h) at 20,015 ft (6100 m).





> Yak-3/VK-108
> 
> An experimental aircraft with the Klimov VK-108 engine. This aircraft first flew on 19 December 1944 and demonstrated a maximum speed of 463 mph (745 km/h) at 19,685 ft (6000 m). It was this version that proved to be the fastest of all Yak-3 variants.


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## JoeB (May 9, 2008)

I think the one on the racing circuit has an R-2000 (DC-4, etc's engine). I believe all flying Yak-3's were produced fairly recently, they aren't even puported to be 'restorations'.

Joe


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## Soundbreaker Welch? (May 12, 2008)

Not sure, I like the Yak 9, and I like the Corsair too. 

The La-7 is probably my favorite Russian plane, but I still like the Yak. It had good guns.


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## timshatz (May 12, 2008)

JoeB said:


> I think the one on the racing circuit has an R-2000 (DC-4, etc's engine). I believe all flying Yak-3's were produced fairly recently, they aren't even puported to be 'restorations'.
> 
> Joe



I believe there were a bunch of Yak-3 fighters made in the early 90s using Allison Engines. A production run of about 12 or so were made using the original jigs (the Soviets still had them). Remember them being for sale for about 300K (going on memory here).


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## C0WB0Y (Jan 23, 2009)

I dunno about the Yak-9 vs F4U-4 scenario...

...but as far as the Yak-9 vs F4U-5 scenario, I can definately tell you that Yak-9 wins hands down.


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## renrich (Jan 23, 2009)

Why would you say you don't know about F4U4 V Yak 9 but definitely the Yak 9 over F4U5? The F4U5 outperformed the F4U4. I don't believe that any Yak 9 would have much of a chance against either the 4 or 5. If memory serves the Corsairs shot down several Yak 9s in Korea.


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## C0WB0Y (Jan 23, 2009)

renrich said:


> Why would you say you don't know about F4U4 V Yak 9 but definitely the Yak 9 over F4U5? The F4U5 outperformed the F4U4.



I've never been in a F4U-4.


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## KrazyKraut (Jan 23, 2009)

I would assume altitude to play a major factor here. What altitude were you flying C0WB0Y?


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## C0WB0Y (Jan 23, 2009)

KrazyKraut said:


> I would assume altitude to play a major factor here. What altitude were you flying C0WB0Y?




Allow me to clarify:

I have not flown the Corsair yet. However, I have flown the Yak-9 pictured above. It belongs to my roommate. Hell of a sweet bird. The F4U-5 pictured above (that is me in the cockpit) is flown by our good friend He hangared the Corsair with the Yak-9 for a couple months this year.

My roommate has participated in several mock dogfights with Corsairs and most often wins.


Although perhaps, it's just due to his superior skill as a pilot.


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## MikeGazdik (Jan 23, 2009)

Is the Yak , as pictured, all metal? Were not portions of them in WWII wood?. Tell us more! Allison engine or a Russian engine? I can keep going but I will try to be patient.


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## Clay_Allison (Jan 23, 2009)

MikeGazdik said:


> Is the Yak , as pictured, all metal? Were not portions of them in WWII wood?. Tell us more! Allison engine or a Russian engine? I can keep going but I will try to be patient.


The 9? No. The Yak-9 removed the last of the wood.


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## C0WB0Y (Jan 23, 2009)

MikeGazdik said:


> Is the Yak , as pictured, all metal? Were not portions of them in WWII wood?. Tell us more! Allison engine or a Russian engine? I can keep going but I will try to be patient.



Ok...

The Yak-9 is an all metal frame with fabric covering on the ailerons and rudder. It uses an Allison engine that's been overhauled and tweaked for air racing. Right now the radiator is being replaced for weight management and the whole motor will be converted to fuel-injection. We have another Allison on the hangar floor to run tests.

The propeller is obviously not standard. It was hand-built from a Corsair prop. About 2.5 feet were lopped off the original blades and then perfectly balanced and chromed. The new prop alone added over 40 knots to the top-end.

Any other questions?


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## Clay_Allison (Jan 23, 2009)

C0WB0Y said:


> Ok...
> 
> The Yak-9 is an all metal frame with fabric covering on the ailerons and rudder. It uses an Allison engine that's been overhauled and tweaked for air racing. Right now the radiator is being replaced for weight management and the whole motor will be converted to fuel-injection. We have another Allison on the hangar floor to run tests.
> 
> ...


Doesn't seem fair to compare that to a wartime production with a Klimov.


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## C0WB0Y (Jan 23, 2009)

Clay_Allison said:


> Doesn't seem fair to compare that to a wartime production with a Klimov.



Ya know, you've got a valid point.


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## Clay_Allison (Jan 23, 2009)

C0WB0Y said:


> Ya know, you've got a valid point.


The Klimov was a dog, based on a dog (H.S. 12Y). They should have built a Yak around the AM-38.


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## C0WB0Y (Jan 23, 2009)

Quick story:

So I'm on the ramp at NAS Oceana and my roommate and I are introduced to a Mr. Hans Meier, who was a Me 109 Ace.

My roommate said, "It's so nice to meet a fellow warbird pilot, Mr. Meier. I fly the Yak-9."

To which Mr. Meier replied, "Ach!!... Yak-9?? Ya, ya... I shoot down 4 Yak-9's over Stalingrad!!"

My roomie was so PISSED.







Then for fun, our friend Dale 'Snort' Snodgrass took Mr. Meier up for a spin in 'Little Horse'.


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## claidemore (Jan 24, 2009)

I believe Lily Litvyak shot down a German pilot by the name of Hans Meier (with a Yak 1). Common name though.


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## C0WB0Y (Jan 24, 2009)

Dunno if it was the same guy.


Oh and some hangar pics:


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## Catch22 (Jan 24, 2009)

You're a lucky man Cowboy!


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## claidemore (Jan 25, 2009)

Clay_Allison said:


> The Klimov was a dog, based on a dog (H.S. 12Y). They should have built a Yak around the AM-38.



What specifically about the Klimov engines made them dogs? 

Just doing a quick comparison with the AM-38.

The Klimov 105 : 0.89hp/lb, AM38 : 0.94 hp/lb 
Klimov weight: 1365 lbs, AM-38 weight: 1940 lbs. 
Klimov displacement: 2142 cu/in, AM-38 : 2847 cu/ins.
Klimov supercharger: single stage two speed, AM-38: single speed. 
Klimov 2600 rpm takeoff: AM-38 2350rpm. 

The Klimov was lighter, had higher rpm, higher compression ratio, better supercharger. 

They built over 90,000 of the M-105s. For the lightweight Soviet fighter designs like the Yak, it seems ideally suited.


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## renrich (Jan 25, 2009)

That Corsair in the picture is an F4U5N, the night fighter version. It has slightly less performance than the F4U5.


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## C0WB0Y (Jan 25, 2009)

renrich said:


> That Corsair in the picture is an F4U5N, the night fighter version. It has slightly less performance than the F4U5.



Well, it's the only -5 model still flying, so it's the only thing we have left to compare with.


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## Catch22 (Jan 25, 2009)

What is this then?






I think there's more than one -5 about.

EDIT: Just noticed the date was 05 and not 08, let me do some research.


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## Catch22 (Jan 25, 2009)

According to Wiki:

F4U-5P c/n ?? Bu.124486, converted to F4U-5NL, ex-VMF(N)-513 - MCAS El Toro, SOC: 1956, Sold Honduras 27 March 1956, ex-Honduras AF FAH-606 "El Guajiro", " WF 14 Flying Nightmares ", Mike George, Springfield, IL (A)

F4U-5NL c/n ?? Bu.124541 (F-AZYS), sold: 1957 Argentina, ex-Argentine Navy 0433 ex-2° Escuadrilla de Ataque "2-A-202" - Bahia Blanca, ex-Fuerza Aeronaval 3 "3-A-204" - Trelew, SOC: 1969, ex-Museo De La Aviacion Naval "2-A-202", " 14.F.6 "Les Ailes de l'Aero, Cuers, France (A)

F4U-5 c/n ?? Bu124692 (N45NL), accepted: 7 May 1951, ex-VC-3 - USS Essex, ex-VC-4 - NAS Atlantic City / USS Leyte, ex-VMF(N)-114 - MCAS Cherry Point / USS Tarawa, ex-USS Boxer, SOC: 1956, " NP-5 "Collins Foundation, Stowe, MA (A)

F4U-5NL c/n ?? Bu.124724 (F-AZEG) accepted: 26 September 1951, ex-VC-3 "NP 22" - USS Valley Forge (Detachment B), ex-VC-3 - USS Boxer (Detachment H), SOC: 1956 - NAS Litchfield, Sold: 7 March 1956 Honduras, ex-Fuerza Area Hondurena FAH-600 - Tegucigalpa AB, soc: 1979, Soccer War Vetern, " P 22 ", Amicale Jean-Baptiste Salis Collection, la Ferte-Alais, France (A)

F4U-5P c/n ?? Bu.123168 (N179NP), ex-F4U-5N, Sold Honduras 27 March 1956, ex-Honduras AF FAH-603 " WR-5 ", Indiana Aviation Museum, Porter County Airport, Valparaiso, IN (A) 
note: rebuilt using parts and id of F4U-5N 122179 

F4U-5P c/n Bu.122184 (N65WP), accepted: 1948, converted to F4U-5NL, ex-VMF(N)-513 ex-VMF212, ex-NAS Litchfield Park, SOC: 1956, Sold Honduras 27 March 1956, ex-Honduras AF FAH-605 - 2 kills / FG-1D FAS-202 FG-1D FAS 204 17 July 1969, " WF-6 ", James E. Smith, Crystal Lakes Resort, Fortine, MT (A)

F4U-5NL c/n 9873 Bu.121823 (N43RW),ex-MAG-33 / VMF-212, ex-Argentine Navy 0434, ex-3rd Escuadrilla de Ataque (Attack Squad) / Squadron N° 2 "3-A-202", "RW-21 Annie Mo ", Lone Star Flight Museum [Lone Star Flight Museum|(LSFM)]], Galveston, TX (A)

According to Wiki there are 7 -5s still airworthy, though you are actually in aviation circles, so you may know better than I.


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## C0WB0Y (Jan 25, 2009)

The story I've heard about the hangar is the -5 we had participated in the Soccer Wars in Honduras and was found crashed into the side of a mountain. It was then restored and shortly thereafter lost at sea due to running out of gas. It was recovered AGAIN, and restored AGAIN.

I've been told it's the only -5 currently still flying, but then again, it wouldn't be the first tall tale told on the ramp, now would it??


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## renrich (Jan 25, 2009)

Would Howard Pardue have a 5?


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## Catch22 (Jan 25, 2009)

C0WB0Y said:


> The story I've heard about the hangar is the -5 we had participated in the Soccer Wars in Honduras and was found crashed into the side of a mountain. It was then restored and shortly thereafter lost at sea due to running out of gas. It was recovered AGAIN, and restored AGAIN.
> 
> I've been told it's the only -5 currently still flying, but then again, it wouldn't be the first tall tale told on the ramp, now would it??



Well. that COULD account for 2 or 3 of them, but that still leaves like 4 or 5.


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## Clay_Allison (Jan 25, 2009)

claidemore said:


> What specifically about the Klimov engines made them dogs?
> 
> Just doing a quick comparison with the AM-38.
> 
> ...


Look at the HP/LB and add up the number of pounds. There is no replacement for displacement and this seems like a perfect example of this axiom


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## renrich (Jan 26, 2009)

I looked at a source online and it appears that four or five F4U5Ns are flying but the source may be incomplete are inaccurate. I knew a guy in Dallas back in the early 90s, name of Preston, who had a F4U5 that he flew out of Addison airport and he put the Corsair on his front lawn one day along with a Renault tank for a party. I feel pretty sure that one is still flying.


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## Catch22 (Jan 26, 2009)

renrich said:


> I looked at a source online and it appears that four or five F4U5Ns are flying but the source may be incomplete are inaccurate. I knew a guy in Dallas back in the early 90s, name of Preston, who had a F4U5 that he flew out of Addison airport and he put the Corsair on his front lawn one day along with a Renault tank for a party. I feel pretty sure that one is still flying.



I'd certainly like to crash that party!


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## renrich (Jan 27, 2009)

It was in North Dallas, he had a mansion and the party was wild, meant to celebrate 4th of July, I think.


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## Von Frag (Jan 27, 2009)

renrich said:


> I looked at a source online and it appears that four or five F4U5Ns are flying but the source may be incomplete are inaccurate. I knew a guy in Dallas back in the early 90s, name of Preston, who had a F4U5 that he flew out of Addison airport and he put the Corsair on his front lawn one day along with a Renault tank for a party. I feel pretty sure that one is still flying.



Is this one of the two that tried to take off over a couple of Bearcats at an airshow a few years ago? All 4 birds were smashed up pretty bad and the owner of the Cavenaugh flight museum flying one of the Corsairs almost died.


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## renrich (Jan 27, 2009)

The F4U5 that was there escaped damage, I believe, but an F4U4 was badly damaged and it belonged to the Cavanaugh Air Museum. I cannot figure out how there can occur and accident like that while taxiing with those kind of valuable AC and with those kind of pilots not withstanding the poor visibility on the ground.


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## drgondog (Jan 27, 2009)

Von Frag said:


> Is this one of the two that tried to take off over a couple of Bearcats at an airshow a few years ago? All 4 birds were smashed up pretty bad and the owner of the Cavenaugh flight museum flying one of the Corsairs almost died.



