FAA and the Brewster built Corsair, the F3A-1's?

[Lucky13]

Seeing that whenever I've read about the Corsair, those built by Brewster company seem to have had a bad reputation, due to lacking quality control etc..
Now I see that, of 735 F3A-1's built by Brewster, 430 of those was delivered to the Royal Navy, did these ever see combat, or did the Royal Navy follow the USN in this case and only use them for training?

 

[nuuumannn]

Hi Lucky, my scant knowledge of the Corsair III as the Brewster built aircraft were designated in FAA service is that the first were delivered to the FAA in April 1944 and the last were still being delivered in January 1946. They were first allocated to units in the USA, the first being 1842 Sqn, which saw embarkation aboard the carriers Formidable and Illustrious as well as the escort carrier Rajah between April '44 and October '45, although the unit also operated Corsair II in this time. Both Formidable and Illustrious operated as part of the British Pacific Fleet in support of the offensives against Japan, prior to this, Formidable and its Corsairs flew ops against the Tirpitz in mid 1944. I'm not sure how many of the Corsair IIIs were flying during these, though. The last Corsair IIIs were placed immediately in storage and were dumped at sea as part of the disposal of Lend Lease aircraft post war.

 

[Lucky13]

Cheers mate!

 

[Airframes]

Got me wondering. I remember a visit to Prestwick in the early 1960's (I was probably about 11 or 12 at the time, so probably around 1963 or '64.), mainly to see what we could of the RCAF F-104s and other stuff operating from there at the time.
On the far side of the 'field, in a storage area behind the hangars, there were a number of 'cocooned' Sabres, as well as Avengers, and what certainly looked like Corsairs. Obviously, being in 'silver shrink wrap', no national insignia or other markings could be seen, but it looked like they'd all been there for some time.

 

[nuuumannn]

Interesting Terry, that they might have lasted for so long. I've seen a large number of images taken at Abbotsinch of Sea Hawks, Skyraiders, Avengers etc sitting about waiting for disposal in various states of repair, but no Corsairs among them. Scottish Aviation did refurbishment on the Sabres from Canada, so it was natural to see those at Prestwick.