F4U help

[Cajunn]

I'm looking for someone that would be willing to help me in the F4U, I love the plane and would really like to get better in it. I been playing for 18 months now and I have been flying the f4u on and off since I started. My problem I guess would be the lack of knowlede in energy management. I use the plane fine in BnZ roll, my  problem comes when I'm fighting in a more one on one fight. It doesn't matter if I have energy advantage or not, I seem to always come out on the short end. And I have the worse time landing the thing, I spent hours in the offline arena practing, but I still have trouble. If any of you hog guys would be willing to spend some time in the training arena with we I would apreciate it.

Thank you, Cajunn

[RTHolmes]

corsairs like to ground loop so I find kicking the rudder left just as wheels touch down helps keep it on the straight and narrow. as for fighting in it i'll be listening for advice rather than giving it, for obvious reasons

[Spatula]

Hi Cajunn, you really want to hook up with MtnMan, he's the F4u guru. FWIW, I've been spending a bit of time in the corsair over the last few months and I have been really enjoying it - much more than I thought I would. Normally I fly mustangs, and tempests etc, but the F4u is now firmly a new favourite.

With the landing. I find getting the flaps out and getting as slow as possible on the final approach, so that it pretty much just stalls on to the runway and all 3 wheels make contact at the same time (or close to it). Make sure you have the tail wheel locked (full back on stick) when you touch down. Wait a second for it to settle and then apply brakes. Keep the tail wheel locked till your pretty much stopped. Works every time for me.

As for fighting in it, well, I've been flying the F4u-1C almost exclusively in the duelling arena as a warm up for the MA over the last couple of months. Surprisingly, I find the hog performs best down low and the pretending to be an easy victim for higher BnZ types. The F4u is the master of overshoot traps, and the F4u-1C really makes them pay for their greed. I deliberately go out of my way to get low and look nice and juicy and set the trap. The F4u has brilliant roll rate at all speed ranges (including almost stalled with some rudder), brilliant instantaneous turn rate, good sustained turn rate with the flaps out (will out turn nikis, spit 8 14 and 16), has very effective airbrakes for sudden deceleration (drop the gear at over 350MPH) for causing overshoots, has a nice slow stall speed, excellent dive, good zoom climb. In fact the only thing it doesnt do well is acceleration and climb. But you dont need those if you're playing the victim

Get used to getting it slow. Get used to getting those huge flaps out as soon as possible. Get used to using the airbrakes for causing overshoots. Get used to using that enormous rudder to kick the nose over/round etc. Sucker people into a slow rolling scissors type of fight, or or slow looping type fights. You can get that nose around with the rudder when you need it very fast for those snapshot opportunities. Its a suprisingly capable aircraft and very underrated. BnZ'ing in a corsair, is a corsair wasted. It can, and it does it well, but the corsair is so much more than that!

And I haven't even started on the F4u-4... - that's a scary scary BEAST!

I recently zipped up some fights in the corsair. Most in the DA, one in the MA. I hope they give you an idea of what the corsair can do

Hog Heaven
http://www.my2cents.co.nz/AKUAG/TheVault_Files/FilmDetails.aspx?name=FunWithF4us.zip
 
Im sure there are better corsair pilots out there, but i hope something above has helped you at least. Also make sure you get hold of MtnMan...

[Saxman]

Also, check out this site:

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/wiki/index.php/F4U_Corsair

 

[Adonai]

I'm looking for someone that would be willing to help me in the F4U, I love the plane and would really like to get better in it. I been playing for 18 months now and I have been flying the f4u on and off since I started. My problem I guess would be the lack of knowlede in energy management. I use the plane fine in BnZ roll, my  problem comes when I'm fighting in a more one on one fight. It doesn't matter if I have energy advantage or not, I seem to always come out on the short end. And I have the worse time landing the thing, I spent hours in the offline arena practing, but I still have trouble. If any of you hog guys would be willing to spend some time in the training arena with we I would apreciate it.

Thank you, Cajunn

F4u's were called "Ensign eliminators" - i.e a really tough bird to fly - Landing is just a pain in the neck also, there's two ways to do this, come in real slow about 150 with gears down and flaps down and let her ease on the runway, or go in around 180 fast with flaps up and just let your gears roll you down the runway and decelerate. If you normally come in around 160 with flaps up and decelerate to fast, you will most likely "bounce" which the aircraft can turn hard right or left going out of control, simply use opposite rudder when you do this.
I try NOT to use rudder at all when im landing a hog simply that it will cause a whiplash and give me more problems then I need.
My typical landing is using full rudder in a circle climb to bleed off speed then come in under 150 with just gears down and straight out - use your throttle to adjust so you dont bleed to much Speed, above 100 the hog will float like a cloud.

