Best Pacific Fighter II

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

Now for what airplane you wanted to be in when flying 500 miles from the nearest landing strip, and a water ditching or jump into the jungle usually meant you will perish ..... what was better .... a single engined F4U or the twin engined P38?

I think I would take ditching into the water. The Catalina did a good job at finding it's lost sheep!

The F4U was probably the best all around, but I do like the P-38, for it's long range and speed.

The Hayate was also a excellent plane, but like the N1K2 appeared in limited numbers.

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by Soundbreaker Welch?

I think I would take ditching into the water. The Catalina did a good job at finding it's lost sheep!

That wasnt exactly true. If the PBY found the downed airmen, they were usually saved. But if not ......

[Soren]

F4U Corsair, no doub about it.

The Japanese did have aircraft such as the Ki-84 which could prove a mouthful for any US fighter though, but the F4U-4 was a better a/c.

[Butters]

This is a tough call, but all in all, I give the nod to the Corsair.

The primacy of carrier operations in the PTO rules out land-based AC like the P-38, and the late-model Japanese fighters like the Frank and George.(The Japanese planes also suffered severe reliability problems. A plane in the hanger is not an effective combat weapon...) Either the Corsair or Hellcat could have accomplished most of the tasks of the Lightning, but the P-38 was no carrier fighter.

The Hellcat had the advantage of being easier to fly, esp in regards to carrier operations. The F4U's nickname, "Ensign Eliminator", is a demonstration of that. And for relatively inexperienced pilots, a docile handling machine allows them to concentrate on fighting the enemy rather than flying the AC. That alone probably accounts for much of the discrepancy in kill ratios over the F4U. As does the fact that the majority of VF units were equipped with Hellcats, whereas many of the Corsair's missions were devoted to ground attack.

Still, in the hands of a skilled and aggressive pilot, the Corsair had enough of a performance edge over the Hellcat to entitle it to top honors as an air-to-air fighter. It's kinda like the Me 109/FW 190 contest...The '190 may have been a better AC for the rank and file, but it seems that most of the experten preferred the '109. At least from what I've read.

In any case, either the F6F or the F4U would have been able to defeat the Japanese air forces on their own. They were both very versatile and efficient combat aircraft.

JL

[vikingBerserker]

Ok here is some real data. The chart below shows USN/Marine Kills by Plane (F6F vs F4U) by year. I got this data from page 68 of http://www.history.navy.mil/download/nasc.pdf

It does not include Allies flying these planes.



Interesting enough, the number of combat sorties flown during 1943 were almost the same, even though the F4U had 5 more months worth of data.

[Catch22]

Interesting data, thanks for putting it together.

About the same number of sorties though, the F6F also had almost 2 years longer naval service than the F4U did, and there were more VFs than VMFs, if I'm not mistaken.

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by Catch22

Interesting data, thanks for putting it together.

About the same number of sorties though, the F6F also had almost 2 years longer naval service than the F4U did, and there were more VFs than VMFs, if I'm not mistaken.

2 years? Both were flying combat missions in 1943.

Look at it this way. In 1945, the Hellcat was already a dated design, while the Corsair was just getting into its prime.

And for the Hellcat vs P38; the P38 was pretty much superior to the Hellcat in most flight regimes.

[Catch22]

Originally Posted by syscom3

2 years? Both were flying combat missions in 1943.

Look at it this way. In 1945, the Hellcat was already a dated design, while the Corsair was just getting into its prime.

And for the Hellcat vs P38; the P38 was pretty much superior to the Hellcat in most flight regimes.

Naval service, meaning carrier service. Wasn't clear I suppose.

[Butters]

I checked out that site, VB. It's a fantastic source of info!

Thanks,

JL

PS: Is the link to this site archived somewhere in this forum?

[vikingBerserker]

Thanks Butters - I really don't know.

[Lucky13]

Which was better at absorbing damage and still get the pilot home...?

[Butters]

Originally Posted by Lucky13

Which was better at absorbing damage and still get the pilot home...?

I was looking thru the PDF that VB linked to last night, and there were at least two or three references to the Hellcat's superior ability to absorb battle damage and survive. There was a comment to the effect, that the F6F's superior kill/loss ratio vis the F4U was at least partly attributable to the Hellcat's superior durability. However, it was the SBD that really stood out as a survivor. It had the best safety record of all the USN/USMC aircraft.

JL

[renrich]

Butters, I thought your post was well thought out, informative and logical. One point about flying characteristics of the Hellcat versus Corsair though. The Corsair, especially early before the landing gear debouncing, seat raising and tail wheel strut lengthening could be a handful on landing which is where it earned one of it's names, "Ensign Eliminator." It had a lot of torque characteristics also on takeoff and in a wave off or go around. However once in the air, everything I have read seems to indicate that it was a sweetheart to fly and maneuver, much more biddable, for instance than a P51 and in some ways easier to fly than the Hellcat. Until the spoiler on the right wing was installed the slow speed stall with the left wing drop caused some anxiety but that was a characteristic of several fighters, including the FW190. The pilot of the Corsair had lots to do with the manually shifted two speed two stage supercharger, prop, mixture and throttle controls but that was no different than the Hellcat so I believe that disregarding takeoff, the Corsair was at least no more difficult to handle in combat than a Hellcat.

[renrich]

VB, that website you found with all the USN and USMC numbers in it is a really good find. Thanks for posting it. I have the total numbers for all US fighters in the PTO and there is a slight difference in the totals for both Hellcat and Corsair but not enough to worry about. The interesting thing about the table you posted is that the Corsair in 1943 had the majority of it's kills against fighters which, I believe, is the result of all the escort missions the Corsair flew against Japanese bases in or near the Solomons. These would have been against some of the IJN crack pilots still left. The Hellcat did not have many landbased kills in 1943 so most of it's kills must have been in air strikes from US carriers. The kills registered by both AC in 1945 showed a lot of fighters many of which might have been Japanese fighters in the kamikaze role. Some of the kills against fighters though in 1945 were against fighters encountered during air strikes against the Japanese mainland which would have included Jacks, Georges and Franks.

[syscom3]

Renrich is correct.

In 1943, the last of the quality pilots that Japan had was in NG and the Northern Solomons. Most of the kills the Corsair and P38 had in that year was against those pilots.