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Love the colour shots. The last one is post war. Its amazing that most sellers don't do a bit of research before they post. It has a bit of history...

97053 (VF-193 or VF-871) hit by AAA, ditched, DBR May 18, 1951. DBR stands for Damaged Beyond Repair
 
The more OVERHEAD Life photo of the disassembled F4U shows a good view of the tiny, triangular wedge anti-torque devise welded onto the leading edge of right wing. Very few kits include this tiny detail.

I read somewhere,

That this was fitted to stop the sudden (right) wing drop at the stall (?)
 
I read somewhere,

That this was fitted to stop the sudden (right) wing drop at the stall (?)
You read right, but actually it was left.
https://www.heraldnet.com/life/spoiler-alert-corsairs-contraption-solved-lift-loss-problem/
I suspect the Corsair wing might have had a little wash in to counteract the humungoid torque and P factor of that big mutha R2800 (the brutest engine an American fighter had ever had when the F4U was first designed). That would almost guarantee a left wing first stall behavior, requiring some remediation to force right wing stall at the same time.
As AOA approaches stall the P factor and gyro precession effect of all that rotating mass would likely threaten the ability of the rudder to stop a yaw from developing and any aviator knows that retreating wing stalls first.
The neat thing about that little strip is it has practically no effect until the AOA approaches critical.
Cheers,
Wes
 
Would that be production test at the plant, with Bridgeport harbor and Long Island Sound in the background? We used to fly the Bridgeport Arrival to JFK almost daily.
The (now deceased) former manager of one of the local airports flew production test for Vought in '44 and '45. He had been an Instructor in one of the many contract flying schools early in the war after being rejected for enlistment due to age and an old plane crash injury. Early in 1944, when the contract school system was downsized in a big way, the instructors all lost their deferments and were snapped up to satisfy the insatiable demands of the infantry. So Al was informed that due to a "rationalization of standards" he had been reclassified IA and must report to the induction center for an update on his physical. On the same day he got a phone call from one of his former flight instructor buddies who had just landed a job at Vought saying he needed to come down for an interview. Al sealed the draft board envelope back up, stuck it back in the mailbox, and packed his bags for Bridgeport. Vought dealt with the draft board, and Al signed off five Corsairs a day for delivery.
He said he got real good at writing on his kneeboard and at practicing power off "dead stick" landings against the day when he would have to do one for real. That day came and he had to dead stick in a howling crosswind with an oil covered windshield, got blown off the runway into a drainage ditch, rolled it up in a ball, and walked away. "Damned stout airplane." He only signed off four planes that day.
As a low time private pilot it was always a treat for me to walk into his office, a veritable shrine to the bent wing bird and to warbirds in general. I even got the opportunity to give him a fam ride in the Navy club's T34, one of the few planes, it seemed, he'd never flown.
Cheers,
Wes
 
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