Visibility over the nose: Inline v Radial engine

Ouch!!
To be fair I wasn't all that certain and did say Not entirely sure about this followed by I have little doubt there are people better qualified than me to confirm or correct this statement and welcome any input from anyone.

I stand corrected. Just one question oh knowledgable one , do you know when the USN operated Corsairs from carriers on a regular basis?

renrich said:

Therefore, it seems to me that the story that the FAA "invented" the curved landing approach and "taught" the USN how to successfully and safely operate the Corsair off of carriers is a myth and is happily perpetuated by our esteemed British friends.

Wkipedia is often full of it!

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I first read about it on this site which i believe is American
Vought F4U Corsair - USA

which says this

"Landing on a carrier deck required the pilot to have the plane at stall speed just as the tail-hook snagged the deck wire, but this was made very difficult by the wicked stall characteristics of the F4U. Just as stall speed was reached, the left wing tended to drop like a rock. In a deck landing this could cause the landing gear to collapse resulting in injuries to the pilot and severe damage to the aircraft. Assuming luck was with the pilot and he landed intact, the Corsair normally "bottomed out" the shock absorbers as it slammed down on the deck. The resulting recoil caused the plane to bounce high in the air. The tailhook itself sometimes failed to "trap" the plane by engaging an arrestor wire. If this happened on a straight deck carrier it usually meant the aircraft plowed into the planes parked forward. It was said on a straight deck carrier there were only two kinds of landings; a "trap" and a catastrophe!

As the Corsair was thought by the Navy to be unsuitable for carrier duty, it was given to the U.S. Marines for land-based operations where it earned an outstanding combat record. Britain, France, New Zealand, Australia also received the F4U during WWII.


It was the British who finally worked out a method of landing the Corsair on their carriers in spite of the visibility problems caused by the long nose. Instead of the normal downwind-crosswind-final approach method, the British simply turned downwind, then made a slow, continuous curve which aligned the Corsair with the deck only at the last second before the aircraft touched down and trapped. This method allowed the pilot to keep the Landing Signals Officer in view right up to the moment the plane was over the fan-tail where the LSO gave the sign to either "cut" or make another attempt.

To alleviate the problem of oil and hydraulic fluid smearing the windshield, the Brits simply wired shut the cowl flaps across the top of the engine compartment, diverting the oil and hydraulic fluid around the sides of the fuselage. Numerous other simple, effective alterations were devised to alleviate the dreadful stall characteristics, landing bounce and tailhook problems (among others), and these modifications were incorporated into the production line. In 1944 the US Navy decided to again try landing the F4U on carriers, and this time succeeded. It turned out to be an extremely wise decision. "

Although looking at the aircraft that have landed on carriers it is hard to imagine this problem hadnt been met before in a smaller way.

Books and web sites tend to parrot the same myths. That's why a careful analysis of historical source data is so important. My hats off to renrich for doing his homework concerning the F4U.

davparlr said:

Great visibility everywhere but down, which is a problem with most WWII fighters.

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There were worse look-down cases than the Whirlwind, most of whom came after it
the view over both the leading edge and the trailing edge doesn't look to me like something a WWII pilot would sniff at

davebender said:

Books and web sites tend to parrot the same myths. That's why a careful analysis of historical source data is so important. My hats off to renrich for doing his homework concerning the F4U.

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It may be a mixture of the two, from reading various bits and pieces and other things I remember but cant find, flying in on a curve was only part of the problem/solution. The British were desperate for a carrier fighter but the Americans wernt because they had the Hellcat. The curved approach was only part of the solution there were mods to the seating position to the wings so they stalled evenly, wiring shut the cooling cowl flaps. Almost all things i have seen like this say that the Corsair was cleared for carrier operations by the FAA before it was for the US Navy. I dont know whether in US Navy it was possible to perform carrier operations without clearance in an emergency.

