Restored Corsair Fighter Plane Joins USS Midway Museum Collection

Friday, 13 November 2009
Contact: Dale Frost (619) 686-6222

Visitors to the USS Midway Museum can get a close-up view of a restored F4U-4 Corsair, a rare signature fighter plane. The recently donated Corsair now joins 25 other aircraft on display at the aircraft carrier museum.

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During a Veteran’s Day ceremony, the 33-foot-long fighter plane transited San Diego Bay, traveling by barge from its North Island restoration facility to the USS Midway Museum along the North Embarcadero. A crane gently lifted the aircraft onto the bow of the flight deck.

“It didn’t fly here,” USS Midway volunteer and safety officer Rudy Labastida said the day after its arrival as he stood near the meticulously restored plane, answering questions for the many visitors drawn to the new display.

The restored Corsair has the markings of Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-225 as it would have looked in 1952 for a deployment aboard the USS Midway.

The Corsair was in production longer than any other aircraft in World War II and was then considered the best fighter-based aircraft in the world. It was also used during the Korean Conflict.

“It was a very effective fighter and attack plane,” said USS Midway Museum docent Dick Bradley, a retired U.S. Navy lieutenant and pilot who flew single-engine prop planes and anti-submarine warfare helicopters during the 1950s and 1960s.

The Corsair’s are now rare because so many World War II planes were lost in training missions.  According to USS Midway Museum President and CEO Mac McLaughlin, the bottom of Lake Michigan is home to many Corsairs that crashed during training missions.

The F4U-4 Corsair was one of the first aircraft to exceed 400 miles per hour in level flight, assuring a prominent place in aircraft carrier operations even after the introduction of jet aircraft.

Production of F4U-4 Corsair’s ended in 1952, a dozen years after the prototype first took flight.

More than 4 million people have visited the USS Midway Museum since it opened in 2004, making it the most-visited floating ship museum in the world.

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