How will the F-4U compare?

[Jaktaz]

I don't know very much about it tbh. Apparently, the Gull Wings weren't designed for any aerodynamic benefit, but don't detract from the plane's performance either. I've just heard people say its a boom and zoom aircraft, but how will it compare to the wwii fighters already in DCS?

[Scotch75]

IIRC the gull wings were designed to accomodate the huge propeller on the f-4u.

 

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

[Hasler]

According to the book America's Hundred Thousand: The US production fighter Aircraft of WWII, the F4U-1 was superior to the P-51 and P-47 in a dogfight under 20,000ft. After that they started gaining the upper hand. The f4u-4 increased performance to the point that it was superior (though not in game) to even pure fighter yak-3s.

[Coyote Duster]

We're getting the f4U-D right? well in that case just think of it as the navy's version of the jug, same motor with just a different design and without a turbo-supercharger. So just high speed dives and climbs (whistling death) and high speed turns, the f4u is a master at energy fighting I mean these things took on the ki-84s and ki-100s planes just as if not, more dangerous than the d9 and k4

[Nerd1000]

IIRC the gull wings were designed to accomodate the huge propeller on the f-4u.

 

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

The gull wings allow the landing gear legs to be a lot shorter for the same prop diameter- Long skinny landing legs are more prone to bending. This was a concern because the F4U was designed to land on carriers, and thus the gear needed to be a lot stronger than the gear on a land plane.

 

The F4U's gear is actually so strong that it can be used as an airbrake for dive bombing... so long as you don't go too fast. :smilewink:

[NORTHMAN]

I read a book by Barrett Tillman, Corsair: The F4U in World War II and Korea. In this book It's clearly said that it's a faster aircraft than most of the world war II fighter with a better climb rate but it would not be a good idea to do a turning fight with it. It's also suppose to have huge fuel tank, a 4h flight should be doable!

 

Nerd1000, I read exactly what you write about the Gear airbrake!! It will be intrusting.

Edited June 14, 2016 by NORTHMAN

[Jaktaz]

We're getting the f4U-D right? well in that case just think of it as the navy's version of the jug, same motor with just a different design and without a turbo-supercharger. So just high speed dives and climbs (whistling death) and high speed turns, the f4u is a master at energy fighting I mean these things took on the ki-84s and ki-100s planes just as if not, more dangerous than the d9 and k4

 

Sounds like a jack of all trades

[Hummingbird]

The F4U was perhaps USA's best fighter of the war, combining great speed, climb rate, maneuverability, ruggedness and firepower all in one package.

 

In terms of maneuverability you can expect it to turn like a Bf-109, be as fast as a Mustang and roll like a Fw190. A truly magnificient fighter.

[5tuka]

A word of caution regarding the anectdotes mentioned, the Corsair just like the Mustang will inly perform well at high airspeeds. This is not a slow flyer and it had very vicious stall characteristics.

 

The 109 will be the superiour dogfighter for sure, not only due to being 2t lighter and having a better P/W ratio. However the Corsair will be surely a nice addition, be it to the current game or future expansions.

[Coyote Duster]

Sounds like a jack of all trades

 

Definitely is, and it carries an astounding array of ordinance, so much that leatherneck will have a busy schedule modeling it all, can take a beating and dish it back, stories of pilots letting the zeros get on their six and letting them shoot them so their wingman can flame them while they were distracted. It's top speed is faster than the p-51s as well. Like i said, when and if a third party developer wants to make a ki-84, ki-100 or j2m, then we should be concerned. If im not mistaken, it could turn with the lighter and smaller ki-61s.

[Cunctator]

There are reasons why the F4U was produced till 1953 despite its flaws. That's why I love this plane. Even the F4U-1 series was competitive as a fighter till the end of the war, while it also evolved into an excellent attack aircraft. Carrier capable, successful as night fighter or air racer. A true multirole aircraft.

 

I hope we will finally get some info about the DCS project this summer!

[Nerd1000]

There are reasons why the F4U was produced till 1953 despite its flaws. That's why I love this plane. Even the F4U-1 series was competitive as a fighter till the end of the war, while it also evolved into an excellent attack aircraft. Carrier capable, successful as night fighter or air racer. A true multirole aircraft.

 

I hope we will finally get some info about the DCS project this summer!

IMO the No. 1 flaw is the view to the rear (or lack thereof...)