[BoilerDown]

I flew a P47 almost exclusively until this month, then I moved to the F4U, now I plan on moving to a new plane every month.

About landings:

The good news is that its actually easier for me to get "successful" landings in the F4U than in the P47... if I land bad and pop a wing off, chances are I'm still on the runway so it still "counts".  Even if I slide off the runway and popped a wing or two off, I almost never ruin the prop or engine and I can drag myself back on the runway for a "successful" landing.  In the Jug I'd almost always ruin the prop in a bad landing and I'd have to take a ditch.

The bad news is its a lot harder to land the plane without damaging it... maybe not so important in the game but important if you want to have some pride in your landings.  The most important thing that I just learned thanks to Rolex and the training squad is to nearly stall it out just over the runway and once you're on the ground, keep the stick back.  I'd ground loop 90% of the time, even while trying to compensate with the rudder, when I wasn't keeping the stick back.  Keep the stick back and you almost dont even need rudder. 

I actually landed and re-armed a F4U last night when fighter hangers were down, I've wanted to do it in the past a few times but couldn't due to ripping wings off on landing.  This new (to me) trick really works.

In general I like the added speed, accelleration, and point-ability when slow, over the Jug.  Also being able to take off from carriers and runways is pretty huge.  And lastly... there's perked versions of this plane... although I've never spent a perk point yet.  Once I get some level of competence if I decide to make the F4U my main ride I won't have to relearn a new plane to use up perks.

What I don't like the most are the mediocrity of the 6 50cals compared to other planes in the late war arena.  The Jug's 2 extra 50 cals seemed to make more than a 25% increase in effectiveness.  I really don't think I would like a P51B for example with only 4 50cals.  Also the P47 is VASTLY superior at carrying bombs.  For example, I've never popped the wings off a P47 after a dive, but its real easy on the F4U.  Finally I've never ever put the Jug in an un-recoverable spin, only spins that were recoverable if only I were further from the ground .  But the F4U nearly doesn't respond to the opposite rudder trick of getting out of spins.  The Jug responds instantly.  My record so far is losing 12k of alt before recovering from a spin in a Corsair.  Its a biotch for sure.

I'm no expert and I know for a fact I do a lot of stuff wrong... but as a someone who just happened to pick the F4U to fly this month, this is my impression.

[Rich46yo]

I'd like to learn a few moves in these Corsairs as well.

I wont lie. I despise seeing ords up around Rook CVs. Even if I leave to play another part of the map those ords are always in the back of my mind and I have visions of some dweeb dive bombing Lancs into a perfectly good CV.

So I end up upping Corsair Ds and attacking Ords. Well...attacking a medium or large airbase alone with a Jabo is lonely work and I take a bad beating doing it. I like the Corsair cause its so tough, but still dive bombing alone like that just murders my K/D ratio.

I'd like to learn to fight them a bit better. Ive already chosen the 4 as my perk of choice, "now that I have over 500 perks and dont mind losing some". I have found the F4U-4 to be the most dangerous of opponents. Most of all when Im in a LA defending a base.

My big problem is at the end of a dive attack I end up in a disadvantageous position and can never recover from it. I have no landing issues with it.

Well, its off to the TA to practice with the F4U-4 some I think.

[Saxman]

Boiler,

You're doing something wrong, then.

I've NEVER lost wings diving in a Corsair. Even at full-vertical, with airspeeds of 575mph or more and a high-G pull out at the bottom. I've blacked out, but never shed wings or ANY parts in a high-speed dive (exception is the landing gear in the F4U-1, which don't seem to be as tolerant of long dives as the later models).

The Corsair is a very stable and highly-controllable dive-bombing platform. She also doesn't compress at high speeds like the P-47 tends to do.

I find the best method for dive-bombing in the F4U is to approach at about 15,000ft. Fly just past your target, cut throttle to idle and extend your landing gear. Roll inverted and pull into your dive. Your aim point for bombs will be somewhere between the top of your cowl and bottom of your gunsight (if you want to be technical, the exact position depends on speed, altitude over your target and angle but this is hard to measure). Aim closer to the center of your sight for rockets. With practice you can fire off all your rockets AND release your bombs and kill a hangar in one pass (my squadron drills in this technique and most of us can do it at will). As you pull through the bottom of your dive rectract your gear, throttle on full and punch the WEP to extend away from the target. By this point you should still have enough airspeed to escape most pursuit.

Also, check your convergence on the .50cal. The 6-pack is lethal if you're using the proper convergence settings, and I rarely have problems popping off wings with second or less bursts.