"F4U-1 began to enter service in October 1942, but in order to provide increased fuel capacity the cockpit had been moved further aft to make room for a fuselage fuel tank. When first tested by the Navy it was believed that this adversely affected the pilot's view, to the extent that the Corsair was considered doubtful for carrier operation. Production aircraft were delivered instead to the US Marine Corps for operation from land bases. It was not until 1944, when Corsairs supplied to the Royal Navy under Lend-Lease were being used effectively from carriers, that the US Navy made a serious reappraisal of their suitability for this role. Shortly after, Navy squadrons were given approval to use the Corsair for the task for which it had been designed. "

Additionally wiki says this

"The basic Spitfire design did impose some limitations on the use of the aircraft as a carrier-based fighter; poor visibility over the nose, for example, meant that pilots had to be trained to land with their heads out of the cockpit and looking alongside the port cowling of their Seafire. "
So problems of seeing over the nose wernt unique to the Corsair I dont think it would take many times of landing with your head sticking out of the side before someone suggests flying in a curve, surely it must be easier to land in a curve than stick your head out of the side in the slipstream of a plane doing 100mph+ (but it was in wiki)

I could have said but did not that nowhere in Boone Guyton's book, "Whistling Death" does he mention anything about the Brits 'inventing" the landing approach for the Corsair. Guyton was the chief test pilot for the Corsair program from 1940 on and was a veteran USN carrier pilot. Actually, although I can't back it up with quotes so far, I believe the "curved' carrier approach was standard practice with all navies beginning in the 20s when carrier aviation was in it's infancy. Also the curved approach is not much different than a short field approach that I was taught as a private pilot. My brother practises that approach today in his new and latest toy, a Stearman.

All the stuff about the British causing the USN to reappraise the Corsair as a carrier fighter is baloney. The USN pilots who flew the Corsair always knew it was superior to any other carrier fighter and kept the pressure on the Navy to deploy it on carriers, Read Blackburn's book, " the Jolly Rogers" or "Whistling Death."

This video is interesting

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R89dOT7DzQE

seems most of the discussion is about the US Navy officially clearing the Corsair for carriers, the marines and navy had for various reasons already landed on carriers. The curved approach was only part of the solution other mods were also important.

Interesting. The reply to the question seems to be January 1945 when the USN used Corsairs as a standard part of an Air Wing. Some months after the RN used them on board their carriers.
Many Thanks

Glider, sorry about the tardy answer to your question.
On Jan. 14, 1944, four F4U2 night fighter Corsairs of VF(N)-101 go aboard Enterprise and are the first Corsairs assigned to a carrier. The landing gear bounce is solved by a local solution.
April, 1944, new carrier trials with Corsairs modified with the new longstroke landing gear oleo shock strut ("de bounced") aboard the Gambier Bay, a CVE, are pronounced successful after 113 landings and the Corsair is finally cleared for USN carrier operations.
Not sure about this but believe first operational use of Corsairs by RN is April, 1944 when Corsair IIs of #1830 and #1833 squadron off of Illustrious go on a sweep in Indian Ocean.
May 16, 1944, Navy Evaluation Board concludes that F4U1D is best all around Navy fighter available and a suitable carrier fighter. Recommended that all fighter and fighter bomber units be converted to F4Us.

Renrich, nothing to apologise for. At the end of the day it seems to be basically a draw with but a few days between the two navies with the exception of the four nightfighters.

Funny how often that happens in aviation

renrich said:

Glider, sorry about the tardy answer to your question.
On Jan. 14, 1944, four F4U2 night fighter Corsairs of VF(N)-101 go aboard Enterprise and are the first Corsairs assigned to a carrier. The landing gear bounce is solved by a local solution.
April, 1944, new carrier trials with Corsairs modified with the new longstroke landing gear oleo shock strut ("de bounced") aboard the Gambier Bay, a CVE, are pronounced successful after 113 landings and the Corsair is finally cleared for USN carrier operations.
Not sure about this but believe first operational use of Corsairs by RN is April, 1944 when Corsair IIs of #1830 and #1833 squadron off of Illustrious go on a sweep in Indian Ocean.
May 16, 1944, Navy Evaluation Board concludes that F4U1D is best all around Navy fighter available and a suitable carrier fighter. Recommended that all fighter and fighter bomber units be converted to F4Us.

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Stolen from one of Mastro's threads:

FAA Corsairs performed their first combat action on 3 April 1944, with Number 1834 Squadron flying from the HMS VICTORIOUS to help provide cover for a strike on the German super-battleship TIRPITZ in a Norwegian fjord. This was apparently the first combat operation of the Corsair off of an aircraft carrier. Further attacks on the TIRPITZ were performed in July and August 1944, with Corsairs from the HMS FORMIDABLE participating. It appears the Corsairs did not encounter aerial opposition on these raids. A confrontation between a Corsair and the tough German Focke-Wulf FW-190 would have made for an interesting fight.

