
VOUCHT F4U-4B CORSAIR
The revolutionary design of the F4U Corsair was created in 1938 in response to the request of the US Navy to design a high-speed fighter stationed on board aircraft carriers. Chance Vought took on the challenge, with the goal of fitting the most powerful of the available engines (i.e. the Pratt-Whitney Double Wasp engine) into the smallest possible airframe. The key was to place the clunky landing gear in the inverted, crooked wings that became the hallmark of the aircraft. The flight of the prototype took place on May 29, 1940, and the US Navy received its first serial Corsair on July 31, 1942. However, tests carried out by the US Navy on aircraft carriers revealed some flaws in the design, which meant that the first production series of the aircraft went to squadrons of the Marine Corps and operated from land bases. The first unit received by the F-4 was the VMF-124 at Gudalcanal. It quickly turned out that the new machine definitely surpasses all enemy machines and, in several respe