F4U-1A/D Corsair and its USN Carrier Service

[Saxman]

Very informative post, as usual, WW.

However, if the test pilots remained partial to the F6F and F4U after having tested a 190A, why did Grumman elect to use the 190A as a blueprint for their next fighter, the F8F? 

I recall reading a report some time back (which you may have even posted here) in which the top Grumman brass, after having flown the 190, were so impressed that they basically set out to copy it - which is what gave birth to the Bearcat - an A/C with many of the 190's strengths (rate of roll, power to weight, etc) and the nullification of some of its weaknesses (introduction of a true bubble canopy, etc).

?

Myth

[Jester]

However, if the test pilots remained partial to the F6F and F4U after having tested a 190A, why did Grumman elect to use the 190A as a blueprint for their next fighter, the F8F? 

I recall reading a report some time back (which you may have even posted here) in which the top Grumman brass, after having flown the 190, were so impressed that they basically set out to copy it - which is what gave birth to the Bearcat - an A/C with many of the 190's strengths (rate of roll, power to weight, etc) and the nullification of some of its weaknesses (introduction of a true bubble canopy, etc).

The Grumman F8F "TIGERCAT" twin was based on the earlier company project the XF5F "SKYROCKET" (Look it up on Wikipedia) - not the FW-190. When the first project of a twin-engined fighter for carrier use was rejected by the US NAVY - Grumman shelved the project and started work on what would later become the F8F. All this work started long before the Allies ever got their hands on a flyable FW-190.

 

[Widewing]

Corwin (Corky) Meyer, a senior test pilot at Grumman at the time (later chief test pilot) wrote the following:

"In early 1943, Grumman officials were invited to England to see the captured fighters of the Axis powers and to fly some of them. The test team included: Leroy Grumman, president of Grumman and test pilot during and after WW I; Bud Gillies, vice president flight operations and a test pilot current in all American airplanes at that time; and Bob Hall, chief engineerexperimental, a famous test pilot of Grumman and other airplanes of the Gee Bee era.

Of all the airplanes they saw, they were most fascinated with the Focke-Wulf 190. It not only offered sprightly performance, but it also had excellent flight characteristics with a gross weight of 8,750 pounds and only 1,730hp. The Hellcat was 3,200 pounds heavier with just 270hp more. Both Gillies and Hall evaluated the Fw 190 and found it to be the aircraft they would have liked to have designed themselves. It was exactly what the Hellcat follow-on aircraft should be. The only things the Fw 190 lacked were a good gunnery-lead computing angle of vision over the nose and a structure that would withstand carrier operations.

The Focke-Wulf impressed them so much they felt compelled to hurry home and put together an airplane of this gross weight in time for the water-injected Pratt & Whitney R-2800 C model engine of 2,400hp (War Emergency Power) to be installed. This would give our naval aviators a big performance increase over the newer Japanese fighters and would still retain the proven performance of the P&W R-2800 series production engines installed in the Hellcat.

The F8F design was started immediately on the trio's return. Mr. Grumman took a direct hand in its design. As the design progressed, it became obvious that meeting the 8,750-pound gross weight of the Focke-Wulf would be difficult. The structure required to withstand the loads encountered during carrier operations hadn't been required in the Fw 190 and would impose significant weight penalties on the new design. "

My regards,

Widewing

[MiloMorai]

The Grumman F8F "TIGERCAT" twin was based on the earlier company project the XF5F "SKYROCKET" (Look it up on Wikipedia) - not the FW-190. When the first project of a twin-engined fighter for carrier use was rejected by the US NAVY - Grumman shelved the project and started work on what would later become the F8F. All this work started long before the Allies ever got their hands on a flyable FW-190.

 

Isn't that the F7F Tigercat?

[choker41]

Here is a Tigercat

[Saurdaukar]

Corwin (Corky) Meyer, a senior test pilot at Grumman at the time (later chief test pilot) wrote the following:

"In early 1943, Grumman officials were invited to England to see the captured fighters of the Axis powers and to fly some of them. The test team included: Leroy Grumman, president of Grumman and test pilot during and after WW I; Bud Gillies, vice president flight operations and a test pilot current in all American airplanes at that time; and Bob Hall, chief engineerexperimental, a famous test pilot of Grumman and other airplanes of the Gee Bee era.

Of all the airplanes they saw, they were most fascinated with the Focke-Wulf 190. It not only offered sprightly performance, but it also had excellent flight characteristics with a gross weight of 8,750 pounds and only 1,730hp. The Hellcat was 3,200 pounds heavier with just 270hp more. Both Gillies and Hall evaluated the Fw 190 and found it to be the aircraft they would have liked to have designed themselves. It was exactly what the Hellcat follow-on aircraft should be. The only things the Fw 190 lacked were a good gunnery-lead computing angle of vision over the nose and a structure that would withstand carrier operations.

