Goodyear F2G-1 Corsair - Seattle, WA
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 47° 31.112 W 122° 17.947
10T E 552767 N 5263027
This is the plane which starred in the "Black Sheep Squadron" TV series.
Waymark Code: WMFWW4
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 12/09/2012
Views: 11
The plaque says that this particular airplane was manufactured by Goodyear, making it an "FG". This particular airplane is an F2G-1 "Super" Corsair, modified substantially by Goodyear, and the first production aircraft. It was acquired from the Marine Corps by the Champlin Fighter Museum, and later came to the Museum of Flight with the rest of the Champlin collection.
It was only the Super Corsair that had the engine described below, the "corncob engine". Others had dual row 18 cylinder Pratt & Whitneys of 2,000 to 2,325 hp.
Designed and engineered by the Chance Vought Company, the original designation was the Chance Vought F4U Corsair. Built as a WWII carrier based fighter, demand eventually outstripped Vought's production capacity, so models were also made by Goodyear and Brewster.
Serving almost exclusively in the Pacific Theatre in the second world war, it proved to be the most capable carrier based fighter of the war, with the navy counting an 11:1 kill ratio. It also served in the Korean war, primarily as a fighter/bomber, and in the French colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria. It enjoyed the longest production run of any piston engined fighter in US history, from 1942 to 1953.
One reason for the Super Corsair's outstanding performance was its engine, and it was a BIG one - the Pratt & Whitney R-4360. Basically this engine came about by whacking 2 cylinders off of a 9 cylinder radial, then stacking 4 of these 7 cylinder engines back to back, resulting in a 28 cylinder which produced 3500 hp. It acquired the moniker "corncob" engine due to its helical rows of cylinders.
The reason behind its graceful gull wing shape was a brilliant bit of engineering required to circumvent two seemingly mutually exclusive but necessary design parameters. First, because it was carrier based, it required very strong landing gear, dictating short, strong legs. Also, the gear had to be short enough to fold into the chord of the wing. Second, because of its abundance of power, it swung a very large prop, requiring substantial ground clearance.
So, to keep the landing gear as short as possible while maintaining adequate ground clearance for the prop, the engineers simply bent the wings down from fuselage to landing gear, then back up from landing gear to wingtip. Simple, effective and beautiful.