[Solty]

IMO the No. 1 flaw is the view to the rear (or lack thereof...)

 

Yeah. Loose sight, loose the fight. It certainly won't be revolutionary.

 

I am wondering, are they going to model it with or without spring tabs.

[Cunctator]

Yeah. I always wondered why Vought never adopted the Super Corsairs bubble canopy for the later models.

 

 

[gavagai]

If you sit in a cockpit and try to check 6, you find it is much more difficult than expected. Often it means leaning your body forward a bit, and rotating your head and shoulders to get the clear view we have in a flight sim. In a high g turn or in the maneuvers of combat it would be even more difficult and awkward.

[Hasler]

The F4u was interesting when it came to turn fighting. If we get the F4U-1d before they put the stall fence on it deal with its asymmetric stall characteristics it will be dangerous but amazing in the turn. The stall fence according to NACA did severe damage to its lift coefficient so its light wing loading was counteracted to a large degree.

Even with the stall fence the Corsair did have very nice blow up flaps, so a pilot could get slow put down its flaps with out worrying about them breaking. Several anecdotal reports said the F4U could drop landing flaps and out turn a zero for a half turn if it really needed to. Doing that will of course bleed energy like a sieve leaving you vulnerable, but with a good wing man it shouldn't kill you.

[Hadwell]

The corsair's good at medium and low altitudes, the r2800 engine works better with a supercharger, can think of the corsair's like an underpowered p47 with better slow speed handling, since it doesn't have the convoluted supercharger setup the p47 has.

[Beamscanner]

High speed energy fighter, similar to the 190 series.

 

Heavy and fast with a great roll rate, you'll want to take the fight vertical with this guy. Plane was suited well against the slower lightweight A6Ms, so long as the pilot was diligent and maintained his kinetic or potential energy. Taking this bird into a horizontal turning fight is not normally a good idea.

 

As far as DCS goes, she'll do fine so long as you don't get low and slow. Though keep in mind, all of our WW2 fighters are either energy or BnZ fighters right now. Taking her in the vertical with a K-4 or D-9 on your 6 will probably lead to your death, as they'll follow you up just fine.

 

http://www.airbum.com/pireps/PirepPeanutCorsair.html

 

DCS WW2 will really get interesting when we finally get some turn fighters, like the Spitfire and the Zero:)

Edited June 15, 2016 by Beamscanner

[Hummingbird]

The F4u was interesting when it came to turn fighting. If we get the F4U-1d before they put the stall fence on it deal with its asymmetric stall characteristics it will be dangerous but amazing in the turn. The stall fence according to NACA did severe damage to its lift coefficient so its light wing loading was counteracted to a large degree.

Even with the stall fence the Corsair did have very nice blow up flaps, so a pilot could get slow put down its flaps with out worrying about them breaking. Several anecdotal reports said the F4U could drop landing flaps and out turn a zero for a half turn if it really needed to. Doing that will of course bleed energy like a sieve leaving you vulnerable, but with a good wing man it shouldn't kill you.

 

Stall fence on a Corsair? Erm...

 

No Corsair featured stall fences, and the stall characteristics weren't worse than other fighters with the high lift NACA 23xxx airfoil.

 

People should expect the F4U to be a good turn fighter in all its WW2 iterations, F4U-1 to F4U-4.

 

[ame]http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f4u/p-51b-f4u-1-navycomp.pdf[/ame]

Edited June 15, 2016 by Hummingbird

[Vampyre]

Stall fence on a Corsair? Erm...

 

No Corsair featured stall fences, and the stall characteristics weren't worse than other fighters with the high lift NACA 23xxx airfoil.

 

People should expect the F4U to be a good turn fighter in all its WW2 iterations, F4U-1 to F4U-4.

 

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f4u/p-51b-f4u-1-navycomp.pdf

 

What Hasler is referring to is a stall strip on the leading edge of the starboard wing that was installed to help nullify the vicious wing drop from low speed stalls. The strip initiates flow separation at the leading edge of the starboard wing just outboard of the guns/cannons so both wings will stall at roughly the same time vice the port wing first causing the aircraft to flip over. As to it destroying the Corsairs turning ability, that just didn't happen because at the speed the strip takes effect the port wing would be stalling anyway causing a departure if the strip was not installed. The stall strip did make the plane safer to fly low and slow with. I'm not sure of his sources for the statement.

