In 1938 -at which time Chance Vought was a division of United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) - the US Navy was seeking a new single-seat fighter suitable for operation from aircraft carriers. Details of the requirement were circulated to US manufacturers and Chance Vought's proposal (then bearing the company identification V-166B) was sufficiently interesting to be selected for prototype construction. A single prototype was contracted for on 30 June 1938, making its first flight on 29 May 1940.
Realising that performance, load-carrying capability and range were essential ingredients of
a carrier-based fighter, Vought set about designing the smallest possible airframe around the most powerful engine then available. The selection of a four-blade propeller meant that the front fuselage had to be kept well clear of the ground. This dictated a tall, stalky landing gear which would be completely unsuitable for carrier landings. The solution to this problem provided the F4U (as designated by the Navy) with a recognition feature - an inverted gull wing. By mounting the main landing gear at the crank of the wing, it was possible to use compact and robust main struts.
Testing of the XF4U-1 prototype soon demonstrated that the Navy had available a fighter faster than anything else in service with the armed forces. On 30 June 1941 the Vought-Sikorsky Aircraft Division of UAC (as the company was then reformed) received a contract for 584 aircraft under the designation F4U-1. What had by then become an honoured name - Corsair - was to be bestowed on this new aircraft, one which was to prove itself the finest carrier-based fighter of World War II.
F4U-1 began to enter service in October 1942, but in order to provide increased fuel capacity the cockpit had been moved further aft to make room for a fuselage fuel tank. When first tested by the Navy it was believed that this adversely affected the pilot's view, to the extent that the Corsair was considered doubtful for carrier operation. Production aircraft were delivered instead to the US Marine Corps for operation from land bases. It was not until 1944, when Corsairs supplied to the Royal Navy under Lend-Lease were being used effectively from carriers, that the US Navy made a serious reappraisal of their suitability for this role. Shortly after, Navy squadrons were given approval to use the Corsair for the task for which it had been designed.
The Corsair was built also by Brewster Aeronautical Corporation and Goodyear Aircraft Corporation to cope with the high production required, under the initial designations of F3A-1 and FG-1 respectively. Both Vought and Goodyear built a number of variants, the last being the F4U-7, of which 90 were built for supply through MAP to the French Aeronavale. By the time that production ended in December 1952 more than 11,000 had been built; of these 2,012 had been supplied to Britain and 370 to the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
Vought F4U Corsair on YOUTUBE
