Goodyear FG-1D Corsair

Vought designed the Corsair around the most powerful available engine at the time, the 2,000hp, 18-cylinder Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engine, and the largest propeller practical, a 13 foot 4 inch diameter hydromatic unit from Hamilton Standard. This propeller choice also drove another iconic design feature for the F4U – its use of an ‘inverted gull-wing’. 

Vought employed the gull-wing to reduce the overall weight of the landing gear while still accommodating the massive propeller. The heavy impact a carrier-based aircraft experiences in landing aboard a ship demands that its undercarriage be extra-robust, a characteristic which makes such equipment extremely heavy. Mounting the Corsair’s landing gear at the lowest dip in its wing reduced the distance to the deck which the gear legs needed to cover, allowing them to be shorter and thus lighter. 

This was not the only undercarriage-related challenge the Corsair’s designers had to address, as the initial shock absorption system employed could cause the airplane to bounce dramatically during carrier landings, sometimes inducing accidents. This dangerous quirk, along with several others, had to be resolved before the Corsair could deploy regularly with the fleet. 

Vought’s engineers worked hard to improve the Corsair. They raised the pilot’s seat by 8 inches to improve forward visibility, conducted 110 test flights in reworking the ailerons for better low speed control, redesigned the tailhook and tailwheel strut, replaced the shock absorbers in the main gear oleos, and installed a small balsa wood spoiler on the leading edge of the aircraft’s starboard wing to balance its stall characteristics. Even so, the Corsair was a formidable fighter aircraft in the right hands, and principally operated by land-based US Marine Corps units while the updates to its design were undertaken. 

With the modifications completed, Corsairs could finally join the fleet. Retaining their reputation as ‘Mud Fighters’, prized by the Marines for close air support, the Corsair also earned the respect of other Naval Aviators as one of the few fighters capable of climbing fast enough to intercept a suicidal Kamikaze attack. American Corsairs finished the war with an impressive 2,140 aerial victories claimed by its pilots against 189 losses of their own. The Royal Navy and Royal New Zealand Air Force also employed the Corsair to great effect in WWII.

Originally designed by Vought, some 12,586 Corsairs ended up being built. The Museum’s Corsair is one of the 4,007 which Goodyear Aircraft built under license at their factory in Akron, Ohio. The Brewster Aeronautical Corporation built 735 examples under license as well. Constructed in May 1945, the Museum’s Corsair (BuNo. 95208) was part of a buildup of equipment intended to supply the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands – an eventuality which, thankfully, proved unnecessary. 

Commander Shelton “Ray” Beacham, USN: The Museum’s Corsair honors a hometown hero, Norfolk-born Shelton “Ray” Beacham, who flew with VF-17 in the Pacific and was sometimes known as the ‘Kittyhawk Kid’. Beacham, a local Northside Junior High School teacher, had joined the US Navy in 1939, earning his wings the following year. In 1943, Lt. Beacham was assigned to VF-17, a U.S. Navy fighter squadron. The Skull and Crossbones adorned the noses of Corsairs in this unit, an emblem proudly displayed on the museum’s FG-1D too. While serving in the Pacific, Beacham was credited with two aerial victories, both of them marked on the Museum’s Corsair. 

During Beacham’s time with VF-17, the squadron was said to have been a clear leader amongst the Solomons Fighter Command units and played a key role in reversing the bad reputation which the Corsair received in the early days of its service.