@AB4BF I noticed your avatar....
I have one of those flying on the wall in my bedroom. Nice to find another F4U fan.
At the risk of going off topic, my uncle was a Naval Aviator during WW2, flying Wildcats and Hellcats. After the Marianas turkey shoot and having 2 escort carriers sunk from under him while he was airborne, he had to land on the Enterprise but was relegated to another escort carrier. This carrier specialized in supplying Marines their F4U's with replacement planes and parts. At the time the navy wouldn't let Corsairs operate off of carriers because most of the naval pilots wouldn't fly them "for safety reasons". My uncle would catapult off the escort carrier and fly to a Marine island strip with a new or rebuilt F4U packed full of spare parts. Returning, the marines would put normal strength beer in every nook and cranny of the F4U and he would return to the escort carrier sitting on a case of beer and with two cases in his lap, flying "a not in the best shape" aircraft. He would land the F4U on the escort carrier and the shipmates would immediately put the plane on the hangar deck and get the beer off quickly. He did this countless times until an Admiral on a flagship spotted him doing this. He was immediately ordered to the flagship and brought before the Admiral.
Being drunk as usual, he stood before the admiral and dressed down for being inebriated, raised in rank and sent to Pensacola to train up and coming naval aviators how to fly off Essex carriers in F4U's.
In Korea, he flew the F4U's with four 20mm cannon and bomb racks to support Marines on the ground. One day they were doing the air support and a Mig flew past them shooting at them. He threw the throttle forward and caught the mig as it turned to make another pass and being able to turn quicker than the mig, he got on the inside of it and ripped it up with those 20 mm's. He did that 3 more times. He was never recognized for it because of the Navy's thinking that a piston engine plane can't shoot a jet down plus the Navy didn't want congress thinking that the Navy didn't need jets if a piston engined fighter could do the job.
He retired from the military in 1985 as a Lt. Colonel flying with the SC Air National Guard.
He always told me that the F4U Corsair was the best plane he had ever flown.
