What did the British think of the F4U Corsair?
The Royal Navy put the Corsair into carrier operations immediately. They found its landing characteristics dangerous, suffering a number of fatal crashes, but considered the Corsair to be the best option they had. Its low-speed handling was tricky due to the left wing stalling before the right wing. This factor, together with poor visibility over the long nose (leading to one of its nicknames, The Hose Nose), made landing a Corsair on a carrier a difficult task.Technical issues Early F4U-1s had difficulty recovering from developed spins, since the inverted gull wing’s shape interfered with elevator authority. It was also found that the Corsair’s left wing could stall and drop rapidly and without warning during slow carrier landings.
What does the F in F4U stand for?
As an example, a World War II squadron operating the F4U Corsair aircraft would have been designated a fighting squadron (VF). The letter F, for fighting or fighter, was the key in identifying the type of squadron and was also used in the aircraft’s designation. Army aviation elements may use a different nomenclature, as the nature of helicopter-fired weapons is almost always air-to-surface. Fox is short for foxtrot, the NATO phonetic designation for the letter F, which is short for fire.