ALternatives for the P-38?

[fastmongrel]

Fill in the rest, it's not hard.

Its not hard but there is no call to be rude. I am allowed to make a post and make a point as long as I dont attack anyone or break forum rules. You dont own this thread so there is no need to act like you do, if anyone else holds a differing view or has evidence that disagrees with yours then you should discuss it and not act like your evidence came down a mountain carved in stone.

 

[VBF-13]

Its not hard but there is no call to be rude. I am allowed to make a post and make a point as long as I dont attack anyone or break forum rules. You dont own this thread so there is no need to act like you do, if anyone else holds a differing view or has evidence that disagrees with yours then you should discuss it and not act like your evidence came down a mountain carved in stone.

Actually I didn't mean that as a wisecrack but I can see now how it can be taken as such. I retract it and I apologize for it. In hindsight I totally agree with you it was uncalled for. I have to get back to work. Please excuse it as careless abruptness on my part.

 

[GregP]

Hey VBF, either substabntiate your Roosevelt claim or let it go. Quit saying everyone knew it ... they DIDN't and DON'T, and neither does anyone else I asked at our museum, where we fly Grummans and Vought-Sikorsky aircraft, including the oldest flying Vought-Sikorsky F4U-1D Corsair. We are returning it to the original F4U-1A configuration at this time while it continues to fly.

You are doing a "Gaston" (a former member who was banned for espousing wild theories and could not be convinced to quit the argumets) saying things that cannot be substantiated, but are claimed to be "common knowledge." Believe me, ALL comman knowledge can be substantiated. If not, it's simply not true. So, please produce the Roosevelt connection or stop posting it. So far, only you are saying that in case you didn't notice.

I don't claim you are wrong at this time, but want it to be shown as true before accepting your claim as fact. If you can show it with believable documentation, I'll be happy to believe it.

Please continue.

If this sounds like I am a moderator, I am not and I apologize to them if I intrude but, hey, make your case with documented facts.

Cheers.

 

[fastmongrel]

We are returning it to the original F4U-1A configuration at this time while it continues to fly.

Wow you guys must be good if your working on a plane whilst its in the air

Seriously though I am not too knowledgeable on the F4U what is involved in the change is it changing from the Malcolm style hood to the older Birdcage type or is it an engine change. I have had a quick look on wiki and I am more confused now than when I started looking.

 

[VBF-13]

Hey VBF, either substabntiate your Roosevelt claim or let it go. Quit saying everyone knew it ... they DIDN't and DON'T, and neither does anyone else I asked at our museum, where we fly Grummans and Vought-Sikorsky aircraft, including the oldest flying Vought-Sikorsky F4U-1D Corsair. We are returning it to the original F4U-1A configuration at this time while it continues to fly.

You are doing a "Gaston" (a former member who was banned for espousing wild theories and could not be convinced to quit the argumets) saying things that cannot be substantiated, but are claimed to be "common knowledge." Believe me, ALL comman knowledge can be substantiated. If not, it's simply not true. So, please produce the Roosevelt connection or stop posting it. So far, only you are saying that in case you didn't notice.

I don't claim you are wrong at this time, but want it to be shown as true before accepting your claim as fact. If you can show it with believable documentation, I'll be happy to believe it.

Please continue.

If this sounds like I am a moderator, I am not and I apologize to them if I intrude but, hey, make your case with documented facts.

Cheers.

Oh, boy, here we go. Now I'm under a subtle threat my membership is on the line. And, why? Because I suggest an inference, supported by facts (i.e., Roosevelt's tenure as a former Assistant Secretary of the Navy), none of you boys here are willing to accept without my gift-wrapping it for you and perhaps putting a pretty pink bow on it, besides. Although, I will note, I already told you why I can't do that, why that's impossible. If you missed it, go back a page or two, you'll find it.

I withdraw the remark, then, and I shan't ever again reference it, here. I can't undo my having referenced it, however. That would be like putting a drop of ink into a quart of milk and shaking it up well and expecting me to pull that drop out of there. Provided you have the capacity to understand that, I see no reason we can't coexist, here, and just carry on. I'm going to give you the benefit of all doubt, and presume you have that capacity. But, that's the best I can do. Take it or leave it.

 

[VBF-13]

You have to tool up factories. Companies do not produce aircraft without contracts. Vought gets the first contract June 30 1941, first production plane flies June 25th 1942 (12 months), with hundreds of changes from the prototype.

