Vought O4U Corsair

The Vought O4U Corsair was the designation applied to two different experimental biplane scout-observation aircraft, neither of which reached production or entered regular service. The United States Navy ordered the type in 1930 as the third of its lightweight observation designs, alongside the Keystone XOK-1 and the Berliner-Joyce XOJ-1. The XO4U-1, built in 1931, was Vought's first airplane with a deep monocoque two-place fuselage and had a metal and fabric covered metal wing structure, powered by a 500 horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-1340D Wasp radial. It first flew in February 1931 and crashed on 28 February when test pilot Carl Harper could not recover from a spin and had to parachute out. The second airframe, the XO4U-2, was in effect an O3U-3 Corsair with a cowled Twin Wasp Junior engine that first flew in June 1932 and was tested in the NACA full scale wind tunnel at Langley in 1933.