Texas Flying Legends Museum Whistling Death FG-1D Corsair

History:
When the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) requested a carrier-based fighter in 1938, their operational requirements pushed the envelope. BuAer’s primary objective was to acquire a plane with enough speed to match land-based aircraft while robust enough for carrier operations. A design team from Vought (later known as Chance-Vought) took up the challenge. Chief engineer Rex Beisel’s team quickly moved forward to design an airframe around the world’s most powerful engine at that time, the Pratt & Whitney XR-2800-4 (Double Wasp) with its two-stage supercharger.

The determination to make the most of the R-2800’s extraordinary power resulted in a thirteen foot, four inch diameter propeller. This created a challenge for the design team: how to provide deck clearance for that huge prop. The answer to that question was found in a new wing design: the unique inverted gull wing. Placing the landing gear in the low dip of the wing allowed clearance. The wing roots, not requiring the standard fairings, reduced drag and enhanced speed. The Corsair was the first single engine fighter to reach speeds of over 400 mph in level flight.

Having met performance challenges from BuAer, the design team altered the Corsair for combat. An extra fuel tank behind the engine moved the cockpit aft and left the pilot looking down that long locomotive nose fourteen feet from the prop. This limited forward vision on landing approaches – a dangerous prospect on carriers. Add to this a tendency of the left wing to suddenly drop upon landing along with wild bouncy landing struts and you have a combination of frustrations that explains why “widow maker” became another moniker for the Corsair. Teething problems seemed insurmountable for the Navy until engineers eventually found workable solutions.

Initially the Navy rejected the Corsair for carrier ops and gave them to the Marines and to the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy. The Royal fleet in turn developed a technique for landing Corsair’s upon carriers. Rather than setting up for a landing with a standard straight in approach, they used a continuous left handed turn that granted visibility up until moment of flare. The U.S. Navy now had a viable carrier plane.

As the war progressed, continuous refinements in the R-2800 engine and modifications in the airplane itself brought forth improved versions. One of the advantages gained was what became known as War Emergency Power which could be used when a Corsair had an enemy fighter closing in. This boost was provided by a methanol-water injection. With this, the pilot had approximately five minutes to run at the extreme threshold of horsepower (2760 in the F4U-5). War Emergency was great in those moments when speed meant the difference between life and death. Every engineering improvement like this increased our military advantage. Once broken in, the Corsair, together with the Hellcat, wrought a “sea change” in the Pacific air war. Enemy air power was c

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Specifications

Registration Number	Date of Manufacture
N209TW	1945
Aircraft Role	Nickname
Carrier based Fighter	Corsair
Aircraft Type:	Wingspan:
FG1D “Corsair”	41 feet
Overall length:	Empty weight:
33 feet	8982 pounds
Gross weight:	Fuel capacity:
14,000 pounds
Oil capacity	Engine type:
	Single 2000 hp Pratt & Whitney R2800-8
Propeller type:	Max Speed
	425 mph
Rate of Climb	Cruise Speed
3,180 ft/min
Service Ceiling	Number of Crew
37,000 feet	Single Pilot
Armament	Bomb Load
4 x .50 in M2 Browning machine guns, 400 rpg and 2 x .50 in Browning M2	250 to 1,000 lbs bombs to a total of 2,000 lbs
Number Built	Number Surviving
12571	28