Toughest US fighter of World War II

[GRUNHERZ]

The P51H came out only 500lbs lighter than the P51D....

[Widewing]

Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
Is that from the site crying out F4U4 is the greatest plane ever in history of flight..... Sheesh do those guys the fantasy uber plane romance novel view of the world.

That article states that the F4U-4 probably the best all-around fighter-bomber of WWII. The simple fact that it was still in front line service for another decade bears witness to this. The next aircraft that approached the F4U-4 in all-around capability was the McDonnell F-4 Phantom II. No other single-engine fighter of WWII could do as many things as well as the F4U-4 Corsair. None.

My regards,

Widewing

[eskimo2]

My father-in-law flew the RP-63.  This was an armor plated P-63.  His job was to mock attack B-17s (Axis style) so that gunners in training could get some live fire experience.  The gunners would shoot 30 cal. machine guns with frangible ammunition at his plane.  When they scored hits, a light in the spinner would light up and a hit counter on the instrument panel would record the hit so that he could give feed-back over the radio to the gunner.  Bill said that he always knew when the instructor was demonstrating because he would get nailed right away.
Was the RP-63 the "Toughest US fighter of World War II"?  Probably not, but I can't imagine any other plane took as many hits without needing repair.

If we limit the question to fighters only, excluding attack aircraft, I think the Tubby-Cat, Hog and Jug would come in a tie that could be debated, but never decided.  Include attack aircraft and the IL-2 stands alone.

eskimo

[Kieran]

Grun-

Partially incorrect on my part. The XP-51F came in at 7,600 lbs as opposed to the -D's 10,100 lbs (making a 2,500 lb difference). The -H is described as "slightly heavier" than the -F and -G in my reference, so I suppose you could extrapolate out 1,500-2,000 lbs difference between the -D and -H. What are your numbers?