There was an accident between and F4U and another ship that I recall in DFW area. One of the high time 109 pilots was nearly killed and may have died later - I think he was flying the Corsair.

IIRC it was formation takeoff and something happened - control wise - but it has been nearly 15+ years if memory serves.


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## davparlr (Jan 28, 2009)

HoHun said:


> F4U-4 vs. Yak 9
> 
> Maybe these datasheets are of interest:
> 
> ...



I too, have had difficulties with the numbers associated with the referenced document, especially climb. It looks real official but so does all the other references and flight test. I have tried to normalize weight and power and numbers between Dean’s data, Navair, and Vought specifications to no avail so far. All are different and very confusing. Most of the data here is Dean’s, which is also somewhat suspect, e.g., Dean’s data for SL climb at combat power is the same as some test results showing SL climb in Mil power, and 1000 ft/min off the number for Navair document. 


This is the data I have

*Empty weight *
Yak-9U 5512 lbs
F4U-4 9205

*Fighter weight *
Yak-9U 6591 lbs
F4U-4 12420 

*Fuel weight*
Yak-9U 705 lbs
F4U-4 1068 lbs

*Fighter weight, F4U-4 normalized for fuel*
Yak-9U 6591
F4U-4 12057

*Power SL*
Yak-9U 1500 hp
F4u-4 2380

*Wing area*
Yak-9U 185 sq. ft.
F4U-4 314 

*Wing Loading*
Yak-9U 35 lbs/sq.ft. 
F4U-4 38 lbs/sq.ft.

*Ceiling*
Yak-9U 35k ft.
F4U-4 41k

*Power Loading*
Yak-9U 4.394
F4U-4 5.07

*Airspeed*
SL 
Yak-9U 357 mph
F4U-4 380

16.5k ft
Yak-9U 417 mph (Max)
F4U-4 425 mph

26k ft.
Yak-9U ukn
F4U-4 446 mph (Max)

Note: F4U-4 is faster than 417 mph (Yak max) from15k ft. to 33k ft. (about Yak service ceiling)

*Climb to 16k ft. (5 km)*
Yak-9U 5 min.
F4U-4 4.8 min.


Summation from all of this with no power profiling for the Yak. At sea level, the Yak should be able to marginally out turn and out accelerate the F4U-4 due to better power loading and wing loading. Roll rate should benefit the F4U-4. The F4U-4 should be able to out dive and out climb the Yak. The F4U-4 is apparently faster over the entire envelop, significantly above 16k ft. If the F4U-4 maintains airspeed, it should be able to engage and disengage at will. Above 16k, F4U-4 performance advantage should increase dramatically.

Warning to F4U-4 Pilot. This Yak-9U performance is at Mil power (it has no Combat Power capability), and the Yak-9U can maintain this level of performance for an extended amount of time, you cannot. Use high speed diving attack and escape on low flying Yak-9Us. Above 20k, F4U-4 performance should be sufficient, even in Mil power.

Note: After May, ’44, the P-51B/D, with better speed, climb, and dive capability, should also easily defeat the Yak-9U at all altitudes, except at around 16k ft, where performance is more evenly matched. At mil power, P-51 performance is similar to the Yak-9U up to 16k but better above.


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## claidemore (Jan 28, 2009)

One performance factor that is always overlooked (probably because we don't know how to calculate it), is acceleration. 
The ability to accelerate quicker than the heavier Luftwaffe fighters was what made the Yak 3 (and Yak 1b) so effective against the higher max speed German fighters. 
The same would apply to the Yak 9U vs F4U-4. Half the weight, and better power loading. 5.2 or 5.0 lbs/hp for F4U-4 (depending on fuel) and 3.99 for Yak 9U (Sea level horsepower should be 1650 for the VK-107, 1450 @2800m).


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## Vincenzo (Jan 28, 2009)

same fuel load so we need think that R-2800 and VK 105 have same fuel consume?


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## HoHun (Jan 28, 2009)

Hi Davparlr,

>I too, have had difficulties with the numbers associated with the referenced document, especially climb. 

Hm, actually I didn't have any difficulties with the numbers, but maybe I didn't look closely enough.

What do you think is difficult about the data set I referenced?

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## HoHun (Jan 28, 2009)

Hi Claidemore,

>One performance factor that is always overlooked (probably because we don't know how to calculate it), is acceleration. 

Acceleration at any speed is directly proportional to climb rate at the same speed, which can be calculated fairly easily.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## Vincenzo (Jan 28, 2009)

Vincenzo said:


> same fuel load so we need think that R-2800 and VK 105 have same fuel consume?



i'm in wrong Yak 9U had VK 107 but davparl date are for VK 105 engined version


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## davparlr (Jan 30, 2009)

Vincenzo said:


> same fuel load so we need think that R-2800 and VK 105 have same fuel consume?



Good observation. I was a bit lazy in applying adjustments for increased fuel consumption. However, only the calculations of wing loading and power loading were affected. The performance numbers, airspeed and climb, was taken at the normal F4U-4 fighter weight, about 12,500 lbs. The summation is still valid.



HoHun said:


> Hm, actually I didn't have any difficulties with the numbers, but maybe I didn't look closely enough.
> 
> What do you think is difficult about the data set I referenced?
> 
> ...



It is not just the data you presented referencing the navyairbureau document I have had difficulties with, but various sources. For example, look at rate of climb at sea level for the F4U-4 as noted by different sources.

1) Dean, America’s Hundred Thousand
Combat power (2380 hp), 12,400 lbs *3800 ft/min*
2) Flight test, A/C 80765, 
Mil power (2000 hp), 12,500 lbs *3550 ft/min*
3) Vought Detail Specification For Model F4U-4 Airplane
Combat Power (2380 hp), 12,405 lbs *4360 ft/min*
4) Navyairbureau Document
Max power, 12,480lbs *4800 ft/min*


Additional reference. Flight test F4U-1A (with water injection) no. 17930
War emergency power (2150 hp), 12,162 lbs *3200 ft/min *

As you can see, the data is all over the place. Notice that the Navyairbureau no. for the F4U-4 is 1600 ft/min better than the F4U-1A with only a 230 hp increase, which doesn’t make sense. I have had much difficulty in correlating data for the F4U-4, and, all the data looks valid. Tis a puzzlement. Maybe there is a difference in fuel but I found no reference.


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## HoHun (Jan 30, 2009)

Hi Davparlr,

>It is not just the data you presented referencing the navyairbureau document I have had difficulties with, but various sources. 

Hm, I had a closer look at the BuAer document, and now I have difficulties with that one too :-/

>Max power, 12,480lbs *4800 ft/min*

Max power is not even listed with a HP figure in the document. It only lists "T.O.", "Mil." and "Norm.", but provides speed curves only for "Maximum" and "Normal".

The data for BuAer speed curve 4 ("Normal" power) shows markedly less influence of supersonic propeller tip speeds than I'd expect. The climb rate at normal power seems to be a bit too high compared to my calculations too. As typically, my calculations err just a bit on the high side, this is cause for concern.

The "maximum" power setting is not defined, but if I simply up power in my calculations until I get that 4800 rpm low-altitude climb rate, I end up with at least 3000 HP. This seems excessive ...

Hm, I'll have to have a look at the F4U-1 again which seemed to have rather sane data when I last ran the numbers for it.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## dragonandhistail (Jan 30, 2009)

Hello everyone,

I'd have to vote for the F4U in almost every category. I am new to these forums and look forward to learning from all of you. I am interested in the survivability of the respective aircraft engines of each of these fighters with regard to battle damage. Was the Corsair's radial better able to take hits than the Yak's inline?

Thanks


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## Catch22 (Jan 30, 2009)

The Corsairs engine could take more punishment, but it was also contained to the cowling really. Inline engines had components all through the plane, making it much more likely to get damaged. Basically, to hurt the F4U's engine, you pretty much had to hit the engine itself, whereas with the Yak you could hit most of the fuselage and cause damage.


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## Clay_Allison (Jan 31, 2009)

This is an interesting question but It comes down IMO to any debate between a traditional dogfighter (Yak) and a heavy boom-and-zoom fighter.

I think if the Corsair comes in high with the energy advantage then the Yak has no chance. If the Yak has altitude and energy, I think it makes it 50/50.

The F4U was tough, very tough. I think it could take a few more shots than the Yak 9 and that has done more for fighters (F4F, P-40 versus better performing fighters) than flying purists give it credit for.

Overall, I'd say a long series of contest would return a 3:1 kill advantage over the Yak-9, not even counting the fact that American pilots have always been better than Russian pilots. (No offense, but 3 wars in which they can be compared head to head (Korea, Vietnam) or against common opponents (WWII) renders a clear enough result for me.


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## claidemore (Jan 31, 2009)

Clay_Allison said:


> Overall, I'd say a long series of contest would return a 3:1 kill advantage over the Yak-9, not even counting the fact that American pilots have always been better than Russian pilots. (No offense, but 3 wars in which they can be compared head to head (Korea, Vietnam) or against common opponents (WWII) renders a clear enough result for me.



Let's see. One American pilot in WWII with 40 kills. 
The Soviets had 15 guys with over 40 kills, top guy had 62. 
3 American pilots with over 30 kills compared to 49 Soviet pilots with over 30 kills.
27 American pilots with 20 kills or more, 203 Soviet pilots. 

That's about a 10 to 1 advantage for the Soviets the way I do math. If my numbers are wrong, I apologize, I did a quick search to find these. 

So what would happen if you put a Croation pilot in the Corsair (the Croats had exactly the same number of 40 kill aces as the USA) and a Finnish one in the Yak (they had half as many 40 kill aces as the Soviets)? Who would win then?


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## Catch22 (Jan 31, 2009)

Claidemore, you have to take into consideration too that the Americans flew a limit of 3 combat tours then got sent home. Russian pilots flew and flew and flew some more, until they were either dead, captured or the war ended. Same with German pilots. Western Allied pilots just didn't have the time to amass as many kills.


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## Clay_Allison (Jan 31, 2009)

claidemore said:


> Let's see. One American pilot in WWII with 40 kills.
> The Soviets had 15 guys with over 40 kills, top guy had 62.
> 3 American pilots with over 30 kills compared to 49 Soviet pilots with over 30 kills.
> 27 American pilots with 20 kills or more, 203 Soviet pilots.
> ...


100+ kill aces have only happened in one war and all against one opponent, the Soviet Union. Numerically the Soviets had more wins and more Aces. That is extremely impressive if you don't care at all about losses. The Soviets probably lost more fighters in any given year from the Beginning of their war with Germany than the U.S. lost in all three of the wars I named put together. 

When it was settled head to head using WWII veterans in Korea, the results were pretty clear who was superior, MiG-15 against F-86.

I'd take a Finnish Pilot from WWII against anybody, they probably had the highest average number of kills/pilot of any air force in the war, all with pretty below average or average-at-best fighters.


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## KrazyKraut (Jan 31, 2009)

The results are not so clear as you may think. I read several more recent papers about the subject and it blows holes into the typically quoted ratio of 10:1 in favor of the F-86. If you substract combat against North Korean and Chinese pilots and compare claims to admitted losses you end up at around 1.3-1.5 Russian Migs for every Sabre. Now add that Migs were mostly going after B-29s where Sabres were usually going after Migs and the statistic doesn't look too bad for the Russian Migs.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 31, 2009)

Clay_Allison said:


> 100+ kill aces have only happened in one war and all against one opponent, the Soviet Union.



Where do you get that from? You might want to do some research. The Germans had eight 100+ aces on the Western Front flying against British, French and US pilots. They also had another 29 pilots who scored at least 50 kills on the Western Front as well.

Here you go:

Hans-Joachim "Jochen" Marseille: 158 
Heinz "Pritzel" Bär: 125 (plus 96 were on the East Front for a total of 221)	Kurt Bühligen: 112 
Adolf "Dolfo" Galland: 104 
Joachim Müncheberg: 102 (plus 33 on the East front for a total of 135) 
Werner Schroer: 102 (plus 12 on the East Front for a total of 114)	
Egon Mayer: 102 
Josef "Pips" Priller: 101 

Helmut Wick scored 42 victories (total score of 56) alone in the Battle of Britian before being shot down and killed.	

You might want to check out this website. One of our very own (Erich) has helped with this site as well.

Kacha`s Luftwaffe Page


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## claidemore (Jan 31, 2009)

Catch22 said:


> Claidemore, you have to take into consideration too that the Americans flew a limit of 3 combat tours then got sent home. Russian pilots flew and flew and flew some more, until they were either dead, captured or the war ended. Same with German pilots. Western Allied pilots just didn't have the time to amass as many kills.



Hi Catch22,
Totally agree, but I think you missed my point. 
I was reacting to Clays statement:


> the fact that American pilots have always been better than Russian pilots


One nations pilots are not intrinsicaly better than anothers, no matter what color their flag. 

Clay Allison: Take a look at how many 10 plus kill aces the USA and the Soviets had in Korea. Also check out who was the top scorer in that conflict, and consider that the high scoring US pilots did so primarily against North Korean pilots while the Soviets racked up their scores against arguably the best trained pilots in the world. 

I admire national pride, but it needs to be backed up with more tangible arguments than opinion. 
BTW, how about some numbers to back up this statement?


> The Soviets probably lost more fighters in any given year from the Beginning of their war with Germany than the U.S. lost in all three of the wars I named put together.


