What type of wing is the F4U Corsair?
Few airplanes in the history of aviation have a design feature as distinctive as the legendary F4U Corsair’s inverted gull wing. It has intrigued World War II aircraft buffs for more than half acentury. 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.
How many F4U Corsairs were shot down in WWII?
In the course of shooting down 2,140 enemy aircraft, only 189 Corsairs were lost in combat, a ratio of better than 11 to one. From February 13, 1942, when a handful of Corsairs first engaged the Japanese at Guadalcanal, until V-J Day, Corsairs carried out a total of 64,051 action sorties. The Corsair bore the brunt of U. S. U. S. Corsair losses in World War II were as follows: Aerial combat: 189. Enemy ground and shipboard anti-aircraft fire: 349.