F4U gun barrels--inside wings?

[Stephan Wilkinson]

I know this is a model-building question, but I need info from somebody who actually knows Corsairs, not a best-guess modeler.

I'm building a high-quality 1:32-scale F4U model, and the ordnance inside the wings is highly detailed and assumedly accurate--receivers, barrels, cartridge belts, cartridge chutes and all the rest.

Question: the barrels of the model's .50-cals end well inside the wing--I'm guessing from six to 18 inches behind the leading edge, depending on which of the staggered guns it is. Obviously a gun can be rigged to shoot through a two-inch hole in the leading edge of an F4U witrhout any problem, but it would seem to me that having all of that corrosive muzzle blast left -inside- the wing would not be a good thing. Nor can I imagine having six fair-size holes in a leading edge is aerodynamically useful. Is this model inaccurate, or is that the way F4U gun barrels actually were mounted?

[Jerry O'Neill]

Be careful. The Corsair in the thread listed above is an F4U-5N which is a post war variant of the Corsair and does indeed have the 20mm guns protruding from the wings. Only the cannon armed Corsairs had that protrusion of the gun barrels.

If the model you are building is a six gun, 50 Caliber model from the WWII era, then the guns do not protrude. There is a smooth "channel" around the barrels that curves around from the leading edge of the wing, but the barrels do not stick out.

Here's a link to Vintage Wings of Canada's FG-1D showing the three gun ports on on wing. You can see the barrels, but they stay within the wing.
http://www.williammaloney.com/Aviation/ ... ngGuns.htm

I believe the F4U-1C was the only 20mm cannon armed version mass produced during the war (about 200 built if I recall) and they had the cannon barrels protruding.
I hope this helps.

Jerry

[Stephan Wilkinson]

Jerry, your picture exactly matches my model, so what I need to add to it is the blast tubes that keep the muzzle gases from simply going into the wing.

I'd been aware of that F4U-7 Meiermotors thread but also knew they were 20mms.

As for the barrels not being 18" aft of the trailing edge, I suspect that the outboard barrel is pretty close to that; you can't even see it in the Maloney photo. My WAG was 6", 12" and 18" for the three staggered barrels, and I think that's close enough for gummint work.

I'm guessing those "open" blast-tube holes were the reason the Corsair got the nickname "Whistling Death"; they'd probably have played a pretty colorful melody at speed.

[steve dickey]

I hate doing this but these are scanned from a book.





You can clearly see the staggered barrels from the leading edge view.
Majority of the time the ports were covered up with tape to keep the dust out and then also to see if all the guns fired when they returned from a mission.

[RMAllnutt]

As has been stated already, the 50 cal. versions of the Corsairs had their gun barrels slightly inside the leading edge of the wing. There is a stainless steel blast tube which shrougs the barrel and runs from the leading edge of the wing right up to the front of the main spar. As you can see in the photos already shown, there is a stainless steel fairing surrounding the gun muzzle and covering part of the leading edge as well. This is sometimes painted over, and sometimes not. Royal Navy corsairs often faired over the leading edge with fabric to improve the aerodynamics a bit (the bullets would obviously penetrate this when fired). I don't know whether other armed forces did the same thing though.

Also, there is a fabric sleave which covers the gun barrel and mates with the rear face of the main wing spar in the ammo bay area. Presumably, this is to limit/prevent gun exhaust and water etc. from entering the gun bay area, but perhaps there is another purpose for it? You should be able to see these in the photos of the gun bay from the book presented earlier, but that particular Corsair does not appear to have them installed for whatever reason (an operational Corsair would certainly have had these fitted though).

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Richard

[Cherrybomber13]

That fabric sleeve is an asbestos sock with a metal ring which attaches to the rear of the wing spar / gun bay. The top is gathered and sewn with an internal spring to seal around the barrel. No doubt this is why most restorations don't have this detail added.

[Jerry O'Neill]

I trust the Stratford FG-1D restoration will have one! Of course, hopefully not made of asbestos!
Jerry

[Anthony Svihlik]

A couple of pictures of the Collings Foundation Corsair for reference.

Anthony