It seems horrible. Most 5.7 planes climb better than it. Most planes out turn it. Its not that fast and it 6.0.
You’re never going to outclimb people in the corsair, and you’re barely going to out-turn at all.
Instead you take advantage of its good top speed, linear energy retention and ability to get away quickly ASAP thanks to its acceleration. In dogfights your best quirks are its roll-rate and monstrous flaps, so you force 1circle fights and take advantage of downward spirals. You want to watch out getting dragged into the vertical because corsairs don’t have good VER. Though you can get some quick stall shots, it’s still not preferred unless you’re confident that you can hit the enemy in the first place.
It performs similarly to the American F4U-4B albeit being heavier and carrying more ground attack options. Though at 6.0 BR the gap is really wide thanks to monsters like the F2G, P51H, the early jets, etc. You’re still a respectable plane. I had some successes even against P-51H’s in the F4U-4B by forcing scissor fights and even winning against a 1v8+ months ago.
If you really don’t like the plane’s main style of fighting, then I recommend just skipping it or not playing it altogether.
Use MEC and spade it. It performs so much better when spaded, and it actually climbs too. It’s also incredibly good in ground RB.
If you like sim, it’s great there too.
It’s F4U-4, not 7 but 7 is better than F4U-4 and only slightly worse than 4B:
This is 4B, the -7 is slightly worse PWR (it’s a bit fatter and different engine):
First vid is a legit tutorial, second vid is mostly a montage of dogfights while learning the 4B (slightly better 7) with text commentary on his decision making. Idaho is one of the best allied pilots, so I trust his takes for dogfights.
The gist is:
Your flaps are insanely good for low-speed stability and flying.
You’re one of the fastest planes around with MEC.
You actually have a pretty good power generation compared to usual american props while WEPing, but WEP is only 15 minutes in duration.
The corsair can and will 2C fight bf109s.
Yeah I experienced that firsthand. You gain altitude while trying to land if you put the flaps down.
May I assume you don’t often play U.S. props? There are some interesting contradictions inherent in most of them.
They practically require a substantial energy advantage to get any work done… and yet they (mostly) suck at generating energy - they don’t climb well, their acceleration is sluggish. Positioning and target selection is key if you want to have any early game presence - because you will NOT have a universal energy advantage, but you may have a local one.
That energy advantage is often turned into speed for Boom and Zoom style attacks… and yet their high speed handling is (mostly) terrible. In fact, their turning generally is poor. Don’t be fooled by “good energy retention” - you don’t want to dog fight without carefully cultivating favorable conditions, because if it comes down to maneuverability… things aren’t looking good.
They excel in team play, where a pair can keep each other’s tail clear or they can attack a distracted/baited bogey… but team play is a rare thing if you aren’t in a squad.
New guy hot take: the most important skill to master in a U.S. prop is predictive aim for high deflection shots - because hitting a shot at high speed on a bogey that is halfway competent can be VERY challenging. It’s also the only shot your going to get if you want to hold onto your energy.
A skilled Yak/La/A7/Ki/JM etc. pilot wants to bait you into making a couple turns, or sometimes just one hard turn, to try and pull in for a shot you aren’t going to get… only to then realize you’re not fast enough to run, and don’t climb/accelerate well enough to escape.
The Corsair favors someone with deep enough game knowledge to understand what strength they might have against a particular plane and what the pilot of that plane is likely to do. You’ve got to think ahead… if you’re reactive, you’re going to have a rough go.
I’m not a particularly good or experienced Corsair pilot… that’s just my own self critique, really. The things I would need to do much better to be more effective in the plane.
I am grinding france so they are basically the only us props I played. The f8f is simply lovely but I used to have issues for the corsair. But now I think I learned what to do.
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You want to land very slowly. It’s a naval fighter meant to land on carriers, so it’s optimized for Short take off and landing.
One thing you can do is kick right/left rudder while tapping opposite aileron to introduce massive drag to fall out of the sky. It’s a very handy maneuver for landing on short airfields in general - its official name is “Forward Slip.”
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thanks :)
Checked manual to make sure -
you want to be approaching the airstrip/carrier at less than 170 km/h:
Only use full landing flaps if you’re going for a “minimum run” landing though, take off is sufficient for most ARB and ASB scenarios.
If you wanna nerd out. It’s for the F4U-1, so engine stuff is not very applicable but flight characteristics are similar enough.
If flying in sim, absolutely avoid over-working the throttle when landing. I went into test flight to check the speed recommended and if you are too aggressive it will spin you into the ground when you throttle up suddenly while landing.