I'm backing up to this. Let's see if we can't clear a few things up. Besides, I have a question.

This timeline on the XF4U, note, is remarkably similar to that on the XF6F. That is to say, both these manufacturers were awarded contracts on these prototypes, respectively, at the same time. Are we debating why Grumman was also awarded one while the F4U was already well on the drawing board by that stage? If we are, I'd think it a fair reply, precisely because the F4U was already well on the drawing board by that stage. In other words, there were issues with that aircraft. If there weren't, this was hardly the time to be playing games.

Now, let's go to June, 1942. Both these prototypes got the green light on production. Is our issue, now, why the F6F won out on the carriers? I'm talking in combat. That would bring us to around the middle of 1943. I'll fact-check that and get you an exact date, if you want, but for these purposes there's really no reason to pinpoint it that closely. They're both produced. Let's get into why Grumman and not Vought won out on those carriers.

I'd like to know what we think on that. That's my question.

 

[Shortround6]

Your question is a bit confused. Perhaps I didn't phrase my post properly.

Vought won a 1938 design competition for a replacement for the F4F. That is they way they did things in those days, they were working on the next generation aircraft as/before the present one was going into service. Vought gets a contract for the prototype XF4U-1 on June 11th 1938. This three years before the contract for the prototype F6F is placed, Vought got a production contract for 584 production planes on the same day that Grumman got the contract for the prototype F6Fs, not quite the same thing.
Only ONE F4U existed at the time the the contract was placed for the F6F prototypes, and it was a rather different aircraft than the production versions would be. Part of the reasons for the long delay in placing the production contract is that it took about 23 months from placing of the contract until first flight of the prototype. In about 13 days the plane is damaged in a forced landing and requires almost 3 months to rebuild. It is now October of 1940, the plane completes Navy testing at the end of Feb 1941. In March negotiations start on the production contract which is not finalized until June 30th.
During Navy testing it is found that some of the Navy "standard" tests do not apply to modern monoplane fighters or are dangerous to perform. The F4U pushed the boundaries of aerodynamic knowledge of the time just like the P-38 and ran into some of the same problems, like compressability. A standard Navy test was a vertical dive lasting 10,000ft. The Corsair was enough faster than previous fighters ( or dive bombers) that pulling out at 10,000ft didn't leave enough room without excessive "G" loadings. and starting higher than 20,000ft ran into problems with compressability. Another requirement was that the plane had to be recoverable after 10 full spins in either direction. Both requirements were changed for later aircraft.
Also remember that in 1938 when work started the R-2800 engine pretty much existed only on paper. P&W doesn't fly an R-2800 until the summer of 1939 in an Vultee A-19 and it is not the 2 stage version. How much waiting Vought had to do for the engine and propeller I don't know, maybe none, maybe a number of weeks.
Prototype F4U had been in existence (after first flight) for 6 months when the Navy makes the request for production versions to change armament, armor, fuel tankage location and changes to ailerons for better role response.

I would also note the world situation was rapidly getting worse during this whole time and the F4Us first year on the drawing board and mock up construction was in peace time for the whole world. The finalized contracts for the production F4Us and the prototype F6Fs were placed just a week or so after the Germans invade Russia and US -Japanese relations are getting steadily worse.

Grumman did a fantastic job with the F6F but there are a number of differences between it's design/development and the F4U's.

The F4U was found to have a strange stall characteristic in which one wing stalled before the other, and the landing gear shocks were too stiff causing excessive bouncing on landing. Since carrier planes land closer to the stall than land planes and usually land with a higher vertical velocity these are both problems for carrier use that are much less troublesome when used from a shore base.

 

[GregP]

Hi Fastmongrel,

Our Corsiar started life as a bird-cage aircrraft. The original Corsair had a short nose and the canopy simply went back straight to the fuselage. Later they added more fuel behind the firewall and had to move the cockpit aft a bit for the characteristics Corsair " hosenose" look. They added a canopy that bulged upward a bit and had two stringers along the top, sort of like a "Malcom Hood." The Plexiglass was actually in 3 pieces. This was on the F4U-1A and it also had a wood antenna mast mounted to the firewall slightly to the starboard side for the ADF antenna. When they came out with the F4U-1D, the sliding canopy was a single piece of Plexiglass, and eliminated the two horizontal (more or less) stringers at the top of the frame and maybe the ADF antenna on the firewall, depending on timeframe.

