F4U Corsair vs P-51 Mustang

[lesofprimus]

For anything other than escort duties, the F4U is my pick... It served a higher number of mission parameters and had a survivability rate the Mustang cant compete with....

With that being said, the Malcom hooded B-15 would be my choice if I was only allowed to choose operations in the ETO... I dont really know of anyone who would choose the D model over the B...

 

[Catch22]

That's interesting, I didn't realize there was that much of a difference between the B-15 and D. If anything, you'd think the D would be better. I guess newer isn't always better.

 

[renrich]

Actually, I believe that in ACM between Honduras and the other country (can't remember) a pilot name Hernando Soto(or something) shot down a P51 or two in the last combat by an F4U. Doesn't prove much. They were AC optimised for different missions. If picking between the two if you could only have one for the whole war, the P51 could never be as effective as the Corsair as a carrier plane and the Corsair could never be as effective as P51 as long range escort. For all around fighter bomber in all missions, I would have to go with Corsair, barely.

 

[drgondog]

For anything other than escort duties, the F4U is my pick... It served a higher number of mission parameters and had a survivability rate the Mustang cant compete with....

With that being said, the Malcom hooded B-15 would be my choice if I was only allowed to choose operations in the ETO... I dont really know of anyone who would choose the D model over the B...

I agree basically except for a couple of minor points - Recce would be one.

Dan - I actually do know a lot the 51 drivers that liked the D a little better for firepower, visibility and some of the airframe fixes that made the D safer in a dive.

My father was the other way, agreeing bubble slightly better than Malcolm and a lot better than birdcage but he didn't see any real differences between 4x 50 and 6x in terms of perceived results on 109s and he said the turn and climb comparisons rat racing with D's showed a clear edge given pilot equality. for the P-51B

 

[lesofprimus]

Agree with u 100% Bill, but if I had to get a recce mission done, it wouldnt be either one...

As far as firepower goes, the old saying that if u cant hit something with 4x .50's, 6 aint gonna help you will always stick in my mind.... If ur strafing, then I would consider it important...

U would know alot more than I Bill concerning the Stang drivers opinions, but I dont know any Stangers who preffered the D model over the B.... I do remember one of Grandpas pals who did comment on the dive characteristics of the B compared to the D model, but he said that he wouldnt have traded out his B if he had a choice....

 

[renrich]

My brother down in Texas knows an 87 year old man who is pert as can be named Joe Ramshorn(sp?) and was a Mustang driver out of Italy in WW2. Shot down over Yugoslavia, burned and escaped with help from partisans. Still rides a big hog motorcycle. Bill, are you familiar with him?

 

[lesofprimus]

If he was out of Italy, Bill would probably not be familiar with him as his Dad flew out of Steeple....

 

[drgondog]

Agree with u 100% Bill, but if I had to get a recce mission done, it wouldnt be either one...

As far as firepower goes, the old saying that if u cant hit something with 4x .50's, 6 aint gonna help you will always stick in my mind.... If ur strafing, then I would consider it important...

U would know alot more than I Bill concerning the Stang drivers opinions, but I dont know any Stangers who preffered the D model over the B.... I do remember one of Grandpas pals who did comment on the dive characteristics of the B compared to the D model, but he said that he wouldnt have traded out his B if he had a choice....

I wouldn't say I know more about 51 pilot opinions, just the sample I had preferred the visibilty and firepower.

The dive issues on the B were much less than the D due to the wheel uplocks to ensure that neither gravity nor aero distribution could open that gear door and rip a wing off, and the stiffened ammo doors solved the other 'early compressibility' issue. The dive yaw tendencies never did 100% go away even with bigger tail of the P-51H.

As to Recce? I don't know. On the Allied side the Mossie and F-5 and F-6 were pretty much the best so you don't lose much with the 51/F-6

 

[lesofprimus]

True enough Bill....

Question.... What did ur Dad have to say about the Corsair?? Did he ever get any cross-time with the Jarheads and Squids??

 

[drgondog]

My brother down in Texas knows an 87 year old man who is pert as can be named Joe Ramshorn(sp?) and was a Mustang driver out of Italy in WW2. Shot down over Yugoslavia, burned and escaped with help from partisans. Still rides a big hog motorcycle. Bill, are you familiar with him?

I don't know Joe Ramshorn...

Dan is right, I know or knew a handful such as Brooks, Jorda, Green, Momeyer and McCorkle - all through my father's friendships - but I have met far more Mustang drivers from ETO than MTO.

 

[drgondog]

True enough Bill....

Question.... What did ur Dad have to say about the Corsair?? Did he ever get any cross-time with the Jarheads and Squids??

On the F4U, when he was a VP at LTV he got a ride in the F4U via Paul Thayer and liked the airplane a lot. He was maybe 55 at the time so I don't expect that he was pulling any real G's in the airplane.