The source is this: The Vought F4U Corsair

Not sure how accurate that is though. AFAIK, that was the only combat use of the Corsair in the ETO. Granted, that's talking about combat missions, not normal operations. So Corsairs had to have been operational off of RN carriers before April.

That is absolutely not accurate about first combat action off of a carrier and is typical of much on the internet. Flat out wrong. To begin with, as I posted Night Fighter Corsairs were in action and successfully off the Enterprise in January, 1944. Also as I posted earlier, on Nov. 11, 1943 VF 17, installed tailhooks, flew out to Essex and Bunker Hill, landed and refueled and acted as CAP, and returned to their home base, claiming 18.5 kills and losing two Corsairs in the Battle of the Solomon Sea. That is being in combat!

Yes, you're right/ The reason I posted it was more for the date of FAA Combat Ops.

Catch22 said:

Yes, you're right/ The reason I posted it was more for the date of FAA Combat Ops.

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The words operational and combat arnt the same

from the quotes below, the first FAA corsair squadron was created in june 1943 on board HMS Illustrious. They trained up in American bases and then mobilized from America aboard the vessels. Bearing in mind the units were in american bases and that the planes themselves were American made all modifications requested by the FAA would immediately be informed to the US Navy (under the terms of lend lease) after all everyone wanted the Corsair to be carrier borne if possible. If the FAA were loading corsairs onto carriers in US bases it would be very hard for the US Navy to say they wouldn't.

In the post war years old rivalies come to the forefront but in 1943/44 there was a war on with a huge exchange of technical and practical information, as on the other subject with meteors being used to help the USAAF develop strategies agains the Me262, radar, asdic, ultra and the nuclear bomb are other examples. I would be more than surprised if the US Navy and Vaught wernt doing their own landing trials themselves before giving a final approval for use.
Final approval for use is different to doing it in special cases where need over rides regulations, everyone knew it could be landed on a carrier the question was what was the loss rate.


I think credit for a curved landing must go to the Wight brothers who made many circular and figure of 8 flights and therefore must have been there first.



Chance Vought F4U Corsair History and Specifications

"Commonwealth Corsairs
The Royal Navy received 95 Corsair Mk.Is and 510 Mk.IIs, these being equivalent to the F4U-1 and F4U-1A or D. Goodyear-built aircraft were known as Mk.IIIs, and Brewster-built aircraft as Mk.IVs. British Corsairs had their wing tips clipped, 20cm being removed at the tips, to allow storage of the F4U on the lower decks of British carriers. The Royal Navy was the first to clear the F4U for carrier operations. It proved that the Corsair Mk.II could be operated with reasonable success even from small escort carriers. It was not without problems, one being excessive wear of the arrester wires due to the weight of the Corsair and the understandable tendency of the pilots to stay well above the stalling speed.
Fleet Air Arm units where created and equipped in the US, at Quonset Point or Brunswick, and then shipped to war theatres on board of escort carriers. The first Corsair unit of the FAA was No 1830 Sqdn, created on the first of June 1943, and soon operating from HMS Illustrious. At the end of the war, 19 FAA squadrons operated with the F4U. British Corsairs operated both in Europe and in the Pacific. The first, and also most important European operations were the series of attacks in April, July and August 1944 on the German battleship Tirpitz, for which Corsairs provided top cover. In the Pacific the FAA Corsair also began to operate in April 1944, participating in an attack on Sabang, and later in the attack on oil refineries at Pelambang.

April 3, 1944- British FAA Corsairs from #1834 Squadron on Victorious provide fighter cover for bombers attacking the Tirpitz in Norway.

Going back to visibility it seems that the Japanese were more concerned about visibility than anyone else. The A6M and the KI43 both had pretty good all around visibility in 1941. Perhaps they put a premium on visibility because they relied on maneuvering for survivability instead of armor and SS tanks.

renrich said:

Going back to visibility it seems that the Japanese were more concerned about visibility than anyone else. The A6M and the KI43 both had pretty good all around visibility in 1941. Perhaps they put a premium on visibility because they relied on maneuvering for survivability instead of armor and SS tanks.

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or perhaps they believed in the axiom that he who sees the enemy first has a better chance of winning.


The first rule of all air combat is to see the opponent first. Like the hunter who stalks his prey and maneuvers himself unnoticed into the most favourable position for the kill, the fighter in the opening of a dogfight must detect the opponent as early as possible in order to attain a superior position for the attack.

— General Adolf Galland, Luftwaffe.