 A FG-1D was recovered from Lake Washington and placed in the Seattle Flight Museum There
are a number of
Corsairs in Lake Washington including one
which was recovered, resorted.
The Corsair is one of the worlds most distinctive looking fighters. The inverted gull-wing is it's most identifiable characteristic. The Corsair was developed at the beginning of 1938, at the request of the U.S. Navy, which ordered the construction of the prototype of a new single-seat carrier-based fighter with advanced characteristics.  There
were 34 F4U-2's built for the U.S. Navy, 32 of
them being produced by the Naval Aircraft Factory and two converted by
VMF(N)-532. The biggest change from the -1 model
was the RADAR
radome added to the starboard wing. Other changes included the
deletion
of the starboard outboard .50 caliber machine gun to offset the weight
of the
radome, as well as flame dampeners on the engine exhausts and two under
fuselage antennae.
 The
F4U was nicknamed,
"whistling death" by the Japanese because of the sound the oil cooler
vanes made. In later stages of the war, the Corsair was armed with
weapons
ranging from 500 to 1,000lb bombs, 20mm cannon, and napalm.
 The
Corsair scored a number
of Navy firsts. It was the first Navy single engine fighter to fly over
400
miles an hour. The Corsair also set a record for payload, when Charles
Lindbergh took off with a 4,000lb payload; the heaviest flown by a
single
engine aircraft at that point in WWII.
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