It was from Thayer that I received my impressions of the F7F - which he liked as much or more as the F8F - and both more than the F4U which he liked very much. Thayer was Chief Test Pilot at LTV after USN, then moved up to Chairman of LTV. His favorite ship of all time was the F8U.

He never flew the 51 so I wasn't able to get a sense of comparison with F4U from him.

My father's favorite airplane of all time was the F-86 and he did get some 'cross time' in the FJ-2. He was running the Air Proving Ground at Eglin after his tour in Korea and had a fair amount of contact with Naval Air types at Pensacola.

There was a lot of good natured rivalry which was not so much fun when the two played football against each other - back in the day when different armed services bases fielded semi pro football teams and Eglin, Pensacola and Quantico and Bragg and Pendleton had some really good football teams. Dad coached the QB's for two years..before "we" went to Air War College at Maxwell.

maybe an interesting point about him... he was (and still is) the only Qb in the State of Texas that was All-State three years in a row and beat out an unknown named Davy O'Brien for the honor... all at 5-7 and 135-140 pounds in the early 1930's.

Can you imagine anyone that size competing in the last 40 years at that size?

 

[renrich]

Ramshorn was shot down by ground fire incidently. Thayer has had an interesting life. Fighter pilot, test pilot, executive of LTV, Sec Nav, I think, and spent some time in Fed pen for SEC violations which I thought were trumped up political BS. He was demonstrating an F7U at PAX and when he plugged in the burners, had an explosion. He managed to get the AC over the water and punched out. When he got back to the field someone told him that what Thayer had done was the most exciting demo he had ever seen. Dave O Brien may not mean much to some but he was one of the all time great QBs at TCU. My high school coach, Jewell Wallace, played with him as a wingback. Wallace was one of the legendary Texas high school coaches. Where did you father play?

 

[drgondog]

Ramshorn was shot down by ground fire incidently. Thayer has had an interesting life. Fighter pilot, test pilot, executive of LTV, Sec Nav, I think, and spent some time in Fed pen for SEC violations which I thought were trumped up political BS. He was demonstrating an F7U at PAX and when he plugged in the burners, had an explosion. He managed to get the AC over the water and punched out. When he got back to the field someone told him that what Thayer had done was the most exciting demo he had ever seen. Dave O Brien may not mean much to some but he was one of the all time great QBs at TCU. My high school coach, Jewell Wallace, played with him as a wingback. Wallace was one of the legendary Texas high school coaches. Where did you father play?

Wallace was one of the renowned high school coaches and obviously coached at same time as dad's coach Henry Frnka.

Greenville High - State Champions I think in 1933 and lost in State Championship game to Blair Cherry's Abilene team in 1934. Greenvile lost by 4 points and dad played with a separated right shoulder from week before - and he threw right handed.

Henry Frnka who went to Vanderbilt after 1935 season and dad followed to make Colliers Honorable Mention All America in 1937 as a sophmore and blew his knee out as a junior. Bear Bryant was an assistant coach at Vandy when dad was a senior.

I don't know if you remember Dave Cambells' Texas Football, but in the 1968 edition he was ranked as one of Texas High School top Qb's of all time.

I got to know Thayer pretty well. He was 'involved' with a beautiful lady - at least to extent of giving her some inside info. When SEC put pressure on her she folded. I'm trying to remember the full name of the stock broker involved but he was Donny Anderson's roommate in off season when they both lived in Dallas - Billy Bob _____ (can't remember last name).

Cossell was raving about Donny Anderson on Monday Night Football, and Don meridith cracked an insider joke that Anderson may have been the Golden Palomino at Texas Tech but in Dallas he was known as Billy Bob _______'s roomate who threw the most unbelievable parties in DFW area.

I went to several and met my former wife there. Dan Jenkins (author of Semi Tough) used to frequent those patries - draw your own conclusions. Billy Bob actaully did some time at the Fed Country Club but I can't remember if Thayer did.

Thayer and I were pall bearers for Captain James (Doc) Savage, former President of American Fighter Aces, at Sherman TX. Both outstanding Gentlemen.

I haven't communicated with Thayer since we moved to Oregon. He still rides his Harley all the time so he hasn't slowed down too much.

I think I was pretty tough - my father was a lot tougher.

 

[renrich]

Obviously I am familiar with all those names. I think Frnka was the coach at Trinity U for a while and am not sure but he may have tried to recruit me out of San Antonio Thomas Jefferson in 52-53. I used to have every copy of "Texas Football" from the beginning, 1960, but threw them away during a move in 92.(bad decision) Have a hard bound version and will look your father up if possible. I think his name was Billy Bob Harris and I believe Thayer served a year or so. Wallace won a state championship in football at San Angelo and SA Jefferson and a state championship in basketball at El Paso. I think he is the only one to do so in two different sports.

