4.11 F4U Performance

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by dpeters95

OK, well how about this making sense... The following is a list of British Pacific Fleet ESCORT CARRIERS that all contained F4u-1a squadrons:

HMS Slinger
HMS Arbiter
HMS Speaker
HMS Fencer
HMS Chaser
HMS Reaper
HMS Striker
HMS Ruler

They were all the same "class" of ship and their overall length was 492 feet 3 inches (150.04 m), pretty much the identical length (150 m) as the US Escort Carriers. I used the British carriers because the US carrier list was so long that it would have taken forever to trace down all the on board squadrons and their airplane compliment.

So that should make sense. I don't have all the spec sheets, etc., and I don't know what loads they carried, but those F4u-1A's could at a minimum fly off the Escort Carriers deck, ours currently can not...

Interesting to find out about those ships for sure...any idea what the requirements were for a successful launch? Use of a catapult? Minimum wind over the deck?

As far as I know the US Navy never cleared the Corsair or the Helldiver for Escort Carrier use. Even the biggest (Sangamon class) I don't think was cleared to operate with either of those types.

I am surprised that the RN would do it... but they were the ones to pioneer Corsair use on carrier decks and developed the doctrine around usage so maybe they found a way.

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by dpeters95

OK, well how about this making sense... The following is a list of British Pacific Fleet ESCORT CARRIERS that all contained F4u-1a squadrons:

HMS Slinger
HMS Arbiter
HMS Speaker
HMS Fencer
HMS Chaser
HMS Reaper
HMS Striker
HMS Ruler

They were all the same "class" of ship and their overall length was 492 feet 3 inches (150.04 m), pretty much the identical length (150 m) as the US Escort Carriers. I used the British carriers because the US carrier list was so long that it would have taken forever to trace down all the on board squadrons and their airplane compliment.

So that should make sense. I don't have all the spec sheets, etc., and I don't know what loads they carried, but those F4u-1A's could at a minimum fly off the Escort Carriers deck, ours currently can not...

The British F4Us were not identical to the US ones. Among other things they had about 20 cm clipped off the wings.


Note that these British ships were lend lease Bogue Class carriers fitted with catapults.

A random clip of F4Us corsairs taking off from a larger (non catapult) carrier ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SngBxtYFao

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by h0MbrE

"They were constantly exposed to salt spray, mud, sand and tropical weather, maintained by overworked and relatively untrained mechanics, and regularly abused by their pilots."

Ahhh I get it now... that's why the F4U is too weak to even make it off the deck now. Well that makes it okay then. LOL

Not sure what the issue is... it's already been stated that the takeoff distance is wrong but pretty much been proven otherwise that the new performance levels match the documents that you previously provided.