 

The strip is located just outboard of the two 20mm cannons in this pic of a F4U-5NL.

 

The Corsair is a great all around fighter for both turning and energy fighting in the air to air arena plus it could carry truly amazing loads of bombs and rockets which is why it was kept in production until 1953.

[Hummingbird]

What Hasler is referring to is a stall strip on the leading edge of the starboard wing that was installed to help nullify the vicious wing drop from low speed stalls. The strip initiates flow separation at the leading edge of the starboard wing just outboard of the guns/cannons so both wings will stall at roughly the same time vice the port wing first causing the aircraft to flip over. As to it destroying the Corsairs turning ability, that just didn't happen because at the speed the strip takes effect the port wing would be stalling anyway causing a departure if the strip was not installed. The stall strip did make the plane safer to fly low and slow with. I'm not sure of his sources for the statement.

 

The strip is located just outboard of the two 20mm cannons in this pic of a F4U-5NL.

 

The Corsair is a great all around fighter for both turning and energy fighting in the air to air arena plus it could carry truly amazing loads of bombs and rockets which is why it was kept in production until 1953.

 

 

Agreed, it didn't affect the lift coefficient (I don't see how it possibly could either, esp. considering how small an area it affects) that much is clear from just looking at stall speeds. Also like you said the aircraft would be departing at the same speed & AoA regardless, the strip just helped with stall warning.

Edited June 16, 2016 by Hummingbird

[Hasler]

I wish I could post my scanned pages, but from Americas 100K pg 603 Table 103, The F4U-1d with no flaps turned the worst compared to the FM-2 wildcat, P63A-9, P61B-1, P-51D-15, P38L, and P47D-30 in a sustained 3g turn. The test where the info was obtained from a US fighter conference on stall speeds in 3g turns.The NACA report indicated in the text found that "the spoiler placed on the right wing of the Corsair to eliminate an unsymmetric stall problem is suspected of dropping the overall lift coefficient considerably."

 

This isn't to say in flaps down configuration it couldn't turn with the best. The book makes note of flap configurations help aircraft like the P-38 turn tighter, but in a clean configuration with the spoiler it was limited to the point that special note was made to explain what was going on.

 

On a side note I don't have the book anymore to give the actual test number from the reference section, only a few scanned pages I once attempted in vein to use for bug reports on War Thunder.

[Hummingbird]

Something else must have gone on because the F4U-4 didn't suffer any such issues. Also looking at stall speeds they are considerably lower than those of the P-51D with and without flaps.

 

There's no way that a 6 inch strip will noticably decrease the CLmax of the wing, if that were the case just think of how much pertruding cannons would affect lift. The only thing the strip did was provide an otherwise missing stall warning.

Edited June 16, 2016 by Hummingbird

[Vampyre]

I wish I could post my scanned pages, but from Americas 100K pg 603 Table 103, The F4U-1d with no flaps turned the worst compared to the FM-2 wildcat, P63A-9, P61B-1, P-51D-15, P38L, and P47D-30 in a sustained 3g turn. The test where the info was obtained from a US fighter conference on stall speeds in 3g turns.The NACA report indicated in the text found that "the spoiler placed on the right wing of the Corsair to eliminate an unsymmetric stall problem is suspected of dropping the overall lift coefficient considerably."

 

This isn't to say in flaps down configuration it couldn't turn with the best. The book makes note of flap configurations help aircraft like the P-38 turn tighter, but in a clean configuration with the spoiler it was limited to the point that special note was made to explain what was going on.

 

On a side note I don't have the book anymore to give the actual test number from the reference section, only a few scanned pages I once attempted in vein to use for bug reports on War Thunder.

 

This, as described, is a comparative test in a specific area of the flight envelope which in and of itself is not indicative of overall turn performance of the Corsair. From what you have related we do not know altitude and airspeeds the tests were conducted at. All we do know is that the aircraft were pulling 3g's and exceeding their critical angle of attack (which will activate the stall strip on the Corsair).

[Hummingbird]

Also keep in mind that the strip was only on the right wing, and that to make sure one wing didn't drop long before the other. Pull too much and you'd still drop a wing, difference was now it was predictable and not nearly as violent.

 

Had the lift coefficient been compromised you would've seen it in stalling speeds, but no change there was observed, and that for exactly the reason Vampyre already mentioned = once one of the wings dropped you were stalling anyways.