 

[davparlr]

But performance of the F4U-1 at alt was much better than the the contemporary Fw 190A, and some 109's. (and still compeditive with most contemporary 109's)

Above 25k ft, the F4U-1 performance drops dramatically. I think that while the Bf-109 may be slightly slower at these altitudes, its superior rate of climb, and probably maneuverability, was sufficient to neutralize any advantage the F4U-1 would have. I am sure some of our German experts could make a more intelligent argument.

As it was the P-51B made a much better escort fighter -particularly fo the higher flying B-17's- but if there had been separate development of the F4U for the AAF, a higher altitude supercharger would likely have been used sooner if not a turbocharged variant.

A high altitude supercharger was developed, but was not available until mid '44, and was installed in the dash 4. As for a turbo supercharger, the tight cowl and slender fuselage would make an installation dicey (compare with the large fuselage of the P-47).

I agree with this KK. The F4U had a clean airframe and the R-2800 certainly had models tuned for high altitude as evidenced by the P-47. I have always thought in hindsight that the F4U would be considered the best US fighter, hands down, had it been used and deployed also by the USAAF.

The F4U was not cleanest of aircraft. It was slightly cleaner than the P-47, however. I have created a variable to compare the aerodynamic efficiency of aircraft at sea level. This is system efficiency since some aircraft generate thrust from their radiators and some from the exhaust. Here are some comparisons. These numbers are mph/hp at SL.

P-51B (-7 engine) .24
P-51D .23
Spitfire Mk XIV .22
Fw-190D-9 .22
Fw-190A-5 .21
Ta-152H-1 .18
F4U-1 .162
P-47D-25 .156
F4U-4 .153
P-38J .13

See above regarding engines for higher altitudes.

A lighter, land based, F4U-1 would have improved climb however speed would probably not have been impacted by more than a couple of miles per hour. If you could give me an estimated weight savings for the land based versions, I could estimate impact to airspeed and climb.

It should be noted that in the Fighter Conference, the P-51 was selected as the second best fighter above 25k, behind the P-47, and second the below 25k, behind the F8F, in both cases ahead of the F4U-1, greatly ahead above 25k, only slightly ahead below 25k (insignificantly so). I believe this is one of the indications of how great the P-51 design was. While not overpowering at all altitudes (it definitely was above 25k until the latter part of '44), it was very formidable from 35k to SL.

Actually, I believe that in ACM between Honduras and the other country (can't remember) a pilot name Hernando Soto(or something) shot down a P51 or two in the last combat by an F4U. Doesn't prove much. They were AC optimised for different missions. If picking between the two if you could only have one for the whole war, the P51 could never be as effective as the Corsair as a carrier plane and the Corsair could never be as effective as P51 as long range escort. For all around fighter bomber in all missions, I would have to go with Corsair, barely.

In the Soccer War, I believe Soto (?)was a pretty good stick. Also, he was flying an F4U-4 against P-51Ds, not the more equivalent P-51H. However, I agree with your final selection and would hope engine development could get me that -18W engine a lot earlier. And if they could just have squeezed that -57 engine in …….

 

[renrich]

Dav, you quote fighter conference and mention F8F and also F4U1. If the F8F was evaluated, would not the F4U4 more likely to be the Corsair evaluated. By the time the F8F was out the F4U1 was completely outdated. I have seen photos of a Corsair and it was not a F4U4 because the prop was three bladed that intercepted a Dinah recon plane at 38000 feet over Okinawa. Apparently the performance at that altitude was not too shabby since he made more than one run on the Dinah in order to chew his tail off with the prop because his guns were frozen.

 

[davparlr]

Dav, you quote fighter conference and mention F8F and also F4U1. If the F8F was evaluated, would not the F4U4 more likely to be the Corsair evaluated. By the time the F8F was out the F4U1 was completely outdated. I have seen photos of a Corsair and it was not a F4U4 because the prop was three bladed that intercepted a Dinah recon plane at 38000 feet over Okinawa. Apparently the performance at that altitude was not too shabby since he made more than one run on the Dinah in order to chew his tail off with the prop because his guns were frozen.

I was surprised about the report on the XF4U-4, which was included. In the overall rating it was rated rather low in both categories. On the individual reports, there was only about three different reports with limited data. Maybe the aircraft was having problems or was limited in its participation. There were a lot of participation with the XF8F. In any event, the F4U-4 was not available during the critical time of late 43 to late 44, where the P-51 was so valuable in escorting the bombers.

Most of my info shows the F4U-1 having a sevice ceiling of 36,900 ft. However, I did find a test report that indicated that, at WEP, the F4U-1 had a rate of climb of 300 ft/min at 38000 ft. I guess this is enough to handle a Dinah, but I bet it was really mushy at that altitude. The climb rate of the F4U-1 at 25k and 30k is less than the Bf-109G, but somewhat faster.

