Trying to fly - and eventually, fight - our irasible Hogs. Potential life-threatening problems to bear in mind while we were We later determined that it had been excessively over-Ĭharged, but the incident gave us one more in a long line of In oneĬase, a battery exploded while the airplane was in flight. The Corsair's storage battery, which was located in theĬockpit, had an unhealthy habit of boiling over. Knowledge, no one ever did tear off a flap. After too many narrow escapes, we got the 'flapīlowup' removed, it being our decision to risk tearing off aįlap as against losing lift in this terrifying, dangerous manner. The pilot, everĪlert for such mishaps, had to slam on full power to evadeĭisaster. Horrendous loss of lift and a rapid sinking. Often did retract fully and without warning during the final This was a dandy feature except that the flaps could and

The landing flaps had a protective device to preventĮxtension at airspeeds high enough to cause over-stressing. Which we could fly in order to wash away the oil. We allīecame expert at quickly locating rain showers through The airplane's inherently limited forward visibility. The combination rapidlyĬoated the windshield and seriously decreased InĪddition, until the maintenance crews became expert, theīig radial engine tended to throw a lot of oil. So muchĮach of fourteen cowl flaps had its own baby hydraulicĬylinder to open and close it. Resulted in a fifteen-minute stand-down for cooling. FourĪbortive tries generally overheated the starter, and that The prop through three or more revolutions. Had equipped the Corsair with a shotgun starter in lieu of

This touchy enterprise had to stop short of flooding and thusĭrowning the spark plugs and evade the obvious fire hazard whileĬylinders to get the engine to cough to life. Next, the engine had to be primed with raw Lower cylinders of oil so the start-up could be accomplished in safety. Took two strong men pulling on a prop blade to slowlyĪccomplish the minimum revolutions needed to clear the The 2,800-cubic-inch engine was a monster to fire upĪfter it had sat in subfreezing weather overnight. Typical day's ops, only about half of our fullĬomplement was safe to fly. To rate it with the Mustang as the best fighter plane of World War Two.īlackburn (CO of the Jolly Rogers) on the F4U Corsair: The Corsair appeared to be a superb fighting machine,īut it was overengineered and thus hard to maintain. But its speed, firepower, maneuverability, and

F4u corsair cutaways and plans