F4U Corsair vs P-51 Mustang

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Don't know if this lengthy thread mentioned the only real-world test between the Corsair and Mustang, in an obscure arena. Honduras v. El Salvador 1969. Both sides flew Corsairs: Honduras -4s and -5s; El Sal FG-1s and 51Ds. The only piloto to score was Maj. Fernando Soto who flew his dash four to down two Corsairs and a Mustang. I had some correspondence and a tape recording from him in researching the Naval Institute Press book (1979) and wrote a long Flight Journal article with one of the US Mustang pilots who joined El Sal just days after cessation of hostilities. (One was F86 ace Bob Love.)
 
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Barrett said:
Don't know if this lengthy thread mentioned the only real-world test between the Corsair and Mustang, in an obscure arena. Honduras v. El Salvador 1969. Both sides flew Corsairs: Honduras -4s and -5s; El Sal FG-1s and 51Ds. The only piloto to score was Maj. Fernando Soto who flew his dash four to down two Corsairs and a Mustang. I had some correspondence and a tape recording from him in researching the Naval Institute Press book (1979) and wrote a long Flight Journal article with one of the US Mustang pilots who joined El Sal just days after cessation of hostilities. (One was F86 ace Bob Love.)
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Firstly, thank you for the great books you wrote about Corsair and other naval fighters, sir. Unfortunately, the case for the "Soccer war" was intentionally excluded. It's some sort of last legend and great victory(and that part in the book was also a great article), but as I mentioned in the post, the comparison method what I used in post was between the most used or the latest model in the war, or the best of all models. So I didn't mention the Birdcage Corsair and Allison Mustang, or the gap between the models is not match for comparison method because this is 'vs' thread.


Whisper : and excuse me, I remember that the book stated that Fernando Soto's Corsair was dash five.


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Another excluded example is the modern comparison between the Goodyear's dash one Corsair and the D Mustang(+Thunderbolt and Hellcat), in 1989 by STEP. It was excluded because it was not a military condition, but the conclusion was similar. The Corsair got the "weapon of choice" title with best air combat capacity against rivals in test, but based on various considerations, the 'BEST' was the Mustang for overall. Interestingly, in this comparison, the Mustang and Corsair had seems practical weight(equivalent to 50% ammo and internal fuel excpet auxiliary tank - unoffical emergency interceptor condition?) even compared to military condition, but others was not, they seems much lighter than any combat loading condition offical or not. It caused me, to wonder about the restoration or modernization process for old warbirds.
 
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Macandy said:
Mustangs were trashed in big numbers by rough landings that a Corsair just shrugged off. Their loss rates to ground fire was also very high. A single Golden BB and they were out of the war.

post WWII, The harsh operating strips in Korea burnt through P-51's at an astonishing rate.

A2A 'combat losses' are a very poor metric.

the reason the USAF got shot of the much higher performance P-51H and kept the D was the lightly built and higher stressed H was even more fragile.
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Bull Shit...on the Mustang and Corsair.
Every Corsair had hard landings and worst removed from service with bent frames. The seas were not always cooperatIve planes having to land on pitching carriers. They were originally designed as a land plane. There was a large enough replacement to remove the bent Corsairs and there were a lot of them. A bent frame Corsair could not maintain cruise speed and handling was like driving a car with a bad alignment. I know this from combat and maintenance reports. Just about every Carrier based Corsair was junked after WW2. The dash 4 and 5 models were new and saw little combat in WW2. Their life cycles used up in Korea. The dash 5 was removed because of electrical and relay issue. Navy supplanted them with more Dash4, AD1 and Jets. One of the other notorious names for the Corsair was Ensign Eliminator because it killed a lot of pilots taking off from carriers.

As for the Japanese fields in Korea we used. The Mustang did fine..you do not know what you are talking about.
The fields were short but were well maintained. Which was a key reason Thunderbolt could not be used in Pusan South Korea.
Neither land based Corsair or Mustang had any fragility issues. The A26 did because the wing would fracture and fall off.
You want good information about the air war in Korea go to KOWAR records that were researched, documented and published by Intel Analyst Cookie Sewell.

The Navy liked the Mustangs potential performance but was not enough urgency to make it work.
Plus would had to change logistics to support the liquid cooled engines.
 
