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The F4U?

No, you can't stand to close the canopy in a Hurri,unless you happened to be Douglas Bader without tin legs. But the point made was that the Corsair has no floor was unique wasn't it?

My definition of floor was a solid level surface beneath the pilot that doesn't allow you to see the construction of the aircraft between him/her and the outer skin.
 
Real Corsair Problem of landing on a carrier

The early Corsairs had a problem of landing on a carrier because they bounced when they hit the deck. I knew an engineer at AVCO Lycoming who was instrumental in solving the problem. The old AVCO plant (as Vought-Sikorsky Aircraft) manufactured Corsairs during the war and flew them directly out of Stratford, CT. The engineer I knew solved the problem by designing a contour on the hydraulic piston that produced a variable rate orifice. Thus when the Corsair hit the deck the initial response was a soft impact followed by the normal damping effect of a shock absorber with the weight of Corsair on the deck. Then the Corsairs successfully returned to their mission of carrier landings.
 
Even in later marks they still bounced, but this wasn't the problem that kept them off US Carriers. It was the visibility during landing. If you ever watch a Hellcat come down you see that she bounces too. The placement of the cockpit on the Corsair made visibly hard in a a straight in landing run to the flight deck, but once the US adapted the British method of a wide left turnig approach to the deck the visibility problem was "solved" to a point and the Corsair gained its carrier certification.

According to my grandfather's notes, the worst plane for bouncing waw the F8F Bearcat, and he made 213 traps in a Bearcat, before he was moved over to the FH-1 Phantom.
 
hewman100 said:
...But the point made was that the Corsair has no floor was unique wasn't it?
Click to expand...

No.

The topic sentence of this discussion is "What was strange about the F4U?"

You are correct in your definition of a "floor", ...and I didn't know that about the Hurri, ...Thanks.


I do know a(1) thing or two(2) about the U-bird though...

My Dad broke a wrist-watch band while flyin' one.

The watch dropped to the fuselage and began rattlin' round down there.
He at first thought it probably was no big deal, ...until he imagined a control linkage jam on final. He spent about ten(10) minutes stunt-show flyin' negative-G and inverted until he was able to "fly" the watch back into his lap.

First thing he did after landing was to put a stainless-steel band on it. (it weights about a pound)
 
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