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## HoHun (Jan 31, 2009)

Hi again,

>The data for BuAer speed curve 4 ("Normal" power) shows markedly less influence of supersonic propeller tip speeds than I'd expect. 

It seems that the Corsair used a number of different propellers, including at least one 13' 4" propeller, a 13' 2" propeller (F4U-4) and a 13' 1" propeller.

Does anyone know when which propeller was used? It seems that the 13' 4" was used on the early models, but so far that's only a guess ...

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## renrich (Jan 31, 2009)

Basing conclusions about AC on kill figures is a little tricky since the kill figures are sometimes(always?) suspect. I would suspect that the kill figures would especially be suspect in the case of the USSR.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 31, 2009)

renrich said:


> Basing conclusions about AC on kill figures is a little tricky since the kill figures are sometimes(always?) suspect. I would suspect that the kill figures would especially be suspect in the case of the USSR.



Agreed 100%.


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## davparlr (Jan 31, 2009)

HoHun said:


> Hi Davparlr,
> 
> 
> Hi Davparlr,
> ...



The Vought site f4u-4spec, shows 3870 ft/min, however it also notes that the -18W engine generates 2450 hp. So, I don’t even know how much hp the plane generates. Somewhere in all this info there lies the truth, perhaps you can ascertain the real values with your analysis.

Every time I try to evaluate this from various sources, I come against illogic. 




HoHun said:


> Hi again,
> 
> >The data for BuAer speed curve 4 ("Normal" power) shows markedly less influence of supersonic propeller tip speeds than I'd expect.
> 
> ...



Dean only reference the 13’1’’ propeller on the F4U-1, which is a three bladed prop. The F4U-4 used a four blade prop. Joint fighter conference book shows a 13’4” three bladed prop on the F4U-1C and a F2G with a 14’0” four bladed prop. Not much help


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## Clay_Allison (Jan 31, 2009)

claidemore said:


> Hi Catch22,
> Totally agree, but I think you missed my point.
> I was reacting to Clays statement: One nations pilots are not intrinsicaly better than anothers, no matter what color their flag.
> 
> ...


Look, I'm not knocking the Soviet pilots personally, I'm down on their training program. The Soviet Union always had a cavalier disregard for the lives of their troops and that went for their pilots as well. You look at kills, I look at losses. The Soviet pilots were killed in droves and you can't really argue that point. They just weren't trained up to peacetime standards the way American pilots were throughout the war. 

You are still using the fact that Americans didn't fly as many missions as a crutch to make up your argument. I think if we had left guys in the air until the war was over or they died we'd have had several 50-kill aces. Of course we'd have had a lot more dead aces as well.

DerAdlerIstGelandet: I stand corrected but, looking at the list you still have to go a ways down before you get to Marseille. Change my statement to read 160 kills and it still makes my point.


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## JoeB (Jan 31, 2009)

claidemore said:


> Hi Catch22,
> 
> Clay Allison: Take a look at how many 10 plus kill aces the USA and the Soviets had in Korea. Also check out who was the top scorer in that conflict, and consider that the high scoring US pilots did so primarily against North Korean pilots while the Soviets racked up their scores against arguably the best trained pilots in the world.
> 
> I admire national pride, but it needs to be backed up with more tangible arguments than opinion.


But there's also 'reverse national pride' sometimes, wanting to take certain other countries down a notch and so not looking into facts carefully enough when that's what they appear to do. I'm not saying it applies to you, but it does apply IMO to cases where Soviet accounts of Korea are presented in a misleading way.

The big picture in Korea is not that most US victories were against the North Koreans. Over half the officially admitted MiG-15 air combat losses were Soviet AF (319 per one good Russian source, other sources vary slightly). Most of the rest were PLAAF (224 is their official air combat loss total). The North Koreans themselves probably only lost a few dozen MiG-15's in air combat. F-86's claimed almost 800 MiG's (other fighter types claimed few, B-29's were credited 27 but most of those can be seen to have been overclaims) v that probably ~600 actual MiG-15 air combat loses. Looking into claims in WWII the number of actual losses per 100 credits is usually lower than that, often way lower, on average definitely lower. Nothing has been 'debunked' about F-86 claims in Korea that isn't or wouldn't be, usually more so, if WWII claims were given the same scrutiny.

On the Soviet side however, Soviet claims of F-86's alone enormously exceeded F-86 air combat losses per original records on the US side, quite detailed, and with various different kinds of records that all paint about the same picture (save interesting exceptions and mysteries here and there). The Soviets claimed upwards of 650 F-86's (named by type in specific combats), the Chinese 211 and again the NK's per one Russian sources made a serious (non-propaganda) claim of 40-some F-86's. Officially 78 F-86's were lost in air combat, but checking plane by plane I'd say up to 90 or so could be classed air combat losses. It's still an astounding 10:1 overclaim ratio (not to be confused with kill ratio) among the 3 allies in combat v F-86's (it wasn't quite as bad for claims v other types). And case by case there's no evidence the Soviet claims were greatly more accurate than Chinese claims.

Assuming proportionality therefore the F-86 kill ratio v the Soviets was 4-5:1, overall 6-7:1. Those are very high numbers for a ratio between top of line fighters verified by loss accounts of both sides. Higher numbers still quoted for WWII fighters are claims, usually subject to heavier discounting than the F-86 claims, and often include non-fighters and/or clearly inferior fighters as targets.

Back on the pilot level, the scores of high claiming Soviet pilots greatly exceeded the likely actual victories they scored: it's easy to see comparing detailed accounts combat by combat from each side. The two sides' accounts almost always agree when and where combats took place and types and rough numbers of a/c involved, but the Soviet credits are pretty consistently way in excess of the actual US losses. It's a prime example of why comparisons of credited scores of pilots from different AF's in WWII are also essentially meaningless. 
Here's an example analysis of the score of the highest credited Soviet pilot:
Korean War Ace Nikolai Sutyagin

Joe


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 31, 2009)

Clay_Allison said:


> DerAdlerIstGelandet: I stand corrected but, looking at the list you still have to go a ways down before you get to Marseille. Change my statement to read 160 kills and it still makes my point.



I am not agreeing or disagreeing with your point. The point I see is that pilots were shot down in droves on all fronts by all sides.


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## HoHun (Jan 31, 2009)

Hi Davparlr,

>Every time I try to evaluate this from various sources, I come against illogic. 

I see what you mean - I looked at #2155 here: F4U Performance Trials and found a wrong entry in the historic data table for MIL power, a generic NORM power curve, and two contradicting MIL power curves in the same report on the same aircraft.

>Dean only reference the 13’1’’ propeller on the F4U-1, which is a three bladed prop. The F4U-4 used a four blade prop. Joint fighter conference book shows a 13’4” three bladed prop on the F4U-1C and a F2G with a 14’0” four bladed prop.

Interesting, I hadn't been aware of the 14 ft propeller. Even the smaller ones yield rather high tip speeds, which is not helping propeller efficiency at all.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## HoHun (Jan 31, 2009)

Hi again,

Here some preliminary results from my analysis of the BuAer F4U-1 data sheet.

The speed data has been calibrated for the "normal" power top speed at critical altitude, and the rest has been calculated from there.

The top speed graphs seem to fit fairly well (considering that it's not a precision analysis yet), but the "neutral" gear setting of the supercharger drive shows that there is a marked difference between the rated powers listed in the manual (used for my analysis) and the powers the speed graph are based on with regard to their full throttle heights.

The same difference is visible in the climb graphs, but additionally, my climb calculation results in markedly higher climb rates than given by the BuAer data. I'm not sure what causes this ... usually my calculation because of neglecting the extra drag of open cowl flaps is slightly high, but typically less than 1 m/s, not the 2 - 3 m/s we're seeing here. Either the cowl flaps of the F4U-1 created a very generous amount of drag, or the cause of the difference is something else ...

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## Clay_Allison (Jan 31, 2009)

JoeB said:


> But there's also 'reverse national pride' sometimes, wanting to take certain other countries down a notch and so not looking into facts carefully enough when that's what they appear to do. I'm not saying it applies to you, but it does apply IMO to cases where Soviet accounts of Korea are presented in a misleading way.
> 
> The big picture in Korea is not that most US victories were against the North Koreans. Over half the officially admitted MiG-15 air combat losses were Soviet AF (319 per one good Russian source, other sources vary slightly). Most of the rest were PLAAF (224 is their official air combat loss total). The North Koreans themselves probably only lost a few dozen MiG-15's in air combat. F-86's claimed almost 800 MiG's (other fighter types claimed few, B-29's were credited 27 but most of those can be seen to have been overclaims) v that probably ~600 actual MiG-15 air combat loses. Looking into claims in WWII the number of actual losses per 100 credits is usually lower than that, often way lower, on average definitely lower. Nothing has been 'debunked' about F-86 claims in Korea that isn't or wouldn't be, usually more so, if WWII claims were given the same scrutiny.
> 
> ...



You said it better than I could.


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## davparlr (Jan 31, 2009)

HoHun said:


> Hi Davparlr,
> 
> Interesting, I hadn't been aware of the 14 ft propeller. Even the smaller ones yield rather high tip speeds, which is not helping propeller efficiency at all.
> 
> ...



The F2G was powered by the humongeous P&W 4360 engine of 3000 hp. Maybe the prop had a different design.


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## HellToupee (Jan 31, 2009)

Clay_Allison said:


> Look, I'm not knocking the Soviet pilots personally, I'm down on their training program. The Soviet Union always had a cavalier disregard for the lives of their troops and that went for their pilots as well. You look at kills, I look at losses. The Soviet pilots were killed in droves and you can't really argue that point. They just weren't trained up to peacetime standards the way American pilots were throughout the war.




Uhh one thing the soviets didn't have like everyone else was a disreguard for their pilots, pilots are a huge investment in time and resources, you might be confusing ww2 desperation tactics with business as usual. 

Look at their kills look at their losses and dig through all the creative accounting national pride etc and you find the soviet pilots gave as good as they got.


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## claidemore (Feb 1, 2009)

Clay:
Getting back to WWII. 


> The Soviet pilots were killed in droves


 How many exactly is that? Could you give us some numbers or sources to back up your opinions?

How do you quantify a countrys willingness to sacrifce it's pilots? We're discussing a country that lost 28 million people during that war. IF, they had a disregard for the lives of their pilots it was because they were waging 'total' war, with every resource, including human ones, committed to the max. 
You can't fight a war without casualties, and to rid a country of invaders who were committing genocide on large segments of its population, they could ill afford to pamper their pilots. 

As for training, there is a common myth that Soviet pilots were poorly trained. Fact is, Osoaviakhim had 120,000 trained pilots in reserve before the war started. 500 hours was not uncommon before a pilot got sent to a combat unit, and it was standard to have 100 hours minimum before being selected for a 'training unit'. Of course this vaired throughout the war. In 1941 there were some low time pilots who were sent to combat units. By 1942/43 this was no longer the case. 

The Soviets actually had a special unit of 'aces' who travelled to the different fronts and instructed the various fighter regiments in fighter tactics and advanced gunnery. I don't believe anybody else had a similar system. (They were also responsible for writing the fighter tactics manuals, some of which you can find online)

I actually consider the VVS to have been quite open to the needs of their pilots. Something like 200 modifications were made to the Yak 1 at the pilots request.


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## Amsel (Feb 1, 2009)

Stalin seemed quite open to suggestions for improvement by his generals, as long as his plans were being met. It also seems that the fighter pilots of the USSR had many concessions made for them by the regime. I am not sure how long after the war they enjoyed these extra "privelages" though. The death toll of the Red AF in the early stages of Barbarossa were attrocious though.

Reading through some German accounts of air combat on the Ostfront I have came across the story of the Soviet ace unit that traveled to the trouble spots to shoot down fighters.


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## HoHun (Feb 1, 2009)

Hi Davparlr,

>The F2G was powered by the humongeous P&W 4360 engine of 3000 hp. Maybe the prop had a different design.

Oops, I had confused the FG and the F2G  I think the R-4360 had a different reduction gearing, so it probably turned this 14' propeller slower than the R-2800 variants theirs.

(On WWII Aircraft Performance, there is an experimental F4U listed with a 13' 0" propeller and a reduction gearing of 0.4 instead of the usual 0.5. They were going for speed with this one! 

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## davparlr (Feb 1, 2009)

HoHun said:


> Hi Davparlr,
> 
> >The F2G was powered by the humongeous P&W 4360 engine of 3000 hp. Maybe the prop had a different design.
> 
> ...



I have a data base of aircraft that I like to keep up with the best data available. As of yet I am still quite confused on the data for the F4U-4, so if you can make heads or tails of the data, please let me know. Thanks.


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## JoeB (Feb 1, 2009)

claidemore said:


> Clay:
> Getting back to WWII.
> How many exactly is that? Could you give us some numbers or sources to back up your opinions?


That's a fair question to ask, but on what do you and the previous poster 'dig down and the Soviets gave as good as they got' [let's assume WWII, since that's patently untrue in Korea] base your opinions, of Soviet parity with German fighters it seems you think? The Korea case is relevant in suggesting tremendous caution in evaluating Stalinist era Soviet fighter combat effectiveness based on Soviet accounts, which is what you seem to be mainly doing. The same is true of their 1939 air combat with the JAAF in the Nomonhan conflict: their claims were very inflated (around 6:1 in that case, not as exaggerated as in Korea but still worse than average for WWII-era fighter overclaiming). 