So, our Cosrair was upgraded to F4U-1A status at some time and then had some of the F4U-1D upgrades done to it, including the one-piece sliding canopy plexiglass. We found the oriiginal F4U-1A sliding canopy frame and the team I am on (currently working on our Bell YP-59A) is taking a short break to restore the canopy frame and replace the cables and pivot pulleys, and I am making an ADF antenna mast out of Oak to mount on the firewall, so it will be in F4U-1A configuration when we get finished.

Ours was one of the Ba Ba Blacksheep Hollywood birds and we had various non-standard items removed that basically returned it to more or less F4U-1D configuration a long time ago and it has operated that way since then. Since we found the F4U-1A canopy frame, it was decided to make it more authentic, and I love to see it run and fly.

All in all, a really neat aircraft.

I apologize for tghe digression from topic, I answered Fastmongrel's question. Back to the subject ...

Grumman was also already working on the F4F replacement when they got the F6F contract. Again, the F6F has some of the best low-speed handling of any WWII Naval fighter, making it very friendly to green, new pilots around the carrier. It also does not use ram air in the main supercharger stage, so carburetor icing was never an issue with the F6F. The Corsair cannot make that claim.

 

[fastmongrel]

Thanks for that Greg. I need to do some reading on the Corsair its an aircraft which for some reason I have no books on.

 

[VBF-13]

Your question is a bit confused. Perhaps I didn't phrase my post properly.

Vought won a 1938 design competition for a replacement for the F4F. That is they way they did things in those days, they were working on the next generation aircraft as/before the present one was going into service. Vought gets a contract for the prototype XF4U-1 on June 11th 1938. This three years before the contract for the prototype F6F is placed, Vought got a production contract for 584 production planes on the same day that Grumman got the contract for the prototype F6Fs, not quite the same thing.
Only ONE F4U existed at the time the the contract was placed for the F6F prototypes, and it was a rather different aircraft than the production versions would be. Part of the reasons for the long delay in placing the production contract is that it took about 23 months from placing of the contract until first flight of the prototype. In about 13 days the plane is damaged in a forced landing and requires almost 3 months to rebuild. It is now October of 1940, the plane completes Navy testing at the end of Feb 1941. In March negotiations start on the production contract which is not finalized until June 30th.
During Navy testing it is found that some of the Navy "standard" tests do not apply to modern monoplane fighters or are dangerous to perform. The F4U pushed the boundaries of aerodynamic knowledge of the time just like the P-38 and ran into some of the same problems, like compressability. A standard Navy test was a vertical dive lasting 10,000ft. The Corsair was enough faster than previous fighters ( or dive bombers) that pulling out at 10,000ft didn't leave enough room without excessive "G" loadings. and starting higher than 20,000ft ran into problems with compressability. Another requirement was that the plane had to be recoverable after 10 full spins in either direction. Both requirements were changed for later aircraft.
Also remember that in 1938 when work started the R-2800 engine pretty much existed only on paper. P&W doesn't fly an R-2800 until the summer of 1939 in an Vultee A-19 and it is not the 2 stage version. How much waiting Vought had to do for the engine and propeller I don't know, maybe none, maybe a number of weeks.
Prototype F4U had been in existence (after first flight) for 6 months when the Navy makes the request for production versions to change armament, armor, fuel tankage location and changes to ailerons for better role response.

I would also note the world situation was rapidly getting worse during this whole time and the F4Us first year on the drawing board and mock up construction was in peace time for the whole world. The finalized contracts for the production F4Us and the prototype F6Fs were placed just a week or so after the Germans invade Russia and US -Japanese relations are getting steadily worse.

Grumman did a fantastic job with the F6F but there are a number of differences between it's design/development and the F4U's.

The F4U was found to have a strange stall characteristic in which one wing stalled before the other, and the landing gear shocks were too stiff causing excessive bouncing on landing. Since carrier planes land closer to the stall than land planes and usually land with a higher vertical velocity these are both problems for carrier use that are much less troublesome when used from a shore base.

I'm hearing two things. One, the "pioneering," if I may, of the XF4U, began in virtual "peacetime;" two, by the time Grumman got the nod so to speak on the development of the XF6F, it was already in a position to benefit from that Vought-engineering. That answers a lot to me. I never considered any of that.

I have to blow. GregP, credit you with a big assist. Gentlemen, thanks!