Thank you!

@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters Ed do you think they will be a war with russia .

Seconded.

Ere, mush,who you callin common?😉😆

Yes, and you don't overproduce or employ anachronistic or other irrelevant photos (how many of us are still purging images of Essex class carriers from memories of pre-1943 set war movies from our minds?), and you address many largely humble and forgotten aircraft that were nevertheless important at least locally, or even had lasting effects on future development and/or tactics far beyond their historical lives as it were. Thank you!

The F8F Bearcat was able to do a square loop straight off the runway. (According to Eric Brown)

@@SlaktraxWith it's record setting and legendary climb rate, I'm not surprised.

It must be said that the Brits were flying the much more difficult to land Spitfires with its narrow legs so flying the Corsair was "easier" to land in the way you described and with important improvements. A characteristic US Navy didn't like is that the Corsair's left wing could stall and drop rapidly often without warning during slow carrier landings. A dangerous issue if the throttle were suddenly advanced (for example, during an aborted landing) the left wing could stall and drop so quickly that the fighter could flip over with the rapid increase in power. These potentially lethal characteristics were later solved through the addition of a small, 6 in (150 mm)-long stall strip to the leading edge of the outer right wing, just outboard of the gun ports. This allowed the right wing to stall at the same time as the left. The other issue was the undercarriage oleo struts had bad rebound characteristics on landing, allowing the aircraft to bounce down the carrier deck and took ⏲ to solve, but eventually a "bleed valve" incorporated in the legs allowed the hydraulic pressure to be released gradually as the aircraft landed. The Corsair was not considered fit for carrier use until the wing stall problems and the deck bounce could be solved. Doesn't matter that the Brits and the Marines were happy and already flying for a long while....!

The constant turn carrier approach was around long before the Corsair. The Grumman F3F biplane also had poor vision forward and used that approach in the '30s. The big problem with the Corsair at first was the stiff suspension of the main gear struts caused them to bounce over the arresting gear. VF-17 figured it out fairly early on but at that point the Hellcat was in full production and having a single fighter type on all fleet carriers was logistically a good idea and the Hellcat was FAR cheaper than the Corsair so that's what the Navy picked. When the Kamikaze threat was introduced, more fighters, whatever the type, were needed and the Corsair went back aboard US carriers.

Some US Corsairs had white tape placed on top of the fuselage cowling to combat the oil problem too. You can see this on some period images, especially of Gregory Boyington's Corsair.

@@mattjacomos2795 yes, there are various photos showing the white tape on top to combat the leaky oil..

IIRC the RN FAA wanted to order Grumman Hellcats. The USN carrier force were getting them first. So the FAA chose Corsairs over their other option, the Wildcat/Martlet. At that point the FAA had to develop a method for landing Corsairs on their carriers. Which the USN later adopted from the FAA

just look at the cowling its very long so yeah I agree

As the M4 Sherman used aircraft engines you have to wonder what the Wasp Major would have done with it. June 6th 1944. Lands on the beach at Normandy. June 7th 1944 takes Berlin. They would have arrived sooner but the driver likes to get his seven hours sleep or he gets really cranky.

It was an absolute beast. It made a lot of power, but with 4 rows of air-cooled cylinders, It had some major cooling problems, and apparently had to have cylinders frequently replaced as they got fried. Still, it got a fair amount of use postwar until turboprops and jets took over.

Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose had/has 8 of them.

Imagine dropping a spanner off the top and having to climb allll the way down, then allll the way back up

Haha yeah I had a slight vertigo hit just looking at that part :)

Workers were recruited from big city steel structure construction. Balls of steel required to climb, work, and descend from those crazy tall ladders. They would never pass OSHA regs these days. LOL !!

@@imadrifter Plus having to fix the crater in the floor. Or if it hits somebody. 💀💀

@@imadrifter Helmet use by floor crews skyrocketed.

Lol, glad to oblige :D

Almost certainly a civil"servant "

@@andrewpease3688 I wish!

late 50's? As far as Im aware USMC tested them ultil 1949, making several modifications. In fact the most advanced F2G modified by the Navy was the one at 4:12 on which you can see late 47 markings because of the USAF insignia and this same plane is race 57 at 10:01, it is said that race 57 raced stock. Would like to hear what your father has to say about the modifications USMC did to the F2G, from longer carburetor scoop to maybe water injection and higher octane fuel?

@@Metrallaroja Maybe he was referring to the F4U-5s or AU-1's?

@@Nghilifa most likely yes, that would make sense

It now flies regularly at Bentonville AR. I’m the mechanic. She’s beautiful as ever.

It would be supremely cool to see a Super Corsair race! (Which is not to say that the tricked-out Mustangs, Sea Furies and Rare Bear aren’t cool…)

Can confirm chunkblaster's statement. I live under the flight path for Bentonville's municipal airport and it does come out several times a year. I do get the pleasure of two Mustangs and a Griffon powered Spitfire as well. However, you know when the Super Corsair is up cause my house rattles when it cruises over. Amazing plane.

this thing is a beast to fight at 5.7, especially when your team spams JU288s

@@NOOBSLAYER-cw3gd 288s are all I ever see at that rank with a 109 here or there

Leak-down tests must be fun . . . 'how many apprentices can you fling through the hangar roof on a good day'? : )

@@loddude5706 It actually moves pretty slow a few degrees until a valve opens. I’ve done it by myself. Worst part is going up and down ladders and stands. Hello from Bentonville.