The 'Great Patriotic War' is a bigger case less well documented from both sides. AFAIK Soviet fighter success in the GPW was highly variable and it's harder to make a single statement about it. 'Shot down in droves' is probably fair for 1941-2 on most evidence (the Germans claimed very high ratio's and their claims in the West in that period are documented to have been generally reasonably accurate). 'Gave as good' is probably fair for some Soviet units in mid-late war though not necessarily in general until perhaps quite late in the war.

For example big picture in 1944, overall VVS v LW stats for fighter losses, fairly late in the LW's gradual decline, and when lots of pretty good Soviet fighter types were operating. Even that year the VVS recorded 2-3 times as many fighters lost in air combat or 'failed to return' as the Germans reported lost in air combat. The 'big failed to return' category makes it somewhat unclear though. Another more micro example though is VVS v highly experienced Finnish Bf109 units on the Karelian front in mid 1944: those combats are two side documented to have been heavily in the Finns' favor.

These are only partial examples, but again by what two-sided measure do you guys instead conclude the Soviet fighters 'gave as good as they got' in the GPW in general? It simply wasn't true in Korea v USAF F-86 units, an easier case to analyze.

Joe


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## HoHun (Feb 1, 2009)

Hi Davparlr,

>I have a data base of aircraft that I like to keep up with the best data available. As of yet I am still quite confused on the data for the F4U-4, so if you can make heads or tails of the data, please let me know. Thanks.

Hm, I just tried, but the BuAer data on the F4U-4 seems to be completely bogus. While it seemed that the F4U-1 BuAer climb graphs were all a bit on the low side, the F4U-4 "normal" power climb graph calculated by the same methods appears to be very high. I can't match the speed graph either, and it's not just that the "neutral" supercharger gear deviates like for the F4U-1, but the entire graph comes out with the wrong slope.

Do you have more data on the F4U-4 in your database? I think the BuAer data is not sufficient to crack the nut. Anything on engine power would be appreciated, too ...

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## HoHun (Feb 1, 2009)

Hi again,

>Hm, I just tried, but the BuAer data on the F4U-4 seems to be completely bogus. While it seemed that the F4U-1 BuAer climb graphs were all a bit on the low side, the F4U-4 "normal" power climb graph calculated by the same methods appears to be very high. I can't match the speed graph either, and it's not just that the "neutral" supercharger gear deviates like for the F4U-1, but the entire graph comes out with the wrong slope.

OK, I just noticed that the R-2800-18W has a different reduction gear ratio than the R-2800-8W (.45:1 instead of 0.5:1), which takes care of the slope. The speed calculation now is almost as good as those of the F4U-1, meaning that the "neutral" supercharger gear is the main difference.

However, the BuAer climb chart still appears bogus. The funny thing is that if I'd assume that the climb graph listed for "normal" power is actually for "military" power, I'd actually consider it in good agreement with my calculations, to the point of again having the greatest difference in the "neutral" supercharger gear regime. This might be coincidental, though.

Anyway, here the new (still preliminary) graphs. Power figures are taken from the F4U summary data file MSWF4UDATA.pdf, using the "revised as of April 1, 1945" set. I'd say this was the time when the engine manufacturer had to reduce his power estimates for the R-2800-18W, and perhaps the high performance data in the BuAer document was still based on the original projections.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## claidemore (Feb 1, 2009)

Hi Joe,



> That's a fair question to ask, but on what do you and the previous poster 'dig down and the Soviets gave as good as they got' [let's assume WWII, since that's patently untrue in Korea] base your opinions.......but again by what two-sided measure do you guys instead conclude the Soviet fighters 'gave as good as they got' in the GPW in general?



I did not post either of the above statements you mention, so I'm not clear why you are asking me to respond to them. Unless it's a reverse-reverse national pride thing? 

I've given examples of Soviet training programs and fighter tactics manuals, I've given statistics of Soviet top aces, I've shown that the Soviet hierarchy was concerned about their pilots and did not have callous disregard for them, and I've shown that there was no shortage of pilots (except for a short time in 1941). 

You have provided a good argument for Soviet overclaims in Korea, but nothing to indicate that their skill level was any less than their opponents. Indeed pilots accounts from either side indicate that they considered the opposing pilots equally skilled. 

As far as Vietnam goes, USSR wins again, Petrovich got 6, Cunningham 5. (and there are a bunch of North Vietnamese pilots who did better than either)

But, I'm not trying to prove that Soviet pilots were better than American ones. My point has been from the very start that statements based on vague impressions and patriotic fervor are not worth the pixels they are written on.


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## JoeB (Feb 2, 2009)

claidemore said:


> 1. I did not post either of the above statements you mention, so I'm not clear why you are asking me to respond to them. Unless it's a reverse-reverse national pride thing?
> 
> 2. I've given examples of Soviet training programs and fighter tactics manuals, I've given statistics of Soviet top aces, I've shown that the Soviet hierarchy was concerned about their pilots and did not have callous disregard for them, and I've shown that there was no shortage of pilots (except for a short time in 1941).
> 
> ...


1. But you are implying parity, with either Germans in WWII or US in Korea, and you repeat it this recent post. 

2. As I said you seem to base your impression on one sided accounts. That's preferable perhaps to basing it on vague notions, but the Korea example shows how far off that can be, especially when it comes to Soviet accounts.

3. But there's a direct logical connection between their high overclaims and their effectiveness that you're ignoring in that statement. According to each side's losses per then-secret records the F-86 v Soviet AF MiG-15 kill ratio in Korea was order of 4-5:1. The MiG-15 and F-86 each had performance advantages over the other. On balance IMO, almost all US pilot opinion, and a lot of Soviet opinion especially reading between the lines, the F-86 was the more practically effective fighter v. fighter plane on balance (MiG the better interceptor, probably). But the F-86's advantage was nothing like enough to establish a 4 or 5:1 exchange ratio with equal pilots. That ratio is strong evidence that the US pilots were more effective on average.

4. Not true as far as USAF opinion, especially when considered in light of both sides' accounts we now know. US pilots recognized some opposing MiG pilot, 'honcho's', as being highly skilled, though not necessarily as skilled as themselves on average. But they didn't know exactly who those guys were, or who the more numerous less skilled MiG pilots were. This relates back to your misunderstanding that most high scoring US pilots scored against North Koreans, not so. It's apparent looking at individual combats that MiG formations which the US pilots thought were 'bandit trains' of low skilled pilots led by a few 'honchos' were sometimes in fact Soviet units operating on their own. In effect the US pilots didn't think most of those Soviet pilots were good, though some were. Again back to the basic stat: 4-5:1 ratio, how can that be squared with equal pilots on average?

5. 'Again' seems to imply the top scoring pilots in Korea were Soviet. Read the link about Sutyagin. His official score was 21, actual somewhere south of 5 (not just him, go down the list of top Soviet scores v US records of the same combats and you'll find the same thing). US fighter credits in Korea were only moderately exaggerated on average (IOW quite accurate by WWII standards), Soviet ones highly exaggerated. Hence it's extremely unlikely the top *actual* scorer in Korea was Soviet, he was almost certainly USAF. As for WWII more research would be needed to judge how to view the official scores of the top Soviet pilots compared to other air arms where overclaim ratios may have been very different.

Then in speaking of Soviet pilot in Vietnam you're dealing in the realm of 'sea stories' by Soviet advisors. There's no documentary evidence of any such combat missions, a then-secret GRU history of the Vietnam air war doesn't mention them. And therefore there are no details of times and places which would allow comparison to US records to verify the claims. Soviet pilots scores in Korea were real from an official Soviet perspective, and so all those details are known, different situation. 

6. I'm giving factual evidence from each side's records about Korea that strongly implies US pilots on average were considerably more effective than Soviet. For WWII, I've given examples where Soviet fighter units were also apparently less effective than Axis even pretty late in the war. What's your contrary evidence in either case? Just denouncing 'national pride', implying your own immunity to it, isn't evidence of your seeming thesis: that Soviet fighter pilots on average were as effective as their opponents in GPW or Korea.

If instead you're making a kind of anecdotal statement, that *some* Soviet pilots were as effective or more than the average opposing pilot in GPW or Korea, of course that's true, that would be kind of a trivial statement.

Joe


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## claidemore (Feb 2, 2009)

I'm not trying to imply parity, I'm stating that one measurement of quality of pilots is how many achieved 20 or more kills. 203 for the Soviets. 27 for the Americans. Keep in mind that some of those Soviet aces were flying P39s, which Americans had little or no success with. 203 pilots with over 20 kills is not an anomoly, it's a pattern. We can keep going down the list, and the Soviets are going to come out ahead all the way. 

Thats all I need to shed the appropriate light on the original posting:



> Overall, I'd say a long series of contest would return a 3:1 kill advantage over the Yak-9, *not even counting the fact that American pilots have always been better than Russian pilots*. (No offense, but 3 wars in which they can be compared head to head (Korea, Vietnam) or against common opponents (WWII) renders a clear enough result for me.


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## drgondog (Feb 2, 2009)

claidemore said:


> I'm not trying to imply parity, I'm stating that one measurement of quality of pilots is how many achieved 20 or more kills. 203 for the Soviets. 27 for the Americans. Keep in mind that some of those Soviet aces were flying P39s, which Americans had little or no success with. 203 pilots with over 20 kills is not an anomoly, it's a pattern. We can keep going down the list, and the Soviets are going to come out ahead all the way.
> 
> Thats all I need to shed the appropriate light on the original posting:



Calidmore - curiosity compels me to ask how many a/c the LW lost against the USSR in WWII? the number you have there for 20+ awards seem awfully high. How many had more than 5 but less than 20?

The biggest issue with the USSR MiG ace scores in Korea is that their awards exceeded by far the air to air losses of the USA. I wonder the same about Ost Front.


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 2, 2009)

If I'm not mistaken the clandestine Soviet Air Force in Korea was manned by volunteers who also received awards and money for their successes. With Joe Stalin as my boss, I'd hate to report that I was anything other than highly successful and I think I might have to stretch the truth to do it!


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## claidemore (Feb 2, 2009)

Hi drgondog:
Here's an incomplete list of Soviet Aces. 
Soviet Ftr Aces of WW2
I stopped counting at 100 and the bar that indicates how far you are down on the page had only moved about 3/4 of an inch.
Yeah the Soviets overclaimed in WWII, just like every other airforce. I would think their claims would have greater chance of confirmation than in Korea, since they actually took possession of most of the ground they fought over.
I don't have a source for LW losses on the Eastern Front.


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## HellToupee (Feb 3, 2009)

JoeB said:


> 3. But there's a direct logical connection between their high overclaims and their effectiveness that you're ignoring in that statement. According to each side's losses per then-secret records the F-86 v Soviet AF MiG-15 kill ratio in Korea was order of 4-5:1. The MiG-15 and F-86 each had performance advantages over the other. On balance IMO, almost all US pilot opinion, and a lot of Soviet opinion especially reading between the lines, the F-86 was the more practically effective fighter v. fighter plane on balance (MiG the better interceptor, probably). But the F-86's advantage was nothing like enough to establish a 4 or 5:1 exchange ratio with equal pilots. That ratio is strong evidence that the US pilots were more effective on average.



Yes but if American pilots were soo much better, why do they have far greater non-combat losses, russian non combat losses are less than 20 while on the other side almost half the losses are recorded as non operational.


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## drgondog (Feb 3, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Yes but if American pilots were soo much better, why do they have far greater non-combat losses, russian non combat losses are less than 20 while on the other side almost half the losses are recorded as non operational.



Do you believe 'less than 20' and if so why? Can you point to another air force WING flying in bad weather for three years (in more reliable a/c like P-47s and Spitfires, etc) that had that few non - operational losses?


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 3, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Yes but if American pilots were soo much better, why do they have far greater non-combat losses, russian non combat losses are less than 20 while on the other side almost half the losses are recorded as non operational.


F-86s over Korea were flown at least 200 miles into MiG alley, sometimes through adverse weather, fought for 20 minutes over target and sometimes returned into a socked in base with IFR equipment no better than what was used during WW2. Don't forget the pilots going out of Japan as well.

The Russian Pilots - most of the time flying minutes from their home bases.

JoeB - once again great post!


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## JoeB (Feb 3, 2009)

claidemore said:


> I'm not trying to imply parity, I'm stating that one measurement of quality of pilots is how many achieved 20 or more kills. 203 for the Soviets. 27 for the Americans. Keep in mind that some of those Soviet aces were flying P39s, which Americans had little or no success with. 203 pilots with over 20 kills is not an anomoly, it's a pattern. We can keep going down the list, and the Soviets are going to come out ahead all the way.
> 
> Thats all I need to shed the appropriate light on the original posting:


I guess it sheds some light but it doesn't wholly disprove his statement. I don't agree with his statement 'not counting' that US pilots of that era would probably be more effective. I think any two roughly comparable planes like Yak-9U and F4U-4 would probably come out close to even if the pilots were really equal. I tend to agree with his projection of (something like) 3:1 advantage in favor of F4U's with contemporary US units v Yak-9U's with contemporary Soviet units though, for the same reason F-86 v MiG came out as lopsided or more than that. That's a pretty solid data point, many months of action and head to head, no need to estimate based on relative effectiveness v the Germans as we must in WWII itself.

