Best Naval Fighter

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It's pretty darn hard to win when the enemy planes cruise at or above your maximum manuvering speed, are much thougher than yours, have better guns than yours, fly higher than yours, and have radios when you don't.
 

Also the P-38? It kinda served the whole time America were in the war
 
the whole time America were in the war
Click to expand...

i would like to take this oppertunnity to make a cheap shot at the americans, i would like to remind you all that the period america was in the war was considderably shorter than most nations
 
I wouldn't consider that a cheap shot. It's true. But the P-38 was in production before America entered the war and was in production throughout. The Hellcat came about after the Americans entered the war. You've had better snipes at the Americans in the past than that, Lanc!
 
I'm still a lover of the Corsair once its initial problems had been solved for carrier use it in my opinion was head and shoulders above anything in a similar roll at the time . Am I correct fellas in saying the Corsair carried one of the biggest internal combustion engines fitted in a fighter?.
 

i'm sorry
 

Well, it was a Pratt&Whitney R-2800, same engine as carried in the P-47 and the F6F, though the supercharging/turbocharging was different.

=S=

Lunatic
 
ok i would like to take this oppertunity to also point out that it was us, the british, that solved many of the corsair's problems, not a great snipe i know but it's sunday morning..........
 
I wouldn't say many of the Corsair's problems. However, it was the Brits who came up with the way to land on the carrier decks. I will give them credit for that. But redoing the oleos, the tail wheel, raising the pilots seat, etc were all done by Vought.

Still, if you have ever seen a Corsair landing on a carrier, it is a dangerous and scary thing. Good landings are scary enough, when they go bad, it looks really scary!
 
The FAA at the time really didn't have a lot of choice. They were hurting for modern fighter aircraft, and the Corsair was available to them in quantity. Some of what they did was simple tricks that worked. Things like wiring shut some of the upper cowling flaps, to prevent oil from splashing onto the windscreen. They developed a unique landing approach, in order to deal with the poor visibility on landing.
In short, they made it work because at the time it was really all they had. They produced some good aces with it too.

Btw lanc, the wing-tip was trimmed in order to fit it into the RN carrier hangar decks. The head space was less than that of US carriers.
 
yes i'm aware of that NS, that's why sea fires had double folding wings and the firefly and suchlike had backward folding wings...........
 
Sorry folks but I am new to this site so be patient.
On the topic of which is the best Naval fighter can I go for the Shiden which wasn't used on a carrier but was originally a floatplane and was considered to be the best Jap Naval fighter. It had a significant advantage over the Hellcat and probably the Corsair.

As for the crab approach for the Corsair devised by the Royal Navy, it probably helped that it had always been the standard approach used on the Seafire.

PS this is the first forum of this type that I have joined as the standard of the debates by all concerned is very impressive.
 
the lancaster kicks ass said:
hey we also cut part of the wingtip off.........
Click to expand...

Yep - cause the Brit carriers were too small for WWII aircraft!
 

The Shiden was competative with the Hellcat, which was designed specifically to beat the Zero, as long as the fight was below about 20K. Above 20k the Shiden (George) was in real trouble. However, it was not competitive with the F4U-1d and was no match for the -4. It simply was not fast enough.

We had a Japanese-American member of the FA community who said his uncle, a Zero and then Shiden pilot, used to prey every night before a mission that they would not run into Corsairs.

BTW: read what Sabaru Sakai has to say about the Shiden.

=S=

Lunatic
 
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