Chance Vought F4U Corsair

This time around we’re featuring the Chance Vought F4U Corsair, one of the best fighters produced during WW2. It saw service with the U.S. Navy and Marines, as well as with the Royal Navy and the RNZ Air Force.

The Corsair’s gull-wing design gave it a distinctive look, as well as making it a practical carrier aircraft with its folding wing. Elegant, fast, with a high rate of climb, in addition to being well armed, made the Corsair a formidable aircraft in the Pacific Theater of WW2.

The Corsair was the plane flown by Colonel Gregory “Pappy” Boyington (Retired, USMC) and the VMF-214, made famous by Boyington’s memoir Baa Baa Black Sheep, and by the 1970s TV series of the same name inspired by their exploits.

I met Boyington for the first time the evening after the premier of Baa Baa Black Sheep. I was a high school kid at the time and tagged along to an interview that a buddy of mine was doing of Boyington. What an experience. Boyington is one of the most unique individuals I have ever had the honor of becoming acquainted with. He showed us one of his medals (if memory serves me, it was THE medal) and related how he was the only person awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously and lived to talk about it. The Military Museum backs up Boyington’s claim in its biography of him. The picture of Boyington on the wing of a Corsair is from 1976, taken during the filming of the series Baa Baa Black Sheep. Boyington said he was disappointed that the owner wouldn’t let him take it up for a spin.