But just on credited pilot scores you're still ignoring the potentially dramatic effect of varying overclaim ratio between AF's. In Korea, we see that the top Soviet pilot with 21 victories really probably had around 2 or 3 (5 is the max possible and highly unlikely, see the write up). That's not a small discount, it changes the picture seriously. I don't know the figures as well for WWII, but I'd hesitate to draw any conclusion about Soviet fighter effectiveness based on their claims.

Back to the broader measure of fighter exchange ratio's, there's no strong evidence actually that the P-39 achieved any better ratio in Soviet service than US. In the most prolonged combat use of P-39's mainly air-air in New Guinea they were on the short end of something 1:2 ratio v Japanese Navy fighters. The P-39 probably didn't do any better than that in Soviet hands, probably not as well. It was used a lot longer, and in the random function of pilot skill and luck, some scores will build up over time even in a force that's consistently outmatched on average. But again you'd have to know the *actual* scores. It's probably more accurate to stick with the big picture of overall real ratio, which is usually easier to establish.

Joe


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 3, 2009)

From the noted site...

_"Recently the Russian Gerneral Staff of Army declassified the data about the participation of Soviet aces in Korea. This is quite amazing information IMO.

Its noticed that since 1950-53 the soviet had conducted 1872 sky combats and shoted down 1 106 american aircrafts ( 650 of them were the F-86 "Sabre"). Soviet loss - 335 fighters.Mig-15

The highest score Soviet pilot is Sutyagin Nikolay Vasiljevich - 21 victories.( 15 of them were Sabres)"_

Soviet aces in Korea sky [Archive] - WW2 in Color Forum

Pretty funny considering that about 645 F-86s rotated through Korea. At any given time there were only 100 - 150 F-86s in theater at the most.

I also read the same with regards to MiG-15 claims against F-80s. The Russians claimed the total amout of F-80s that were sent to Korea which meant they shot down every F-80!


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## Vincenzo (Feb 3, 2009)

if i understand right JoeB use soviet number for loss as air combat loss and if it is this is not good mode for a comparison


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## JoeB (Feb 3, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> Yes but if American pilots were soo much better, why do they have far greater non-combat losses, russian non combat losses are less than 20 while on the other side almost half the losses are recorded as non operational.


First, Soviet loss breakdown isn't totally clear. AFAIK nobody has done an analysis of individual a/c fates as has been done for F-86's. A commonly quoted total is 345 total Soviet MiG losses sometimes quoted 335 in combat. But as I mentioned above the most detailed Russian language published source totals combat loss at 319, of which it provides details or at least month in which lost for around 300. Dropping the combat loss total even fairly slightly considerably expands the operational losses, assuming the overall total is correct (it might also need to be revised up a bit under closer scrutiny) but doesn't change the air-air kill ratio much. IOW the kill ratio stat is robust even if the figures shift a little, the assumption of very few Soviet operational losses is not as robust. The basic math here is a large number of MiG air combat losses (perhaps 600 among the three allies) and a comparatively small number of F-86 air combat losses (perhaps 90, most but clearly not all of which were caused by the Soviets), so % of losses which were operational isn't really the appropriate comparison. It would be number of operational losses or operational losses per sortie.

The F-86's flew more sorties per plane. They sortied anytime weather would permit dispatch of strike a/c. Especially from 1952 on the MiG's chose their opportunities and often stayed on the ground. Their typically much larger force, total order-of-battle wise v just their F-86 opponents, also didn't fly as intensively per plane. As already mentioned the F-86's operated generally near the edge of their radius, MiG's much closer to their bases even considering their shorter range. Also the F-86's engine seemed to be less reliable, a genuine demerit in plane to plane comparison, but nothing to do with pilot effectivieness in air combat.

As far as 'recorded as' v actual cause, I've researched that in some detail and there's little validity to the common suggestion that Soviet overclaiming is partly explained by US understatement of combat losses. As I mentioned, the actual air combat loss total of F-86's might be around 90, v the 78 official total, but that's 90 specific planes by tail number each with its own story, some of that difference is just sloppy book keeping v the 78, and I'm counting as lost planes returned safely but air combat damage never repaired, which might be debated and moreover we don't know the practice in that regard for the Soviets. Besides that, F-86's classed non-combat pretty clearly were non-combat: lack of corresponding MiG claims same day, time and place, accident reports detailing the circumstances, etc. There were a significant number of AA losses too, especially in 1953 when fighter bomber units converted to F-86's. Some were claimed by Soviet AA units.

I don't think the non-combat loss point really goes anywhere compared to the more solid datum of head to head combat result. Again basic question, once and if we accept the basic air combat loss figures, and relative similarity of F-86 and MiG, how can it reasonably be debated that the side going 1:4+ in kill ratio was really as effective as the side going 4+:1? That just doesn't make sense to me.

Joe


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## JoeB (Feb 3, 2009)

Vincenzo said:


> if i understand right JoeB use soviet number for loss as air combat loss and if it is this is not good mode for a comparison


Comparing losses inflicted by one fighter force on another is not the way to compare the fighter forces? If that's what you are saying I very much disagree.

Of course in the big picture of a war or campaign, the total wastage of a/c might be important (it might not even be, if one side has so much more capacity to make planes, like the Allies v Axis in late WWII). But measuring a/c actually downed and lost directly by fighter units in air combat is a valid measure of the specific issue of their combat effectiveness. And it ceratinly makes no sense to evaluate the accuracy of claims including non-combat losses of the other side. Those non-combat losses weren't the a/c claimed!

Going back to WWII, the Soviet AF's suffered a huge wastage of a/c just because their often partly wood planes didn't last long. Looking at their figures that's the biggest single category of their 'losses'. Should we really add those planes to German fighter unit scores and raise the German kill ratio? That's silly, IMO.

The actual kill ratio between fighter units in head to head to air combat is not the only measure of an air war, but it's one important measure of the effectivness of fighter units. There's no point in polluting that measure with losses that didn't occur in air combat, in any such comparison.

Joe


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## Vincenzo (Feb 3, 2009)

JoeB said:


> Comparing losses inflicted by one fighter force on another is not the way to compare the fighter forces? If that's what you are saying I very much disagree.
> 
> Joe



Yes. but it is not what you done, you compared US, F-86, loss for enemy fighter to total loss for soviet forces


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## renrich (Feb 3, 2009)

In Korea, it had to be a big advantage for Mig pilots that if they saw they were at a tactical disadvantage they could flee across the Yalu where US AC were not supposed to follow. The F86s did not have that sanctuary. This perhaps is too small a sample to be significant but when 7 Migs out of Russian bases attacked the CAP of a US CV the two and then a third F9F5s knocked down two or three Migs(can't remember for sure) with no losses. The Panther could not have been equal in ACM to a Mig 15 and those were Russian pilots.


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## Clay_Allison (Feb 4, 2009)

FLYBOYJ said:


> If I'm not mistaken the clandestine Soviet Air Force in Korea was manned by volunteers who also received awards and money for their successes. With Joe Stalin as my boss, I'd hate to report that I was anything other than highly successful and I think I might have to stretch the truth to do it!


Honestly I trust Soviet claims of both victories and losses as much as I trust the Iraqi Information Minister.


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## Venganza (Feb 4, 2009)

Clay_Allison said:


> Honestly I trust Soviet claims of both victories and losses as much as I trust the Iraqi Information Minister.



Just a question Clay - do you trust the German claims during WWII?

Venganza


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## HellToupee (Feb 5, 2009)

drgondog said:


> Do you believe 'less than 20' and if so why? Can you point to another air force WING flying in bad weather for three years (in more reliable a/c like P-47s and Spitfires, etc) that had that few non - operational losses?



No i don't belive the less than 20, it just goes to show how different losses were recorded for each side.

NATO also lists a large number of unknown aircraft losses.


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 5, 2009)

HellToupee said:


> NATO also lists a large number of unknown aircraft losses.


And where do you get this bountiful information from?


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## renrich (Feb 5, 2009)

As far as kills in WW2, I have reservations about any I see published in books or online. I don't believe that all overclaims are necessarily intentional but those types of information are really difficult to verify. It is common knowledge that the various nations allowed huge overclaims during the war for propaganda purposes. After the war attempts to do exact counts depended on the information available at that time. Since the early post war years, more and more information has been uncovered. If one reads John Lundstrom's books on US Navy fighters in the early Pacific war, it is surprising how much overclaiming went on. Lundstrom's books are based on research of US records as well as Japanese records and all of his research is fairly recent. In many cases he is able to identify which USN pilot shot down which IJN pilot and the reverse. He also, when a specific shoot down cannot be attributed to a specific pilot tells us so. The USN pilots were enthusiastic overclaimers. Usually to the tune of about two to one. The IJN was even more enthusiastic at nearly three to one. Of course it is common knowledge that the Zero pilots pretty much had their way with the Wildcat pilots in the early Pacific war. Wrong! Actually, from Dec. 7 to November, 1942, USN pilots, all in F4F3s or 4s, pretty much broke even with IJN zeros. The other surprise is the numbers. Only on the order of some 30 of each type to the other type. It would be interesting if someone as thorough as Lundstrom would research all the Hellcat kills. My guess is that the shootdowns would diminish. Unfortunately, the people who actually participated and who could interpret the records are growing increasingly scarce so I believe we are going to remain in the dark about this subject. My guess is that kills on the eastern front especially by the Soviets but by the Germans also are perhaps the most suspect of all. The sheer size and numbers of the conflict there would not lend itself to accuracy. The Germans, being Germans would probably be pretty precise in their record keeping after you get past the propaganda aspect. Still, real verification must have been difficult because of the size and fluidity of the front. The Soviet government, not the individual pilots, has not been renowned for it's veracity. IMO, all kill figures in WW2 should be labeled as alleged.


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## Venganza (Feb 5, 2009)

Well said, Renrich.

Venganza


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## JoeB (Feb 5, 2009)

Vincenzo said:


> Yes. but it is not what you done, you compared US, F-86, loss for enemy fighter to total loss for soviet forces


No I didn't, sorry if I was unclear. 319 is the total of *combat* losses given in German and Seidov's "Krasnye d'iavoli na 38-i Paralleli", and all combat losses were air combat, UN AA never fired at MiG's. The book details almost 300 of those in the various chapters. Comparing it to more detailed sources that cover partial periods of the war, they tend to leave a few out here and there, and a few they describe as non-combat losses look like combat losses when referring to US details of the same combats. The tone of the book is quite overtly nationalistic. I don't see a plausible argument that that book overstates Soviet MiG combat losses.

Around 90 F-86's were lost in air combat, but considerably less than all of them to the Soviets. The Chinese and NK's claimed around 250 F-86's together, v around 650 claimed by the Soviets. So prorating by claims the Soviets probably downed around 65 F-86's, that's almost 5:1 based on the Soviet combat losses, and few actual victories were scored by any other type than the F-86. Assume the Soviet claims were more accurate than Chinese (though I don't see much evidence of it investigating individual cases where Soviet and Chinese details are know for conflicting claims) and maybe the ratio is closer to 4:1. Anything lower than that is fudging to make it lower for some non-objective reason.

Joe


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## JoeB (Feb 5, 2009)

renrich said:


> In Korea, it had to be a big advantage for Mig pilots that if they saw they were at a tactical disadvantage they could flee across the Yalu where US AC were not supposed to follow. The F86s did not have that sanctuary. This perhaps is too small a sample to be significant but when 7 Migs out of Russian bases attacked the CAP of a US CV the two and then a third F9F5s knocked down two or three Migs(can't remember for sure) with no losses. The Panther could not have been equal in ACM to a Mig 15 and those were Russian pilots.


Overall Navy F9F's downed 5 MiG's, all Soviet, without loss to themselves. That included the first victory against the MiG's, first to show up in Soviet records as a loss that is, Nov 9 1950; another Nov 18 1950 (two were credited) and 3 more in the combat you mention, Nov 18 1952 (again two were credited plus a probable). There were only 4 MiG's present in that last combat though, v 3 F9F's in immediate combat (the fourth of the division couldn't develop full thrust so couldn't climb into the combat). One of the F9F's was hit. The Soviets downed one Marine F9F July 21 1951 without loss (they were credited with 7 'F-94's' in the combat). There were several other inconclusive combats between Soviet MiG's and Navy and Marine Panthers (with the Soviets pilots receiving credits for various straightwing types in most of them), and a couple of inconclusive fights between Marine F9F's and PLAAF MiG's; 11 combats altogether.

Back to WWII, yes all credited victories are alleged facts. The key IMO is to realize that the discount factor between credits and real enemy losses was *highly* variable. 

One other (repetitive) point. Estimating overclaims is not a matter of general evaluation of 'trustworthiness' based on politics, nationality, etc. It's a matter of comparing accounts from each side for the same combat, and the quality of the accounts (how original, how detailed). It's a matter of common sense IMO that losses recorded in *detailed, then-secret* records were at least reasonably in line with reality, especially for the loss of pilots, but also planes if there were detailed records about planes (eg. USAF in Korea). Records didn't have to be in line with reality at all for what was claimed to have happened to the enemy, optimism or even deliberate fudging could run wild, or else a serious attempt might be made to be accurate. You can only estimate that if you know both sides' accounts. You can't assume overclaiming was uniform.

Joe


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## renrich (Feb 5, 2009)

Thanks, Joe, for the info on that "secret" engagement. I thought I remembered that the F9F leader had a mechnical and his wing man accompanied him back to the CV and then climbed back into the fight. At any rate the USN did pretty well against Migs which says a lot about their pilots and perhaps the Panther. Do you have a link to that incident we are talking about? I found it once online and now can't find it again.


