What was the purpose of gull wings on old fighters?

Question

What were the advantages and disadvantages of planes with gull wings like the f4U corsair?

Answer 1

The gull wings   meant a shorter wing span and hence, less space taken up on an aircraft carrier,  while still permitting maximum wing surface area. Also, the nose was higher off the flight deck, which permitted the  use of a more powerful egine and a larger propellor.

Answer 2

Inverted gull wings.  Shorter struts for the main landing gear.

Answer 3

take the high deameter propeller away from ground and keep enough wheels separation of the main gear AND to have the undercarriage robust but not too long.

the gull wing construction is technologically more expensive and more difficult, so no low cost planes were featuring this - the problem was similar to the hurricane (quazi)trapezoid vs spitfire eliptic wing - one of the reasons why at the battle of britain majority of planes involved for the british side were hurricanes. They were simply easier to build.

Answer 4

Love the question!!

The reason for the gull wings was to accomidate a large prop on a small plane. by creating a wing like the F4U's you can sit the nose of the aircraft higher off the ground making more clearance for the propeller.

Answer 5

The advantages were you could use a bigger prop to take advantage of the more powerful motor used.

The inverted Gull-wing allowed the landing gear to use the lowest possible mounting point, unlike straight wings, which didn't offer that trait. So that made it possible to use either shorter landing struts, or a bigger propellor. One of the problems with the Corsair was that the pilot was so far back, with the nose up on carriers, it was impossible to see thru the nose...so the pilots had to fishtail and look around the nose from the side some as it went side to side, to see their forward progress at slow taxiing speeds. Once lined up, and hitting the throttle, the tail would come up, and they could see over the nose finally. But it was an annoying ground handling characteristic.

- The Gremlin Guy-

Answer 6

The prop on the corsair is the largest ever fitted to a fighter. to make the planes landing gear short enough to handle the stress of carrier landings the wings were bent at the point where the landing gears are fitted on the wing. Tall landing gear is prone to breakage and the plane would point so high up as to make stowage in a carrier hangar impossible thus the bent wing was a must. The j**s had a porpedo plane called grace with the same problem. the stuka had bent wings to keep the gear short but the prop clear of the muddy strips it would have to operate from. there wasn't any disadvantages that i know of exept slowing manufacture somewhat due to more parts involved but that was no biggy.

Answer 7

The link below explains a little bit about the Corsair's

design - specifically about the 13' prop and wing design.

It also has some images of the F4U "hose-nose" as it

was called by some.

http://www.aviation-history.com/vought/f...