F4U Corsair vs P-51 Mustang

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renrich said:
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.
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It was Ratliff that I was trying to remember - he was I guess the most famous of the High School reporters and McClanahan was a top notch cartoonist - his style reminded me of Lil Abner type figures.

Enough highjacking - these were two great airplanes that saved a lot of American lives.
 
renrich said:
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.
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I'm confused. My copy of the conference clearly shows that the XF8F was evaluated (including photos), although by a small number of pilots, 1 Army, 3 Navy, and 1 Brit (page 262). I believe you were right on the F8F and F4U-4 combat experience.
 
What I have is from the minutes of fighter conference, Pautuxent River, Md., October, 1944. It is located in Dean's "America's 100 thousand," There are some strange goings ons in the report as the F4U4 is rated in a couple of categorys behind the F4U1 D. I know the performance of the F4U4 was substantially better than the 1D and the 4 was reportedly the best handling Corsair of all.
 
davparlr said:
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).
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There was an experimental version of the Corsair (XF4U-3) with turbosupercharger. Here is the link....

Image:XF4U-3 NAN6 46.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
 
Since there have been comments saying that the Corsair would have been a better choice than the P-47 or even maybe the P-51 for the USAAF in the ETO, how about going the other way for discussion, the P-51 replacing the Corsair on carriers. There were experiments and it was plausible. The only advantage that I could think of was that the range was greater (I'm assuming) than the Corsairs.

Here's a link to a website about the "seahorse"....

The Naval Mustangs
 
Marshall, the USN stated that the Mustang had low speed control problems which made it not as suitable for carrier ops as purpose built AC. If you look at takeoff distances the Mustang took longer to get off than either Hellcat or Corsair. More importantly, the USN did not like liquid cooled engines because of reliability problems, having Merlin engines on board would complicate spare parts supplies, structural strength would need to be beefed up for continual carrier landings which adds weight and the airplane would need to be marinised which has to do with corrosion control. I don't know how much weight that would add or if performance would be degraded.
 
The Navy actually decreased the max internal fuel capacity on later Corsairs (after the F4U-1/1A) as the range was deemed unnecessary, had a long range version o the Corsair been developed, it could probably have competed with the P-51 in range. (though cruising speed would be lower, and -obviously- much more fuel would be used)
 
renrich said:
Marshall, the USN stated that the Mustang had low speed control problems which made it not as suitable for carrier ops as purpose built AC. If you look at takeoff distances the Mustang took longer to get off than either Hellcat or Corsair. More importantly, the USN did not like liquid cooled engines because of reliability problems, having Merlin engines on board would complicate spare parts supplies, structural strength would need to be beefed up for continual carrier landings which adds weight and the airplane would need to be marinised which has to do with corrosion control. I don't know how much weight that would add or if performance would be degraded.
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From my perspective, I would think landing at threshold stall, nose up, and looking over that long ass nose would make it a poor choice as a carrier fighter. The Mustang, light and clean really needs to stay above 100-105 TAS and it does take a longer take off run than either F4U or F6F. Then there is question of gear and arresting hook.

IIRC the gear was stressed to 6-7 G in all the B/C/D models at 8,000 GW.. the wing was stronger so maybe not a factor, but tail hook loads and weight, plus folding wings would add too much weight to the 51 in my opinion.

Last but not least - the USN did NOT buy USAAF airplanes unless forced under dire protest... and still don't
 
renrich said:
What I have is from the minutes of fighter conference, Pautuxent River, Md., October, 1944. It is located in Dean's "America's 100 thousand," There are some strange goings ons in the report as the F4U4 is rated in a couple of categorys behind the F4U1 D. I know the performance of the F4U4 was substantially better than the 1D and the 4 was reportedly the best handling Corsair of all.
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This caused me to scratch my head also. The plane was the XF4U-4 and maybe didn't perform up to snuff.
 
Dav, I think that is a reasonable conclusion. The F4U4 in operational use had outstanding performance, much better than the F4U1D so the results that showed up in the 1944 conference that I have don't make sense.
 
renrich said:
Dav, I think that is a reasonable conclusion. The F4U4 in operational use had outstanding performance, much better than the F4U1D so the results that showed up in the 1944 conference that I have don't make sense.
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I think the data in "America's Hundred Thousand" is incorrect for the F4U-4. I believe he used Mil power rather than combat power. The data he has for combat power is very close to the data for mil power on a test of three F4U-4s. I believe I can calculate a reasonable performance for the F4U-4 at combat power based on those test.
 
Love the Corsair, but the fabric covered wing-sections of the outboard wings is a big turnoff for me. (Except for the leading edge fillet, everything outboard of the wing-folding junction was FABRIC covered...)

That's one of the reasons why the Corsair rolled so well.

Bronc
 
That and the boosted ailerons. (using a boost tab)

The early corsairs also had wooden ailerons. (the rudder was fabric covered iirc, and the elevator was wooden)

THe F4U-5 was all metal.
 
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