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## Clay_Allison (Feb 6, 2009)

Venganza said:


> Just a question Clay - do you trust the German claims during WWII?
> 
> Venganza


Yeah, I pretty much do. The Germans might have overclaimed same as we did and the Japanese did, and we all had a love for propoganda, but the Germans were very internally competitive and very good about documenting things on their own soil. 

I don't trust information under the heels of a man who routinely purged his officers. You wouldn't falsify internal documents to stay alive and out of the Gulag?

Hitler didn't KILL Goring for his failure to win the Battle of Britain.


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## Venganza (Feb 6, 2009)

Clay_Allison said:


> Yeah, I pretty much do. The Germans might have overclaimed same as we did and the Japanese did, and we all had a love for propoganda, but the Germans were very internally competitive and very good about documenting things on their own soil.
> 
> I don't trust information under the heels of a man who routinely purged his officers. You wouldn't falsify internal documents to stay alive and out of the Gulag?
> 
> Hitler didn't KILL Goring for his failure to win the Battle of Britain.



Yeah, Hitler was a real sweetheart. As far as military purges go, the main difference is that Hitler had his in 1934 (the Night of the Long Knives) whereas Stalin had his in 1937-1938 (when he admittedly killed more than Hitler did in 1934 - bigger army, bigger purge). Hitler didn't kill his generals, he just took all their power away as the war went on, where at least Stalin had the sense to listen to his generals more as the war went on. I'm not defending Stalin or saying I trust the information that came out of the Soviet Union - far from it. I'm trying to draw a comparison between two progaganda-driven dictatorships, both run by murderous thugs. I find your trust in German record-keeping under the Nazis rather quaint. It's not as if the Luftwaffe existed under some kind of a magic bubble which rendered them immune from the propaganda pressures of the Nazi regime. People on this forum sometimes act as if the Luftwaffe was somehow apart from the putrid monstrosity that was Nazi Germany - they weren't. They were knee deep in it and I frankly find the near-hero worship that goes on regarding some of their aces rather sickening ("The Blond Knight" Erich Hartmann anyone?). The head of the Luftwaffe was an obese, morphine addict Nazi true believer that I don't think for a second was above fudging the numbers to try and rescue his reputation with the Fuehrer after the debacle of the Battle of Britain. I believe the veracity of the Lufwaffe statistics - about as far as I could comfortably throw Hermann Goering.

Venganza


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## claidemore (Feb 6, 2009)

well said Vengaza.


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## Vincenzo (Feb 6, 2009)

JoeB said:


> No I didn't, sorry if I was unclear. 319 is the total of *combat* losses given in German and Seidov's "Krasnye d'iavoli na 38-i Paralleli", and all combat losses were air combat, UN AA never fired at MiG's. The book details almost 300 of those in the various chapters. Comparing it to more detailed sources that cover partial periods of the war, they tend to leave a few out here and there, and a few they describe as non-combat losses look like combat losses when referring to US details of the same combats. The tone of the book is quite overtly nationalistic. I don't see a plausible argument that that book overstates Soviet MiG combat losses.
> 
> Around 90 F-86's were lost in air combat, but considerably less than all of them to the Soviets. The Chinese and NK's claimed around 250 F-86's together, v around 650 claimed by the Soviets. So prorating by claims the Soviets probably downed around 65 F-86's, that's almost 5:1 based on the Soviet combat losses, and few actual victories were scored by any other type than the F-86. Assume the Soviet claims were more accurate than Chinese (though I don't see much evidence of it investigating individual cases where Soviet and Chinese details are know for conflicting claims) and maybe the ratio is closer to 4:1. Anything lower than that is fudging to make it lower for some non-objective reason.
> 
> Joe



i want try, if i understand you tell that 319 soviet, 224 chinese and <50 korean are the MiG 15 loss in combat (in total ~600 MiG 15) this are all combat, after you add that no MiG 15 was loss for western AA, so that number it's all for air to a air combat versus all western plane not only USAF Sabre. you tell also that USAF Sabre lost ~90 Sabre in air to air combat, so versus all eastern planes. This number don't give a 6/7:1 for USAF Sabre why we need know how many MiG 15 and USAF Sabre were killed from other planes.
There is an other, the not combat loss for USAF Sabre are ~150% of combat loss, for chinese MiG 15 ~75%, for soviet MiG 15 under 10%?? this is not reasonable, illogic.


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## Juha (Feb 6, 2009)

Hello Vincenzo
non-combat losses have no direct relationship to combat losses, they were related to for ex. the number of sorties, to number of flight hours, to type of operations, to environment etc. There are losses even in peacetime. 
Theoretically, a rather extreme case, if one side flew 200 000 sorties, shot down 500 planes and lost 395 and the other side flew 100 000 sorties, shot down 75 and loss 580. The first AF lost 320 a/c by non-combat reason per 200 000 sorties, the latter 80 per 100 000 sorties. If the average sortie of the first nation was 2 hours long and that of the latter AF 1 hour long, so the first nation lost 320 a/c per 400 000 flight hours and the latter AF 80 a/c per 100 000 flight hours, so both lost 80 a/c per 100 000 flight hours and still to the first AF the non-combat losses were over 4 times the combat losses and those of the latter AF were only 16 % of combat losses.

Juha


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## delcyros (Feb 6, 2009)

My personal experiences is that the Luftwaffe fighters claimed two to one, as did the USAAF fighters in certain, perhaps isolated but pretty significant cases over europe.
Neither of both (the USN included for it´s comparable overclaim rate) are enthusiastic overclaimers, it´s likely more representative for the limitations exposd to them wrt observation and recognition of different factors. 
Since we have an even, systematic error applieable to both sides, the numbers are still comparable.


wrt to korean war losses, I remain very sceptical. The 10% operational loss rate for the given time frame for VVS squads is IMHO unbelievable and does not compare with peacetime loss rates.
There are a number of cases where F-86 were officially lost to operational, non combat relates causes, when in fact, ground recovery crews reported 23mm and 37mm hits in the fuselage. Coincidence? No.


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## renrich (Feb 6, 2009)

Del, I agree that even though the raw numbers may be in error, proportionately one can make comparisons off of those numbers. I think that is what you are saying.


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## JoeB (Feb 7, 2009)

Vincenzo said:


> i want try,
> 
> 1. if i understand you tell that 319 soviet,
> 2. 224 chinese
> ...


I'm not sure I fully understand your post either, there seems to be a language barrier here, but I will try again.

1. Yes, I quote a Russian language book written by a *Soviet veteran* of the Korean War, co-authored by a well known Russian aviation historian. And that book gives 319 as the *combat losses* of Soviet AF MiG's. It mentions almost 300 of them one by one. The book doesn't discuss operational losses, except for giving a few individual cases.

And another book, "Natovskie iastreby v pritsele stalinskikh sokolov" by VP Naboka describes the combats only from Nov 1950 to July 1951, but in much more detail. In fact Naboka's book is basically a transcription of Soviet combat reports. It mentions all the same combat losses mentioned one by one in the German and Seidov book for that same period, plus a few others. I see no *logical* reason why those combat reports would describe losses as combat when they really were not.

So, skipping to point 7: the actual Soviet operational losses are an interesting question, but there is no logical reason to doubt a Soviet AF MiG-15 combat loss total of 300+. We can look at those books and see them described in detail. We're not just relying on a total.

2. The PLAAF said they lost 224 MiG's in combat, official figure quoted in a number of works.
3. The defector No Gum Suk said the NK's lost 100 MiG's to all causes. Statements he made that could be verified other ways were uniformly accurate.
4. Right 600 combat losses we know pretty accurately, in additional to other categories of loss we may not know as accurately.
5. No Western or 'MiG' source describes any engagement of MiG's by UN AA. 
6. F-86's (including RAF, RCAF, USMC, etc pilots in F-86 units) were credited with 792 MiG's, other USAF fighter types 14, non-USAF fighter types 14, B-29's 26. But I've investigated the B-29 combats one by one and all but perhaps 2-3 are overclaims (similar to WWII where bomber claims were also very inaccurate). So F-86's probably scored 792/(792+14+14+3)=96%+ of the victories. All F-86's downed in air combat were shot down by MiG-15's (a Chinese La-11 damaged an F-86 in one incident). So ~600/~90=~6-7:1 for F-86 v MiG-15 is close enough. Of course MiG-15's shot down a substantial number of other UN a/c, around another 80-90, but here we are speaking of F-86 v MiG, head to head.

Joe


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## JoeB (Feb 7, 2009)

delcyros said:


> 1. wrt to korean war losses, I remain very sceptical. The 10% operational loss rate for the given time frame for VVS squads is IMHO unbelievable and does not compare with peacetime loss rates.
> 
> 2. There are a number of cases where F-86 were officially lost to operational, non combat relates causes, when in fact, ground recovery crews reported 23mm and 37mm hits in the fuselage. Coincidence? No.


1. See the response above, and Juha's too. We know the Soviet combat losses from ex-Soviet sources in fair detail. We don't (or I don't) know the specific cases of the operational losses. The 10 operational losses implied by the often quoted 345 total/335 combat is probably just wrong. Even with 319 as combat, 345 total might not be correct. 319 might not be exactly correct either, but it's clearly close building bottom-up from published sources directly related to Soviet records. If the issue is combat losses, there's no big mystery.

2. The 90 I quoted for F-86 combat loss is from my own research in original records, in view of detailed MiG claims (including quoted wreck evidence). The difference between that and official 78 is mostly sloppy totalling, unknown or vague causes which appear to be MiG in light of MiG claims, and some damaged never repaired a/c I cout as 'lost' (in the original records some such are so counted already, others not, it wasn't consistent). I know of no cases such as you mention. 

The only case I know where Soviet wreck evidence purporting to confirm a kill lists a US a/c given as operational loss is indicative I think: 726th Fighter Regiment claims v F-84's August 20 1952. One was verified by a wreck with 'buzz code' FS-574C, ie. F-84E 51-574, lost to engine failure per US accounts. The interesting thing is that the time and place of 726th's claim exactly matches a combat recorded by VF-191 F9F's: no claims, none lost. No F-84's met MiG's even the same day. MiG's routinely id'ed F9F's as other types (not clear they ever id'ed F9F's as F9F's!  ). Soviet wreck teams arrived days after combats, and there were a lot of wrecks.

The majority of Soviet credits were awared based on wreck evidence of 'crashed in the bay' (Yellow Sea). A large additional chunk were based on general reports of crashes by NK authorities and Chinese units; they didn't start surveying wrecks themselves until 1952. A small % of the credits are backed by surveys quoting real USAF a/c serial numbers, and those all execpt the example I gave, AFAIK, correspond to a/c listed lost in air combat or disappeared per the US (I count all those lost air combat). Some give serials which appear to be fake (though none of 100's of photo's I know of USAF fighters in Korea show any carrying fake s/n's). Some wreck reports give equipment serials, which seems strange, and further research on US side shows something very interesting, which I won't go into but suffice to say doesn't show USAF loss mistatements.

I found ~90 F-86 air combat losses studying each case one by one. AFAIK nobody has done the same thing and found something very different (a couple of published works looked at it, less completely I believe, one author readily conceded that, and came up with numbers bracketing mine). Everyone I know who claims lots more F-86 air combat losses hasn't done such research. I'm very open to revising my views but based on specific checkable examples, not general statements.

Joe


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## delcyros (Feb 7, 2009)

I will see what I can. Have forwarded a question to an author who worked through losses basing on wreckage id and published his article in a magazine recently. 
Note that I am no expert and appreciate Your input here.

best regards,


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## JoeB (Feb 7, 2009)

I can help further if you say who it is.

Joe


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## Nightwitch (Feb 12, 2009)

Joe - 

I was recently reading the book "Boyd" by Robert Coram, and it seems that John Boyd often pondered the question of the kill ratio of the F-86 to the MiG-15. According to the book, the E-M charts for the MiG-15 show it having an overall edge over the F-86. However, that left the problem of why the F-86 had such a high kill ratio (quoted as 10:1 in the book). You attribute this to superior pilots and pilot training, which is one possibility. However, Boyd came up with a different explanation, and one that I think merits looking into. According to the book, the F-86 had full hydraulic controls while the MiG-15 did not. As a result, MiG pilots had to muscle their planes, to the extent that they would lift weights to improve their strength so they could handle their aircraft. This led to the F-86 being much better in flowing from maneuver to maneuver and in reacting to input from the pilot. Have you found this to be the case in your research, concerning the MiG-15 and the lack of hydraulic controls? If this is indeed the case, doesn't that throw into question the assertion that Soviet pilots were demonstrably inferior in skill and training?

Cheers,

Nightwitch


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## Nightwitch (Feb 12, 2009)

Clay_Allison said:


> 100+ kill aces have only happened in one war and all against one opponent, the Soviet Union. Numerically the Soviets had more wins and more Aces. That is extremely impressive if you don't care at all about losses. The Soviets probably lost more fighters in any given year from the Beginning of their war with Germany than the U.S. lost in all three of the wars I named put together.



US losses were about 40,000 aircraft, compared to about 80,000 combat aircraft for the Soviet Union. So, the Soviets probably lost about twice as many, which doesn't jive at all with what you said above, especially considering that these losses include the obsolescent aircraft of 1941, and that the US wasn't substantially involved in the air war in Europe until 1943 when the heavy bombing campaign really took off. Plus, the losses to the Luftwaffe on the Western front were shared with the RAF, the RAAF, the RCAF, and all of the other western allies, whereas the Soviets took on the Luftwaffe on the Eastern front alone.