You don't know what you're talking about Dan..."Ensign Eliminator" because of landings, not take-offs

"However, this did not come without a cost; the longer engine reduced forward visibility, early design flaws caused stalls during landing approaches; and the wheels tended to bounce during landings. As a result, early carrier tests were plagued with accidents (the source of its "Ensign Eliminator" nickname), and the Navy picked the more forgiving F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat as their primary carrier fighters instead"
 
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Macandy said:
Mustangs were trashed in big numbers by rough landings that a Corsair just shrugged off. Their loss rates to ground fire was also very high. A single Golden BB and they were out of the war.

post WWII, The harsh operating strips in Korea burnt through P-51's at an astonishing rate.

A2A 'combat losses' are a very poor metric.

the reason the USAF got shot of the much higher performance P-51H and kept the D was the lightly built and higher stressed H was even more fragile.
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Wrong on most of what you just stated. Do some original research if you don't want to earn the 'fanboy' title of the month.
 
fubar57 said:
You don't know what you're talking about Dan..."Ensign Eliminator" because of landings, not take-offs

"However, this did not come without a cost; the longer engine reduced forward visibility, early design flaws caused stalls during landing approaches; and the wheels tended to bounce during landings. As a result, early carrier tests were plagued with accidents (the source of its "Ensign Eliminator" nickname), and the Navy picked the more forgiving F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat as their primary carrier fighters instead"
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No because of take offs...the Corsair would flip over because of the torque of the prop at the end of carrier deck.
are you a troll?
 
fubar57 said:
You don't know what you're talking about Dan..."Ensign Eliminator" because of landings, not take-offs

"However, this did not come without a cost; the longer engine reduced forward visibility, early design flaws caused stalls during landing approaches; and the wheels tended to bounce during landings. As a result, early carrier tests were plagued with accidents (the source of its "Ensign Eliminator" nickname), and the Navy picked the more forgiving F4F Wildcat and F6F Hellcat as their primary carrier fighters instead"
Click to expand...

Chance Vought F4U-5N Corsair | Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum


Your source?
 
Having copied all of the Corsair's WWII carrier qualification reports, I can say the Navy showed no concern for any torque problems on takeoff. While that doesn't mean the problems weren't there, it's clear the examiners didn't think them important enough to even mention in their reports.

The Corsair was considered fully capable as a carrier fighter in 1943. It was ordered transferred to land bases in August that year after the Navy had learned the F6F was fully capable. The only "problem" with the Corsair was that the Fleet didn't want to run two parallel supply lines for its carriers.

By mid-1944 BuAer began pressing the Fleet to replace the F6F with F4Us - BuAer wrote that there could be no further development of the Hellcat, while the Corsair was already superior and newer models would advance even more. The first Corsairs began returning to carriers just after Christmas 1944.

The landing bounce issues appeared early in 1945 - the result of changes in landing gear struts and tires. After a quick fix pressurizing the struts appeared, the bounce was completely eliminated. (Several publications, aware of the bounce, have assumed that the bounce was present in 1943 and therefore responsible for removal of the Corsair from carriers. Every contemporary report refutes this assertion.)

Cheers,



Dana
 
The take-off and landing characteristics of the early birdcage Corsair are often considered to apply to all models of the Corsair. She has suffered for loooooong times as a result of missed the first paragraph. According to the Carrier air group reports, Corsair had better visibility and slower approach speed than the Hellcat in carrier landing approach. It was considered 'better landing aboard a CV' than the Hellcat, finally. Although in many cases all-around carrier stability was considered to be better in the Hellcat, overall.
 
I saw a video on the development of the Corsair, there were a huge number of changes in the development stage, one of the issues mentioned was rebound damping on landing but this wasn't an issue unique to the Corsair.
 
drgondog said:
Wrong on most of what you just stated. Do some original research if you don't want to earn the 'fanboy' title of the month.
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I just read that reciently( that the loss rates to ground fire we almost identical). Found it quite surprising as much of what has been written over the years not to mention the the air cooled vs liquid cooled engine would give the impression the corsair should have faired better in this role but that was apparently not the case as the proof is in the pudding( or in this case the loss rates) as they say.
 
Dan Fahey said:
No because of take offs...the Corsair would flip over because of the torque of the prop at the end of carrier deck.
are you a troll?
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Jeez man, Fubar is about the furthest thing from a " troll" I can think of.
And your comment doesn't even make sense. Why would someone be a troll because they've read different information about something than you?
Just thought you'd throw that in for effect?
...................and the F4Us moniker "Ensign eliminator" did stem from landing issues, so I have read anyway.
 
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