Corsair vs FW190

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pinsog

Tech Sergeant
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Jan 20, 2008
Capt. Eric M Brown in "Duels in the sky" pretty much trashes the F4U Corsair(seems to love the Hellcat for some reason). He hates it. He states that a FW190 would eat its lunch, yet, in seperate tests conducted by the US, the Corsair outperformed not only the Fw190, but also the P51 Mustang up to 24000 ft. It outmanuevered both of them significantly and was faster than either up to around 20,000 to 24,000 ft. It could also outmanuever the Hellcat, a fact which suprised me until I did some further research.

Do most of you agree with Brown or the US military tests? Which is the better fighter, the Corsair of the 190?
 
Well, first of all, u get a split decision here with the "validity" of Mr. Browns highly opinionated decisions concerning the vast armada of planes he flew....

I myself follow the line that my Grandfather took of him, which is "He is a severely biased man"....

As for ur comparison, gotta get more specific pal... Which version of the F4U vs. which version of the Fw 190???

If ur comparing the Dora-9 or even the D-11/-13 with the late War F4U-4 and we got us a hot topic, thats been discussed many times before....
 
I began to think he might be an idiot after he placed the Swordfish above the Avenger as the greatest torpedo plane of the war.
 
The problem with Mr. Brown is he expresses his opinion as fact. I believe he is biased, but that is ok. I vote for the home team more often than not, I have no problem that he does too. But he doesn't explain that his biases affect the opinion he expresses. I read that book too and much of what he said, both previously and since, I have found information disagreeing with what he stated.
 
Corsair was hands down the best US fighter of the war in my opinion. There is so much talk of the P51 while I think the Corsair was a better aircraft! It had the range the P51 did!

As for how it would fair against the late model FW190's I would love to hear peoples opinions! It would appear quite a close match!
 
I agree. The U.S. Army Air Corps should have adopted the F4U during the fall of 1942 rather then the P-47. The problem plagued P-38 gets cancelled along with the obsolescent P-40. There is no need for the P-51. A long range variant of the F4U will fill the bomber escort role.
 
Anybody know the wing loading on the 51, F4U, F6 and FW190? It might help towards the arguement about manuverability. Also, the power/weight ratio?

Good place to start.
 

There are two problems with this scenario from a practical standpoint. First the P-47 was designed from the beginning as a high performance/High altitude fighter and was deployed to operational units in USAAF well before the F4U. For the USAAF mission, the F4U had to be redesigned to strip the carrier gear, design and incorporate a turbo supercharger vesion to replace the P-47 - and have the foresight to make that decision early in 1940 - shortly after the F4U first flew.

It would be easier for the Army to say 'aha' and test an early P-51 with a Merlin Engine. The Mustang had far fewer critical performance/reliability issues than any of the P-38/P-47 and F4U variants. So why not pick the Mustang (USAAF).

Last - and back to the topic. The F4U performed well against the Mustang and vice versa - the Mustang performed very well against the Fw 190.

The question of the day, until the Fw 190D-9 enters combat, is how well does the F4U perform against the Me 109 at 28,000 feet (escort heights) and is there a material difference between the F4u-1 and the Fw 190 A5,6 and 7 during the late 1943/early 1944 timeframe at 22-28000 feet?
 
Copy the RR supercharger installation and put it on the P&W R2800 engine. That's a lot easier then trying to make a compact and reliable turbocharger system for a WWII era fighter aircraft.
 
Catch22 said:
The Merlin was better at high altitudes than the Corsair's P&W.
Click to expand...

And the P-47's P&W was better than both (due to the supercharger). The fact is, the P-51 was considerably cheaper to produce than either the P-47 or F4U-4 and the war, at that point, was one of materiel superiority which was more easily achieved with the P-51.

The fact that the F4U (or the F2G rather) served well into the Korean War (as did the P-51...I know) shows that it was an extremely capable design. But it was the carrier-ops ability as well as its incredible array of ordnance capabilites that kept it in service. It wasn't used for interceptor duties at that point.

To the initial post, I say I'll take the F4U over the 190A's. Against the Dora's, well, that's a tougher choice, but I'd probably still take the Corsair.
 
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