What Corsair Is This????

[Jack Cook]

I think I know but you try and figure it out

[RMAllnutt]

With the chin-scoop arrangement, it is either a -4 or -7 corsair. However, the antenna arrangement is one I've only seen on -7 corsairs. This most likely makes it Bu.133704 during its days outside at the Alabama memorial. The location area looks about right, but I am unsure of the concrete plinth it is mounted on. Was she ever mounted this way? Cool picture none the less, and thanks for sharing!

Cheers,
Richard

[Rogue]

I agree, at the USS Alabama. (I have a similar pic from 83-84)

It is a -7, it has the raised canopy (or lack of)

They had (have) a F6F and P-51 in similar state on cement and in salt air.
The OS2U was on the catapult.

[John Kerr]

Jack, here is the same aircraft in the same position with a coat of paint. Taken on 3 July 1974 by John R. Kerr

[APG85]

What a shame. Vintage aircraft outside in the salt air...in a hurricane prone area.

Scott

[Rob Mears]

Then of course there was the plane's complete submersion in salt water during Katrina.

Any idea what date that photo was taken Jack?

[Tom Crawford]

Per article in lastest "AC" this Corsair is actually the last surviving AU-1...

[RMAllnutt]

Per article in lastest "AC" this Corsair is actually the last surviving AU-1...

If AC said this, then they are incorrect. It is indeed the F4U-7, now housed indoors (with the salt water bath) at the Alabama Museum in Mobile, Alabama.

There are no known AU-1 survivors. This aircraft has merely been painted to represent one. The chin-scoop on the aircraft is a dead give-away that it is not an AU-1. There is a single scoop at bottom of the nose cowling, like the -4 and -7, rather than the covered-over "chipmunk-like" jowls of the AU-1... I always thought, rather comically, that the AU-1 looked like a chipmunk who'd stuffed both cheeks with nuts... silly, I know, but there you go!

Cheers,
Richard

[Tom Crawford]

Interesting.....Thanks, Tom