Wells,
I get most of my information from two sources. One is AHT (America's Hundred Thousand) and the other is another Schiffer publication "Report Of Joint Fighter Conferance 1944". One was written by
Francis H. Dean and the other was edited by him. In any case the stall speed I gave was directly from the flight testing in which several pilots (approx. 30) listed the stall speeds in a clean, dirty and 3g accelerated condition. The result for the F4U-1D was 150mph with the range being from 130mph to 190mph. All A/C including F6F, P-51D, P-47D and M, Seafire(Spit V), F8F-1, F7F, P-38L, P-61 and FM-2 were tested with range and average given. I think this is about an accurate an accesment that could be made considering there was more than one A/C being tested as well as many pilots civilian military and British doing the testing. I think this book is a must read because of the comments received on many of these A/C.
As far as the stall speed listed in AHT well that is more complicated. I read that and thought something was wrong because of the max lift coefficient given to calculate the 3g stall speed. So I contacted the auther of AHT Francis H. Dean and found out he is my neighbor. He lives in Pa. not far from Phila. so he agreed to have me come over and dicuss this with him and sneak a peak at his research. First let me say that he is the nicest man you will ever meet and second the most knowledgable considering he has worked in the Aerospace industry as an engineer since the 50's and has many original documents that are hard to find. Hence the Fw-190 vrs F4U and F6F as well as P-51B vrs F4U-1 and many others that he has lent to me. However if you read the section on landing the F4U in AHT you will find the lift coeffient listed as being 1.88.
Which was reduced from 2.30 from the original wing design after the addition of a small spoiler strip to reduce unsymetrical stalling was added to the port wing. When Mr. Dean did his 3g stall calculation he used a much lower lift coefficient of 1.48. Were this comes from I do not know and he cannot remember (he is now 75yrs old so he is more than entitled to forget). However I did locate on the web the original NACA document listing all of the MAX lift coefficients for American iron including a whole page on the F4U special wing modification. So to make a long story short I believe the Max lift was much higher than the 3g stall speed would indicate. And the flight test results of 1944 would seem to bear that out. The following is just that document online.
http://naca.larc.nasa.gov/reports/1945/naca-report-829/index.cgi?page16.gif Also I did some ofline testing of many A/C inculing F4U, P-51, P38, Spit V and IX, N1KI, C205 and 109G10. All A/C with the exception of the Spit V and IX and N1KI had approx. the same stall speed of 100MPH indicated and a 3G stall of between 180 and 200MPH indicated at 10K. The Spits were so low as to make a 3G stall almost impossible. In any case I would guess it would occur at between 130 and 150MPH. The N1KI went out at about 150 to 160MPH. I didn't realize that most of the A/C mentioned were porked in that regard until I did the testing. In any case I am starting to ramble so I will just continue later. If you want to thank someone for the documentation I provide thank Mr.Dean. He has forgotten more about WW2 aviation than most of us will ever know.
Thanks F4UDOA
