Corsairs over Korea

[NARSES2]

With the end of the war in the Pacific and the winding down of the once powerful British Pacific Fleet the U.K. Government faced a dilemma. A fairly large proportion of the B.P.F.'s aircraft complement had been US designed and built, supplied under Lend Lease. With the end of the war this agreement had been terminated and H.M.G. faced the prospect of paying for the aircraft or returning them, in reality this meant throwing them overboard as the U.S.N. neither wanted nor needed them.

After some debate and considerable pressure from the U.K. aircraft industry the government came to what was a fairly pragmatic compromise agreement. The Home and Mediterranean Fleets would operate U.K. built aircraft whilst the much smaller Far East Fleet operating in close co-operation with the U.S. Pacific Fleet would operate American built aircraft. The balance of payments problems this might cause were partly met by U.S. forces based in the U.K. purchasing some locally manufactured equipment such as twin seat Vampires and Meteors which were used for liaison and other second line roles.

This decision was a practical one from the F.A.A.'s point of view as it meant that any spares and maintenance problems were eased considerably as it could share U.S.N. resources rather than set up its own long logistical tail. Whilst all this was supposed to be conducted on a strictly business basis in reality many items were borrowed or sometimes swapped, the U.S.N.'s dry ship policy proving very conducive to barter. All newly appointed F.A.A. officers were encouraged to get to know their U.S.N./Marine Corps counterparts; it would come in handy during a time of severe austerity for post war Britain.

As far as aircraft went this meant that the Avenger was retained in the TB/DB/LB/ASW roles whilst the fighter/fighter bomber role was given to the Corsair. However by this time most of the existing Corsair's were a little war weary and the decision was taken to equip with the new Goodyear F2G-1 Super Corsair. This was known in the F.A.A. as the Corsair Mk V (from 1949 as the Corsair SF -Strike Fighter - 5).

The F2G-1 had been ordered by both the U.S.M.C. and the U.S.N. but with the end of the war orders had been scaled back and indeed the U.S.N. had cancelled its order completely.  However Goodyear had already constructed the first tranche of the Navy's order, thus after some haggling 50 brand new Super Corsair's were delivered to Singapore where they were brought up to Royal Navy standards at a facility especially build and operated by the Blackburn Aircraft company. This facility would latter grow into what is now known as The Singapore Aerospace Company. These changes included the installation of British radio equipment; spotters will note the different aerial fits between British and U.S. aircraft, clipping the wing tips by 4" in order to fit the smaller British carrier lifts and the fitting of 4 x 20mm cannon rather than the standard 6 x 0.5" mgs as fitted to U.S. operated aircraft. They were also modified so that they could carry both British and U.S. ordnance but by far the most noticeable change was the repaint given to the aircraft which saw them turned out in standard R.N. extra Dark Sea Grey over Sky.

So here we have a Corsair SF 5 of 802 Sqd. F.A.A. aboard H.M.S. Ocean in the summer of 1953 off the coast of Korea. She wears the standard I.D. stripes applied to all F.A.A. aircraft as despite using U.S. aircraft there had still been a few blue on blue engagements in the early part of the conflict, indeed one Avenger had been lost. Once the R.A.F. came into theatre with its Vampires all British aircraft in the zone of operations carried these stripes, just in case. She carries the normal mixed load of 8 rockets on 4 twin mounts and 2 napalm tanks which was found the best fit for some of ground support missions undertaken that didn't  require particularly long journeys to and from the area of operations.

The kit is the Special Hobby one and as mentioned in my blog is a bit of a curate's egg. Overall it's a nice build but some of the use of resin and etch does have you scratching your head wondering why ? The resin wheel well inserts in particular defeated me, as they would most I feel - life isn't long enough. I also opted out of fitting the 16 individual resin rocket stubs, whence the use of British double racks from the spares box.  The napalm tanks are from an old Airfix Helldiver; they are meant to be drop tanks but looked far more lethal than that to me. It's finished with my usual mix of paints, the main colours being Xtracrylic for the sky and Lifecolor for the E.D.S.G. all topped off with Humbrol satin varnish from a spray can. The minimalist F.A.A. markings are lifted in their entirety from the Trumpeter Sea Fury kit including the I.D. stripes which fitted surprisingly well. However I'm not entirely sure about the colour of the roundels ?

So there it is. An enjoyable project overall and I have another in the stash. R.N.Z.A.F. in my extended war scenario ?

[Go4fun]

That is a beauty.

[Dizzyfugu]

Nice one! Pretty sister of mine  :

[JayBee]

Wonderfull, Chris.
I have only one gripe, should have been Thesius, my Dad's old ship. 

Jim

[PR19_Kit]

That's DAMN good Chris! 

I can't recall ever seeing a Super Corsair built up before and it might persuade me to start work on a French conversion I've had for many years now.

I rather like the little snippets you added in the backstory, like the USAF Meteor T7s and Vampire T11s and the RAF Vampires in Korea too. Bags of scope there.....

[rickshaw]

That's really nice, Chris.  Looks the part and the back story is well done too!   

[NARSES2]

Thanks Gents

I rather like the little snippets you added in the backstory, like the USAF Meteor T7s and Vampire T11s and the RAF Vampires in Korea too. Bags of scope there.....

One or perhaps both of those Vampire ideas may get built 

Wonderfull, Chris.
I have only one gripe, should have been Thesius, my Dad's old ship. 

Jim

I had the markings for Ocean handy but Thesius is planned for a future build as are a couple of builds for Indefatigable - my dad's old ship 

[kitnut617]

Love your Super Corsair Chris      I've got one of the Xotic kits in the stash and always wondered what I could do with it, good RCN candidate I think --

[Martin H]

That's DAMN good Chris! 

I can't recall ever seeing a Super Corsair built up before and it might persuade me to start work on a French conversion I've had for many years now.

You mean You've never seen this one on the stand?

I built this one just after MPM-Special Hobby released the kit

No where near as good as Chris's one thou 

[Army of One]

Chris.......what an awesome build......i love the kit and I really want to do an aircraft....(not sure what.....) in those colours.....

[PR19_Kit]

You mean You've never seen this one on the stand?

<snip>

I built this one just after MPM-Special Hobby released the kit

No where near as good as Chris's one thou 

I must have missed it, and it looks good too. There's something about a Super Corsair that's just so right.

[sandiego89]

Great result! Those stripes turned out well, and I too am surprised coming from the sea fury kit, well done. Proving once again anything looks great in Fleet air arm EDSG, well perhaps with the exception of the Seamew, and you can't blame the paint there.

Nice job.

[PR19_Kit]

....well perhaps with the exception of the Seamew, and you can't blame the paint there.

ROTFL! 

I'm not even sure that Metalflake and custom paint work could improve the looks of a Seamew! 

I really MUST try and do something with my Magna Seamew kit, although I'm darned if I can think what.

[rickshaw]

Build it, Kit?   

[PR19_Kit]

Build it, Kit?   

Have you ever tried a Magna kit? 

They're slightly better than a Unicraft, but not much. There's a LOT of prep work needed and I don't have a band saw, pneumatic chisel or belt sander handy right now.