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## drgondog (Feb 12, 2009)

Nightwitch said:


> Joe -
> 
> I was recently reading the book "Boyd" by Robert Coram, and it seems that John Boyd often pondered the question of the kill ratio of the F-86 to the MiG-15. According to the book, the E-M charts for the MiG-15 show it having an overall edge over the F-86. However, that left the problem of why the F-86 had such a high kill ratio (quoted as 10:1 in the book). You attribute this to superior pilots and pilot training, which is one possibility. However, Boyd came up with a different explanation, and one that I think merits looking into. According to the book, the F-86 had full hydraulic controls while the MiG-15 did not. As a result, MiG pilots had to muscle their planes, to the extent that they would lift weights to improve their strength so they could handle their aircraft. This led to the F-86 being much better in flowing from maneuver to maneuver and in reacting to input from the pilot. Have you found this to be the case in your research, concerning the MiG-15 and the lack of hydraulic controls? If this is indeed the case, doesn't that throw into question the assertion that Soviet pilots were demonstrably inferior in skill and training?
> 
> ...



NW - Boyd also postulated that the 360 degree visibility of the 86 canopy was an added intangible in a.) improving defensive visibility, and b) reducing pilot fatigue for 'swivel head' activity.

I also suspect you are correct about manuever stick forces being a factor.

It probably was a factor between the Fw 190 and Me 109 versus the Mustang and seemed to be especially true at high speeds... both the former having an edge in low speed manueverability but suffering at high speed.


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## drgondog (Feb 12, 2009)

Nightwitch said:


> US losses were about 40,000 aircraft, compared to about 80,000 combat aircraft for the Soviet Union. So, the Soviets probably lost about twice as many, which doesn't jive at all with what you said above, especially considering that these losses include the obsolescent aircraft of 1941, and that the US wasn't substantially involved in the air war in Europe until 1943 when the heavy bombing campaign really took off. Plus, the losses to the Luftwaffe on the Western front were shared with the RAF, the RAAF, the RCAF, and all of the other western allies, whereas the Soviets took on the Luftwaffe on the Eastern front alone.
> 
> *The late start is deceiving as the total number of sorties flown by US matched all combined Allies in West against Germay by war end (IIRC- I will check) - as well as the number of German aircraft destroyed by USAAF in last two years*



NW - gNot sure where your statistics were obtained, nor the context. If you are discussing US Losses versus Germany, the number is 20,419 all in - combat and ops and accidents in ETO and MTO. 

The total for USAAF all theatres for all causes is 40,259 in ETO/PTO/MTO/US, etc in 2,362,800 sorties. It does not include USN/USMC statistics.

List of Tables: Operations

The USSR also contributed nothing in the PTO until the very end of the war.. only point out that it had no reserves to fight a two fron war. That is not to denigrate the USSR contribution to defeat of Axis - it was massive - but the USSR did not break the back of the Luftwaffe - that was RAF holding the line and USAAF crushing LW in 1944.


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 12, 2009)

Nightwitch said:


> Joe -
> 
> I was recently reading the book "Boyd" by Robert Coram, and it seems that John Boyd often pondered the question of the kill ratio of the F-86 to the MiG-15. According to the book, the E-M charts for the MiG-15 show it having an overall edge over the F-86. However, that left the problem of why the F-86 had such a high kill ratio (quoted as 10:1 in the book). You attribute this to superior pilots and pilot training, which is one possibility. However, Boyd came up with a different explanation, and one that I think merits looking into. According to the book, the F-86 had full hydraulic controls while the MiG-15 did not. As a result, MiG pilots had to muscle their planes, to the extent that they would lift weights to improve their strength so they could handle their aircraft. This led to the F-86 being much better in flowing from maneuver to maneuver and in reacting to input from the pilot. Have you found this to be the case in your research, concerning the MiG-15 and the lack of hydraulic controls? If this is indeed the case, doesn't that throw into question the assertion that Soviet pilots were demonstrably inferior in skill and training?
> 
> ...



I suggest you go through some of the threads that JoeB posted about the F-86 and MiG-15 in Korea. I think in reality you were looking more like a 5 to 1 kill ratio in favor of the F-86 against all combatants.

As far as the boosted controls - a huge advantage IMO and I also know that in some MiGs I seen the stick was lengthened to accommodate more leverage for the pilot. To say that the Soviet pilots demonstrated inferior skills, well it depends how you look at it. There were some characteristics that MiG was able to exploit against the F-86. In the end they did not do this effectively as communist forces were never able to attain full air superiority. The MiG threat did make UN forces change tactics but never fully hampered the aerial assault of North Korea. 

I've had the opportunity to work on both MiG-15 and F-86 owned by a private collector. There is no doubt the F-86 is a superior machine despite being a lot heavier and not being able to accelerate as quickly. On the MiG's side, very simple to maintain and operate, although it's low speed handling characteristics are poor when compared to the -86.


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## JoeB (Feb 12, 2009)

Nightwitch said:


> However, Boyd came up with a different explanation, and one that I think merits looking into. According to the book, the F-86 had full hydraulic controls while the MiG-15 did not. .... If this is indeed the case, doesn't that throw into question the assertion that Soviet pilots were demonstrably inferior in skill and trainin


Most MiG-15's in Korea were VK-1 powered MiG-15-bis, which did have hydraulically boosted aelirons. Only a few Soviet units units used the RD-45 powered all manual control 'regular' MiG-15's right at the beginning, though they served in Chinese and NK units until 1952. Exactly half the MiG's lost by the Chinese in combat were MiG-15 according to their official figures, the other half MiG-15bis; and the NK defector No Gum-suk described how his unit converted to the MiG-15bis in IIRC late 1952. He brought a 'bis' with him to South Korea just after the armistice in 1953, the a/c fully evaluated by the US afterward and still in the USAF museum. The early non boosted aeliron MiG's also had a wing assymetry problem which could lead to forces beyond a pilot's strength just to keep the wings level at high speed, but again that affected few Soviet AF MiG's in Korea.

As I said before, most US pilots, if not the great majority, thought the F-86 the more effective practical fighter-fighter combat machine. However I find it implausible that differences in the planes explained very much of a 4-5:1 ratio. The Soviets didn't think the F-86 anywhere near that much better (well of course they maintained that the kill ratio was in their favor via highly inflated claims, we just don't know to what degree they believed those claims themselves).

If we focus on just one aspect, like high speed handling, then the F-86 might be pretty far superior, or another the fact that F-86 pilots wore g-suits, MiG pilots didn't. But focus on another very key stat, thrust/weight ratio and therefore climb and ceiling: the MIG was pretty far superior, especially in early war MiG-15bis v F-86A matchup. The MiG, also using its sanctuary, could start any set piece combat with altitude advantage, and that's usually thought of as big advantage in fighter combat.

So in general I'd maintain the MiG-15 and F-86 were generally comparable planes, each with its advantages, which added up generally on the F-86's side for fighter combat (though not for say intercepting high flying bombers, the MiG was definitely better at that); but not enough to explain much or most of a 4-5:1 kill ratio, especially also considering the general tactical (close to bases, sanctuary) and numbers (combined MiG force often heavily outnumbered the F-86 force) advantage to the MiG.

Remember also Boyd is viewed as pretty much extremist/purist for a certain type of fighter design later on, and was usually mainly arguing for that by way of historical examples. 

Also when I say pilot factors it's not limited to individual skill in handling an airplane or even in shooting (as or more important but doesn't show up in 'friendly' dogfight practice, only in combat). I also include the effectiveness of the pilot's military organization: leadership, tactics, indoctrinating new pilots entering combat, etc. If we focus too much on the individual, we can IMO get off track onto 'everybody's basically equal' kind of emotional reactions. Every country might be equally capable in theory of producing excellent fighter pilots, but every military system has not in reality produced equally capable fighter *units*, as far as the human factors, just haven't. And I believe the MiG/F-86 unit combat in Korea is one of the many examples.

Joe


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## drgondog (Feb 12, 2009)

JoeB said:


> Remember also Boyd is viewed as pretty much extremist/purist for a certain type of fighter design later on, and was usually mainly arguing for that by way
> of historical examples.
> 
> Joe



Joe - I actually listened to a lot of pro/con conversations regarding Boyd from people like my father and others like Gordy Graham. His bitterest enemies also agreed his thesis that we gave away fighter-fighter advantage in developing and buying multi role fighters - but despised Boyd for bypassing the chain of command, including 'outside' to DoD civilian chain. 

SAC was king, TAC was bastard stepchild and ADC had a completely different mission - so the 104 and the F-4 and the F-101. F-102 and F-105 were not designed with ACM as the fundamental spec... The USAF was very worried about losing much of TAC to Army and Navy and Marines in that timeframe so the aircraft all had to be capable of some load carrying capability - so sacrifices were made to wing design (and overall weight for load carrying structure) which reduced ACM.

We put all our eggs in the air to air missle basket and it was less than spectacular in Vietnam.

I also contributed some sweat into refining the EM models he developed at Eglin while on Co-Op assignment as an undergrad aero. I never met the man but recall that he was not only a great stick guy but also the father of the Fighter school Tactics 'manual' for USAF - with many extracts pilfered by USN.

Bomb throwing anarchist - yes. 
Extremist - yes. 
Right? - YES!!!


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## JoeB (Feb 12, 2009)

drgondog said:


> Bomb throwing anarchist - yes.
> Extremist - yes.
> Right? - YES!!!


I agree, more right than wrong at a certain point in time. Although nowadays you have people spouting Boydism when it's kind of out date and out of context IMO (as with some anti-F-22 sentiment...OK that's *too* far off topic!  ).

I'm just saying that in his view the F-86's, F-86 unit's, success in Korea was mainly a starting point for his views and argument about a later time, not the main thing he was interested in. And it was anyway at that time somewhat harder to study, it wasn't fully known what the F-86's success really was or who it's opponents really were in Korea, not in detail. 

Joe


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## drgondog (Feb 12, 2009)

JoeB said:


> I agree, more right than wrong at a certain point in time. Although nowadays you have people spouting Boydism when it's kind of out date and out of context IMO (as with some anti-F-22 sentiment...OK that's *too* far off topic!  ).
> 
> I'm just saying that in his view the F-86's, F-86 unit's, success in Korea was mainly a starting point for his views and argument about a later time, not the main thing he was interested in. And it was anyway at that time somewhat harder to study, it wasn't fully known what the F-86's success really was or who it's opponents really were in Korea, not in detail.
> 
> Joe



Joe - I'm not sure of the geneology but I don't think the 86 per se had that much to do with his crusade other than as an airframe at the last point in time in which EM for USAF air superiority fighters was above or on par with USSR.

I have only read his book and tried to bounce that against what I heard in whiskey conversation.

When he went to Georgia Tech to get his aero degree, he first became technically competent enough from an analytical perspective to break down relative a/c performance - which in turn led to extensive and methodical approach to studying EM. 

When he started to model the MiG variants against the 86, then the F-94 and F-100 he started seeing the trend to the F-4 and the century series - and started the preaching in the mid to late 60's. 

IIRC his first full blown model was done on an IBM 7090 series before the CDC and IBM 360 family... so that would time it to mid 60 timeframe for the models


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## Clay_Allison (Feb 12, 2009)

Nightwitch said:


> US losses were about 40,000 aircraft, compared to about 80,000 combat aircraft for the Soviet Union. So, the Soviets probably lost about twice as many, which doesn't jive at all with what you said above, especially considering that these losses include the obsolescent aircraft of 1941, and that the US wasn't substantially involved in the air war in Europe until 1943 when the heavy bombing campaign really took off. Plus, the losses to the Luftwaffe on the Western front were shared with the RAF, the RAAF, the RCAF, and all of the other western allies, whereas the Soviets took on the Luftwaffe on the Eastern front alone.


Way to sneak unescorted bombers into your numbers.


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 12, 2009)

Nightwitch said:


> US losses were about 40,000 aircraft, compared to about 80,000 combat aircraft for the Soviet Union.


errr....

The US lost 45,000 aircraft to all causes, *22,951 operational losses *(18,418 in Europe and 4,533 in the Pacific).

Soviet Union - if to be believed, Total losses were over 106,400 including 88,300 combat types.

This came out of Wikipedia, but I think the sources are quite accurate.


Ellis, John (1993). World War II - A statistical survey. Facts on File. p. 258, p. 259 

Kirosheev, G. I. (1997). Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses. Greenhill. p. 255. ISBN 1-85367-280-7. 

Equipment losses in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Nightwitch (Feb 12, 2009)

Clay_Allison said:


> Way to sneak unescorted bombers into your numbers.



I didn't sneak anything anywhere. They're not "my" numbers. The US lost that many combat aircraft. If the US chose to send waves of unescorted heavy bombers to be shot down by the Luftwaffe how is that my fault? Your whole point was that the Soviet Union had no respect for the lives of its pilots and aircrews and that as a result they suffered losses far in excess of the other nations. We can debate about what constitutes far in excess, however, you've just proved yourself a hypocrite. When the Soviet Union loses airplanes, it's because they don't care about human life. When the United States Army Air Force makes a policy decision to carry out daylight raids with unescorted bombers it shouldn't be counted towards the total? Please, there's not an eyeroll emoticon big enough for that. The fact is, if the USAAF made a policy decision to send unescorted bombers into German airspace, suffering huge losses, you have to wonder whether or not the USAAF actually cared about the fate of its pilots and aircrew. So, how could you possibly have a problem with unescorted bombers being part of the total?