I enjoyed you and drgondog's discussion of your dads. That was as much fun as reading about aircraft. It must have been quite a treat to be exposed to such experience. My dad's life was quite different. He had to quit school after the eigth grade to go to work during the Depression because his dad died. He supported a family of six when he was fourteen. As a young man, he threw coal into the belly of a locomotive for twelve to sixteen hours a day (pre union) to support his family and later sent my sister and me to college. This also kept him out of the war. Not exciting, but still a hero to me.

 

[drgondog]

Obviously I am familiar with all those names. I think Frnka was the coach at Trinity U for a while and am not sure but he may have tried to recruit me out of San Antonio Thomas Jefferson in 52-53. I used to have every copy of "Texas Football" from the beginning, 1960, but threw them away during a move in 92.(bad decision) Have a hard bound version and will look your father up if possible. I think his name was Billy Bob Harris and I believe Thayer served a year or so. Wallace won a state championship in football at San Angelo and SA Jefferson and a state championship in basketball at El Paso. I think he is the only one to do so in two different sports.

It was Harris, and Thayer did spend a year at the country club.

Frnka went to Vandy and coached under Ray Morrison, then went to Tulane and maybe Wichita before Trinity. Dad loved Henry and was just about to go to A&M when Frnka left for Vandy. I still have some of his film.

I think it was 1967 for Campbell, and various sportswriters ranked their favorites. I have to go look but does McClanahan ring a bell? There was one other guy thta was an offensive linemen from the school in Ft Worth that made all state three times first.

 

[drgondog]

I was surprised about the report on the XF4U-4, which was included. In the overall rating it was rated rather low in both categories. On the individual reports, there was only about three different reports with limited data. Maybe the aircraft was having problems or was limited in its participation. There were a lot of participation with the XF8F. In any event, the F4U-4 was not available during the critical time of late 43 to late 44, where the P-51 was so valuable in escorting the bombers.

Most of my info shows the F4U-1 having a sevice ceiling of 36,900 ft. However, I did find a test report that indicated that, at WEP, the F4U-1 had a rate of climb of 300 ft/min at 38000 ft. I guess this is enough to handle a Dinah, but I bet it was really mushy at that altitude. The climb rate of the F4U-1 at 25k and 30k is less than the Bf-109G, but somewhat faster.

I enjoyed you and drgondog's discussion of your dads. That was as much fun as reading about aircraft. It must have been quite a treat to be exposed to such experience. My dad's life was quite different. He had to quit school after the eigth grade to go to work during the Depression because his dad died. He supported a family of six when he was fourteen. As a young man, he threw coal into the belly of a locomotive for twelve to sixteen hours a day (pre union) to support his family and later sent my sister and me to college. This also kept him out of the war. Not exciting, but still a hero to me.

He was a hero. Responsibility and accountability has no limit or bounds. You have to worship your dad for the man he was.

My grandfather owned a dry goods store in Greenville that went bust in the depression and dad plus all of dad's brothers worked unloading grain cars an hour before school and all weekend while going to school to help feed the family and pay off the creditors. One of them died from a bull stomping him before the war, one was deafened by an artillary round at Anzio, one was killed as an instructor pilot. On my mother's side I lost one during Market Garden when German troops shot him as he was hung up in a tree, then doused him with gasoline. One was a Ranger in 5th Ranger Co and another one was an A-26 driver in 9th AF - and one last one jumped off a roof, went 4F and made a lot of money, still alive... not invited to too many family reunions after WWII.

I was 'introduced' to the fine trade of picking cotton by my grandad to reinforce the reasons to get a degree - it worked.

 

[renrich]

Dav, Where I am trying to get to on the F8F and F4U discussion is that I have data from the 1944 fighter conference and the F8F was not mentioned at all. I don't believe that F8F ever saw combat in WW2 whereas the F4U4 saw extensive combat the last three or four months of the war. My guess is that the F4U in the Dinah instance was a F4U1D which with WEP had substantially better performance than the earlier F4U1. Thanks for your comments on the recollections between Bill and myself. Actually, my comments were not about my father as Bill's were,but about myself. My father was of an earlier generation than Bill's father and he never went past the eighth grade as he had to quit school in 1916 or 17 to help his family. He never had the opportunity to play high school and college sports in the !950s, as I did. Every day I am thankful that I had that opportunity in that time frame, perhaps largely because of the efforts of Bill's father and many others like him. Bill McClanahan was a sportswriter and very talented cartoonist for the Dallas Morning News. He used to do cartoons showing the mascots of the various schools and his picks for that weekend's SWC games. Very special.