[Thing]

I found that a 250 convergence is extremely deadly.  Give it a try boiler.  You just have to get a little closer but it will rip a wing right off.

Good luck

  Thing

[BoilerDown]

I'll try 250, I started at 400 where I had it set on the P47 and have been moving it in ever since.  At 325 right now which is about the average recommendation for the plane that I've read.

As for pulling the wings off... I can do it pretty reliably lol.  Maybe I'll take some film of it this weekend.  No matter how fast I dove in the Jug I never pulled the wings off pulling out.  But that's not the big reason I'm thinking its better at ground attack, its because of being able to hold a bigger bombload and increased stability and climb rate while heavy.  The -1D while heavy seems like it can barely fly compared to the -40 or N while heavy.  Of course after you've let the load go the situation reverses back to normal.

[mtnman]

With the landing. I find getting the flaps out and getting as slow as possible on the final approach, so that it pretty much just stalls on to the runway and all 3 wheels make contact at the same time (or close to it). Make sure you have the tail wheel locked (full back on stick) when you touch down. Wait a second for it to settle and then apply brakes. Keep the tail wheel locked till your pretty much stopped. Works every time for me.

This is definately the key to nice Hog landing behavior.  Specifically, my approach speed with full flaps is about 125, with touchdown right around 78 mph.  At that touchdown speed, you'll already be holding a lot of up elevator, so just keep holding it to keep the tailwheel locked.

I'd be happy to work with you Cajunn!  Just PM me and we'll work on figuring out some convenient times.  For waht it's worth, I'll be in the game tonight and tomorrow from about 10 or 11pm (US Central) until about 2am.  I'll either be in the MA or TA (.f mtnman works to find me).  If I'm in the MA, just holler and I'll head to the TA with you.  Don't hesitate to contact me in the MA, I'm just shootin' red guys and I'm not too busy to help out...

MtnMan

[mtnman]

F4u's were called "Ensign eliminators"...

       ...by Allied personel when it displayed it's unforgiving behavior due to pilot error during landing.

Also called "The sweetheart of Okinawa" and the Japanese called it "Whistling Death"-nicknames based more on its capability in the combat role.

So we could visualize it several ways based on its nicknames, hehe...

[mtnman]

I like my converegence set for 250-275 as well.  The .50's are very effective at convergence, but can be frustrating if you fire them when your NOT at convergence.

A setting of 250-275 allows me to know I'm firing at a distance very close to my convergence setting.  That's because when I'm closing on a target, the distance counter will shift from D400 to D200.  When it shifts, I know I'm at an actual distance of 299 yards.  As mentioned, I'm closing on my target, so when I see the icon shift to D200, I know it's time to finalize my aim and fire, and since I'm catching my target my distance will be right around 250 yards.

Conversely, I've found that (in my experience) having my convergence set for example at 400 yards makes hitting targets at convergence distance more difficult.  That's because I assume that when the icon says D400, I'm shooting at convergence, when in reality I could be shooting distances of anywhere between 300 and 499 yards, which would make my .50's seem inconsistant and ineffective.  .50's pack more "punch" at closer ranges, so I prefer to keep mine set closer in rather than further out.  This has no negative effect on bombers, etc, that I can see.

If I wanted to shoot things on the ground I'd consider stretching my convergence out a bit though (400-475 maybe?). 

Remember that at double the convergence distance your "spread" will be back out to nearly the distance your guns are spread on your plane.  On the Hog, I'd say at double your convergence you're looking at a 15ish foot spread.  In my case, a convergence of 275 gives me that spread at 550 yards, but gets better (tighter) as I get closer.  I use this effect on bombers to "find" the cockpit or wing root for a quick kill.  I'll start firing between D600 and D400 as I dive on them.  The wide spread at this range lands me a few hits, and I use that "info" to walk my rounds into the cockpit or wingroot for a solid hit as I hit my convergence distance.  It happens quickly of course, but this allows for fairly easy one pass kills.

MtnMan

[GooseAW]

An alternative to VERY slow landing speed (i.e. landing with nme around) is to get as much flap down as possible and keep throttle at about 10-15% this negates the tendancy to hook to the right due to the massive prop torque. Once speed is low enough to pull the stick back and lock the tailwheel without lifting back off the runway, come off the throttle and you're sitting pretty. With no threat and plenty of time for approach, I agree with mtnman's approach, and spatula.

My convergeance is 325 in the D-Hog which proves to be pretty good both in BnZ and TnB modes.

[Cajunn]

Thanks for all the advise I will shure try it all and Mtn Ill look for you.


Thanks everyone, cajunn!