56 plugs, spent quite a while changing them on a KC97.

Thanks! Have to get on with the 50k special :)

I don't play props in WT but WT was the first thing that came to mind seeing the F2G in the title

Cheers to you! :)

Most of those 12,500 planes had no fuel to fly.

Thanks to President Truman.

:(

I've seen it there many times when we were working on the building.

Great little books.

I have old hardbound copies of his bomber books, very good book series.

The last time I saw that plane ( three or four years ago) it was inside the restoration center in Everett. They moved it out of the Seattle museum to use the space for something else.

Best was PROBABLY the Sea Fury and/or the Bearcat. Had the war continued, the Sea Hornet would have been phenomenal too.

Won't get any arguments here. F4u was the best looking fighter of its era. The F2g was pretty too from the leading edge back with Mr. Magoo's nose. Many will disagree with me and think BRITTISH is best. I think the record speaks for itself. The Brits needed the Corsair to replace the cobbled together junk their industry was creating that they had to figure out how to make it work. They did and we learned. The rest is history. Don't get me wrong, the Spit and Huricane were GREAT aircraft but their marinized counterparts were abysmal. And then the Fairey Swordfish ? The biggest problems with the F2g were maintenance and reliability. What killed it however was timing. It just wasn't needed. As to the Sea Fury, good looking with good performance stats. It was just too late to prove itself one way or the other. A lot of them are being raced now but the records all belong to other birds. Anything beyond that is either speculation or arrogance. Most of these have been reengined with Pratt or Wright and I am not aware of any of them racing with the original engines although many are still flying with Bristols. If they were to win or set records with original engines then that would be a fact. But anything else isn't anything more than an airframe. There are those who think differently and I say that's your right. I just look at the records. None of which are held by anything British.

@@PassportToPimlico The Sea Fury was a post War aircraft. It is would have been a great fighter in 1945 but by the time it the FAA it was obsolete.

@@PassportToPimlico F8F wasn’t even better than the F4U-4 or F4U-5. There’s a reason why the Navy retired the Bearcat before they did the Corsair. The Bearcat sacrificed a lot to achieve its performance, and even then its performance in many ways wasn’t as good as later variants of the Corsair or P-51.

Yes, I'm thinking about doing the inflatoplane :)

Love playing them in war thunder

Not too sure about the drag. In most cases the aircraft with bubbles were slower due to loss of the streamlining effect of the raised turtledeck. Also the loss of fuselage side area played havoc with directional stability. The big benefit of the bubble was visibility. So much so that the changes required to make them work and the minor speed loss were considered worthwhile. Sure looks good though

I’ve only visited the USA once…..and that was to Akron, in the 80’s, the rubber capital of the world, as I was told by the family I was visiting. I did see the airship shed/ hangar shown at the beginning of the video. My memory be be wrong, but I seem to remember being told that the shed had 7 floors, dedicated to Corsair production. My next door neighbour when I was a boy, served in the Fleet Air Arm carriers in the Far East , and talked a lot about the Corsair. He said the oleos in the undercarriage were modified to prevent the recoil which caused so many bounces and crashes on landing. As an aside, there was a Zepplin shed at Frankfurt airport, supported on a circular rail track, so that the airships could face into wind in order to leave the shed safely. It was demolished during the war by the Germans because it was too large a landmark.

@@californiadreamin8423 Yea I grew up just west of Akron. Been past the blimp hanger as it was called, many times. Also had a great uncle who served on blimps during the war patrolling for U-Boats and then was on an Escort Carrier, the USS Nassau in the Pacific, which was hit by a kamikaze.

@@Parktonman I had a great 2 week stay in Akron.

I think he's already done a video about that

If you have ever hit a railroad tie with a sledgehammer, you would not need to ask the question.

The prop clearance was not an issue. It had to clear the ground, period. The reason for the gull wing was a shorter more robust landing gear more suitable for carrier use. An unintentional benefit of the gull wing was that it exited the round fuselage at a right ( 90 degree ) angle thus vastly improving airflow at this critical junction without the need for massive fairings. Considering what the Brits were producing for carrier use, it's not hard to understand their desire to make the Corsair work. If the Ses Fury had been introduced earlier the Corsair would not have been pressed into service and we would never have benefited from the lessons the Brits learned. I thank them for that. As it is, to say that the Sea Fury was better is either pure speculation or British arrogance. ALL of the records are held by other aircraft. The Fury holds no absolute records that I am aware of. Don't get me wrong, it's a big thrill to see and hear one of them and they were definitely pretty. Just not all that and a jelly donut. If it had been introduced earlier it might br a different story, but for now I'll stand on the records and not a soapbox

@@michaelmagill189 Thank you!

Corsair less dangerous to their pilots...