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## Nightwitch (Feb 12, 2009)

FLYBOYJ said:


> errr....
> 
> The US lost 45,000 aircraft to all causes, *22,951 operational losses *(18,418 in Europe and 4,533 in the Pacific).
> 
> ...



Don't Soviet losses also include planes that were simply broken down though? Or is this purely combat losses?


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 12, 2009)

Nightwitch said:


> Don't Soviet losses also include planes that were simply broken down though? Or is this purely combat losses?


If I read that correctly, it includes everything, combat and accidental.


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## Clay_Allison (Feb 13, 2009)

Nightwitch said:


> I didn't sneak anything anywhere. They're not "my" numbers. The US lost that many combat aircraft. If the US chose to send waves of unescorted heavy bombers to be shot down by the Luftwaffe how is that my fault? Your whole point was that the Soviet Union had no respect for the lives of its pilots and aircrews and that as a result they suffered losses far in excess of the other nations. We can debate about what constitutes far in excess, however, you've just proved yourself a hypocrite. When the Soviet Union loses airplanes, it's because they don't care about human life. When the United States Army Air Force makes a policy decision to carry out daylight raids with unescorted bombers it shouldn't be counted towards the total? Please, there's not an eyeroll emoticon big enough for that. The fact is, if the USAAF made a policy decision to send unescorted bombers into German airspace, suffering huge losses, you have to wonder whether or not the USAAF actually cared about the fate of its pilots and aircrew. So, how could you possibly have a problem with unescorted bombers being part of the total?


The fact that you were jumping into the argument about the relative quality of Soviet and American fighter pilots and fighter pilot training.


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## Nightwitch (Feb 13, 2009)

Clay_Allison said:


> The fact that you were jumping into the argument about the relative quality of Soviet and American fighter pilots and fighter pilot training.



The Soviet figure I quoted included bombers as well, but that didn't seem to bother you any. Makes one wonder...


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## claidemore (Feb 14, 2009)

hey Nightwitch,

Like your siggy.  I'm a big fan of Yekatarina. 

Agree with your arguments too. 

Claidemore


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## JoeB (Feb 14, 2009)

I see here a vague argument focusing on one kind of rant post (US pilots were *always* better, Soviets 'didn't care') on one hand and bit of a tendency to Soviet fanboy-ishness on the other, with all due respect.

To sharpen the points, one of them is whether Soviet and US fighter unit quality, all human factors not just 'pilot's skill', tended to be equal in WWII era. The Korea example seems to pretty strongly refute that as a basic assumption: two sides met head to head in broadly comparable planes, with tactical factors generally favoring the Soviets, in a large sample of combats, and the outcome was quite lopsidely (by standards of kill ratio's verified by each side's losses) in the USAF's favor. Well 'I don't know' and quibbling about Soviet operational losses, when we know their combat losses directly from them, seem to have been the only counterarguments offered to that example.

However that doesn't prove that all US fighter units were better than all Soviet throughout the era. For example see books like "Fighters Over Tunisia". Experienced LW fighter units manhandled green USAAF ones in that period; though they still generally apparently also held a serious kill ratio advantage over the already 2 years experienced Soviets at the same time. The USAAF wasn't clearly better though, not at that point.

Still, the 'final product' so to speak of WWII era doesn't appear to have been too close to equal, and F4U-4 v Yak-9U which implies very late war fighter units, where both sides had digested WWII combat experience, closer to the Korea example. I'd still expect the F4U-4 units to score several:1, mainly on the same basis F-86 units did so, not because their plane was so much better.

On who lost more planes in WWII I don't get that point, the Soviets lost more. I don't see how it proves or disproves though who 'cared' more. Which isn't really relevant to how F4U-4 and Yak-9U units would have fared against one another anyway. But is anyone really suggesting the Soviet political and social system cared as much about personnel casualties as Western? That seems a clearly absurd statement if so. OTOH every country faced the reality that you have to get some of your people killed to win a war, to some degree.

Joe


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## GrauGeist (Feb 14, 2009)

Something else to take into consideration regarding Soviet losses, is that the Eastern front was a meat grinder. Some of the most horriffic losses of WWII were found there both in men (and women) and material.

The Germans bled the Soviet forces hard, and that would account for such a high loss rate. This is not saying that the Soviets were incapable of fighting, but they had no choice since they were caught between a rock and a hard place. The rock being the Germans and the hard place being Uncle Joe's policy: "It takes a brave man to retreat in the Soviet army".


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## Clay_Allison (Feb 14, 2009)

JoeB said:


> I see here a vague argument focusing on one kind of rant post (US pilots were *always* better, Soviets 'didn't care') on one hand and bit of a tendency to Soviet fanboy-ishness on the other, with all due respect.
> 
> To sharpen the points, one of them is whether Soviet and US fighter unit quality, all human factors not just 'pilot's skill', tended to be equal in WWII era. The Korea example seems to pretty strongly refute that as a basic assumption: two sides met head to head in broadly comparable planes, with tactical factors generally favoring the Soviets, in a large sample of combats, and the outcome was quite lopsidely (by standards of kill ratio's verified by each side's losses) in the USAF's favor. Well 'I don't know' and quibbling about Soviet operational losses, when we know their combat losses directly from them, seem to have been the only counterarguments offered to that example.
> 
> ...


I should really stop posting in this thread, you do a much better job of saying what I want to say than I do.

I will only add that I believe that American and German pilots got far more freedom of action than the Soviet pilots. Individualism and free thinking were not encouraged by Stalin's government. I think that made a big difference.


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## HoHun (Mar 8, 2009)

Hi Davparlr,

>I have a data base of aircraft that I like to keep up with the best data available. As of yet I am still quite confused on the data for the F4U-4, so if you can make heads or tails of the data, please let me know. Thanks.

I have spun off a thread on F4U data (and F6F data, after you got me started on Navy aircraft  here:

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/te...d-corsair-vs-grumman-f6f-5-hellcat-17293.html

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## claidemore (Mar 10, 2009)

Clay_Allison said:


> I should really stop posting in this thread, you do a much better job of saying what I want to say than I do.
> 
> I will only add that I believe that American and German pilots got far more freedom of action than the Soviet pilots. Individualism and free thinking were not encouraged by Stalin's government. I think that made a big difference.



Yup, Adolf Hitlers Fascist dictatorship of 1940s Germany was well known for free thinking individualism. 
Kidding of course.


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## Clay_Allison (Mar 10, 2009)

claidemore said:


> Yup, Adolf Hitlers Fascist dictatorship of 1940s Germany was well known for free thinking individualism.
> Kidding of course.


German commanders were trained to improvise since the Franco Prussian war. What I said was directly from what a Luftwaffe pilot said about the Soviet fighters flying in rigid formation while Luftwaffe fighter pairs hunted independently and chose their tactics.


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## claidemore (Mar 11, 2009)

I could be wrong, but I tend to think of german soldiers, officers and enlisted, as being trained to do as they are told. I'd agree that Luftwaffe tactics were better than Soviet in the first couple years, but the Russians learned and evnetually dominated in the East.


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## Clay_Allison (Mar 11, 2009)

claidemore said:


> I could be wrong, but I tend to think of german soldiers, officers and enlisted, as being trained to do as they are told. I'd agree that Luftwaffe tactics were better than Soviet in the first couple years, but the Russians learned and evnetually dominated in the East.


By the time they dominated, the average German pilot didn't have the experience to be independent. Germans did what they were told as far as strategy and goals, but if you read up on their tactical training going back to the old Prussian military, they stressed flexibility at that level.

Pilots were officers, and making decisions and seizing opportunities was not just allowed, it was expected.


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## HoHun (Mar 11, 2009)

Hi Claidemore,

>I could be wrong, but I tend to think of german soldiers, officers and enlisted, as being trained to do as they are told.

They were trained to accomplish their goal, but to decide freely how to accomplish that goal.

Mission-type tactics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course, this was just a military way of thinking - German militarism also included deliberate political (and ethical) indifference. This was one reason for the success of the National Socialists ... the German military supported the political leadership blindly even where it didn't share their political views.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## HoHun (Mar 27, 2009)

Hi again,

Combining the graphs from the F4U-vs.-F6F thread here ...

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/te...d-corsair-vs-grumman-f6f-5-hellcat-17293.html

... with the graphs from the Yakovlev thread here ...

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/technical/performance-comparison-yakovlev-fighter-family-17580.html

... I prepared the below graphs comparing F4U-4 and Yak-9U performance. Enjoy! 

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## C0WB0Y (Apr 1, 2009)

Ok....


I got tired of all the hypotheticals so I had Dale Snodgrass in an F4U-5 fight Sean Carroll in a Yak-9 at St. Augustine this weekend.


Snort kicked Pinball's ass up and down the beach.

Corsair wins.

/end thread.


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## Catch22 (Apr 2, 2009)

Haha, that's a good way of figuring things out.


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## claidemore (Apr 2, 2009)

Great...confusing the issue with facts and eye witness accounts!


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## C0WB0Y (Apr 2, 2009)

Look man, I got nothing but love for the Yak-9. Hell, my avatar pic is of me flying in the Yak-9.

But Sean never had a chance. After all, he was going up against the greatest fighter pilot alive today.


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## HoHun (Apr 2, 2009)

Hi Cowboy,

>I got tired of all the hypotheticals so I had Dale Snodgrass in an F4U-5 fight Sean Carroll in a Yak-9 at St. Augustine this weekend.

Outstanding! Do you perhaps have some information on flying weights and power levels used? That would be most interesting!

Is the Yak one of the Allison-engined (semi-)new production batch? Then it would be nice to know the exact engine sub-type - I'm not sure I've seen this information before, and I admit I don't even know if they're all equipped with the same Allison.

Hm, what I'd love to see would be the GPS tracks from such a fight. I suppose chances are that GPS units were carried - do you think it would be possible to read the log files? Might make it possible to "draw a picture in the virtual sky" ...

Thanks for the great real-world connection you provided! 

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## claidemore (Apr 2, 2009)

claidemore said:


> Great...confusing the issue with facts and eye witness accounts!



I was of course being facetious.


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## claidemore (May 8, 2009)

JoeB said:


> 1. See the response above, and Juha's too. We know the Soviet combat losses from ex-Soviet sources in fair detail. We don't (or I don't) know the specific cases of the operational losses. The 10 operational losses implied by the often quoted 345 total/335 combat is probably just wrong. Even with 319 as combat, 345 total might not be correct. 319 might not be exactly correct either, but it's clearly close building bottom-up from published sources directly related to Soviet records. If the issue is combat losses, there's no big mystery.
> 
> 2. The 90 I quoted for F-86 combat loss is from my own research in original records, in view of detailed MiG claims (including quoted wreck evidence). The difference between that and official 78 is mostly sloppy totalling, unknown or vague causes which appear to be MiG in light of MiG claims, and some damaged never repaired a/c I cout as 'lost' (in the original records some such are so counted already, others not, it wasn't consistent). I know of no cases such as you mention.
> 
> ...



An interesting link I found while browsing for WWII Soviet Aces, gives some insight into the Korean war from a Soviet perspective. 
Yevgeny Pepelyayev - top Russian ace


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## Soren (May 9, 2009)

I'd really like to know the details of the a/c flown and in which areas both a/c were considered best. 

At any rate, the pilot makes all the difference.

Apart from that the F4U-4 is clearly the overall better a/c, there has never been any doubt about that, it is one of the few a/c which performed great in every role it got.

On another note I prey that one day (Hopefully soon!) we'll have pilots taking authentic reproductions of all these famous WW2 fighters into the air and compare them side by side. Would save us thousands upon thousands of pointless arguments. So kudos for the effort COWBOY, it's a step in the right direction, but we need more thurough tests with every detail lined up next time, cause not before that will we have a fair comparison.


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## davparlr (May 9, 2009)

The F4U-5 performance is a nice step up from the F4U-4.


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## calquin24 (May 9, 2009)

F4U-4.


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## davparlr (May 10, 2009)

calquin24 said:


> F4U-4.



I was making a comment about COWBOYs flyoff.




COWBOY said:


> I got tired of all the hypotheticals so I had Dale Snodgrass in an F4U-5 fight Sean Carroll in a Yak-9 at St. Augustine this weekend.
> 
> 
> Snort kicked Pinball's ass up and down the beach.


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## Laurelix (Apr 17, 2020)

F4U-4 - 5630kg loaded
574km/h at SL (100%) - 2100hp
607km/h at SL (WEP) - 2450hp
-
700km/h at 6200m (WEP)
-
Time to 6000m: 6:00 (100%)
Average climb - 16.67m/s 

——————

Yak-9U - 3205kg loaded weight
572km/h at Sea Level (100%) - 1550hp
585km/h at Sea Level (WEP) - 1650hp
-
684km/h at 5000m at (WEP)
-
Time to 5000m: 4:06 (100%)
Average Climb: 20.33m/s


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## CORSNING (Apr 18, 2020)

From Mr. Neil Stirling comes this report of the F4U-4 tested at 60"Hg boost
which was the USN standard during WW2.

https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/attachments/f4u-4_corsair_acp_-_1_march_1946-2-pdf.250622/


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