The Focke-Wulf impressed them so much they felt compelled to hurry home and put together an airplane of this gross weight in time for the water-injected Pratt & Whitney R-2800 C model engine of 2,400hp (War Emergency Power) to be installed. This would give our naval aviators a big performance increase over the newer Japanese fighters and would still retain the proven performance of the P&W R-2800 series production engines installed in the Hellcat.

The F8F design was started immediately on the trio's return. Mr. Grumman took a direct hand in its design. As the design progressed, it became obvious that meeting the 8,750-pound gross weight of the Focke-Wulf would be difficult. The structure required to withstand the loads encountered during carrier operations hadn't been required in the Fw 190 and would impose significant weight penalties on the new design. "

My regards,

Widewing

Thats the one.

[Jester]

Isn't that the F7F Tigercat?

Yea, my bad - posting while half asleep.

WW, is correct - they are talking about the F8F BEARCAT not the F7F TIGERCAT - better read closer next time.   

[Saxman]

There's still a big difference between saying one plane is BASED on another, and saying that they're built around a specific concept, in this case the 190s power-to-weight ratio.

[Krusty]

Agreed.

Somebody looks at a P-51, loves the top speed, so makes another inline engined plane with a high top speed.

Doesn't mean it was copied off of the P-51.

Means the designers got some ideas, and went on to make their own, better, version with that initial inspiration.

[Reschke]

To get back onto the captured version do a Google search for the following terms.

captured German F4U Corsair

On Wikipedia...yes it is not the bible but it gets a starting point on this search:

At least one Corsair was captured by the Germans, this was Corsair JT404 from No. 1841 squadron (HMS Formidable). Wing Leader Lt Cdr RS Baker-Falkner made an emergency landing on 18 July 1944 in a field at Sorvag, near Bodø, Norway. The Corsair was captured intact and it is not known if it was taken to Germany.[49]

More listing from the Fleet Air Arm Archive here at this link.

http://www.fleetairarmarchive.net/Aircraft/FAACapturedAircraftHomepage.html

[Saxman]

Point is, it's NOT KNOWN if it was ever taken back to Germany, much less whether or not it was actually evaluated by the Luftwaffe.

AquaShrimp keeps talking about some mythical German evaluation that shows the F4U was an inferior aircraft, yet when pressed to put up or shut up, he doesn't have it and was posted in a thread that was conveniently lost when the boards crapped on themselves.

[Reschke]

Exactly. This point has been debated repeatedly since I first came into AH back in March of 2001. Heck it was even debated ad nauseam for a couple of years when I was in the Fighter Ace community way back in 1999-2000 and I remember it being debated in the AW and Warbirds communities as well.

Some things we will never know because lots of stuff was lost and may never have been worked on by the Germans. For something that was "listed at Rechlin for 1944 under repair"; I seriously doubt that it ever made it off the ground again even if it was transported. Also why would the Germans have cared about testing it out? I could see the Brits, Russians and Americans testing captured planes since they would have been going up against them but the limited action that this plane would have seen against the Germans would have relegated it to a status of "hey we might want to look at fixing this aircraft by 1950" in my mind.

[Saurdaukar]

Means the designers got some ideas, and went on to make their own, better, version with that initial inspiration.

Which is almost exactly what I wrote.

Methinks some people in here are arguing for the sake of argument.

[Ghastly]

Saxman,

I'd read somewhere that the curved approach developed by the British was already standard procedure by the time they began to fly the Corsair due to the fact that the Seafire suffered from the same issue of forward visibility (over the nose) on very short final to the carrier.

I can't prove it, because I have no idea where I read it, however.

<S> 

[angelsandair]

Ok I checked a few books, looks like there were a small number of VMF(N) Corsairs (F4U-2 Night Fighters) that did serve at Leyte (some aboard USS ENTERPRISE) and there were USMC Corsairs that flew from land bases in the Phillipines, as Leyte was invaded, but the bulk of *CV based ops* was not untill late 44/early 1945 for the most part for USN/USMC Corsairs.

Quote me if I'm wrong, but didn't the F4Us see alot of service on the invasion of Iwo Jima?

I remember reading about how the first marine to die from bullets coming form Iwo Jima was a F4U Corsair pilot. Thats the earliest F4U carrier service I can think of since they absolutely had to do it.


Maybe Peliliu? I've seen videos of F4Us hitting Peliliu with Napalm and I know that some were land-based on the island while fighting was going on.

any help here?