Warbird Information Exchange

F4U-Folks:

Many stories have been told about the final destination of the experimental Vought V-143 c. 1937. One of them, is the Vought prototype V-143 NR-56V was sold to the Japanese Gov c. 1937 for apprx $175,000.

The pic included c. June/1937 shows a profile aircraft with something similar to "gullwings" & some traces of a F4U design. But what happened to this aircraft while in Japan? Is it in a museum someplace in Japan? Photo Vought Archives.

According to Wikipedia, the V-143 was purchased by Japan, but they found it inferior to the fighters they already had in service. I would assume it was scrapped once the war broke out. In the '30s Japan bought examples of all the state-of-the-art Western aircraft they could get their hands on for study, as they were still playing catch-up in the industrialization race. This led to claims by Western propaganda that all Japanese aircraft were inferior copies of rejected Western designs. In truth, most countries "borrowed" ideas from each other, and still do. While some of Japan's WWII aircraft may have been influenced by Western designs, most of the final products were as "home grown" as any other nation's. There were some exceptions of course..the L2D "Tabby" was a Japanese version of the DC-3, which they were already building under license when the war broke out. The G5N "Liz" bomber was directly based on the Douglas DC-4E airliner, which was sold to Japan after being rejected by US airlines (not to be confused with the smaller, highly successful DC-4/C-54/R5D.) The bomber was just as much a failure at the airliner prototype on which it was based.

SN

V-143 Folks/Steve:

Good day!

Tks for the info & data! I certainly agree with you! There were a lot drawings/design borrowing in those days. The Jet engine design, the BSA motorcycle by the former USSR and so on.

Maybe will run into a Japanese forum poc that may have some shots of their R& D Dpt development phase c. 1930s! They came up with a unique design of aircraft/ amphibian type that could fold its wings, carry a torpedo, plus it could be be stowed & then be launched from a pop-open nose sub!! Yesss..these borrowing still goes on in Oct 2013! Picture below is another angle of the famous V-143 prototype. Photo via Vought Archives.








P.S Back to our V-143 , seen fm another angle. Maybe Jack Cook may have have some pics of the cabin & instruments for us!!