F4U Corsair — Handmade Metal Model Airplane, 1:31

The bent-wing bird — and the only fighter of the war whose wing shape was dictated entirely by its propeller.

Handcrafted at 1:31 on an iron frame, hand-painted with decal insignia, metal propeller and rolling wheels. The inverted gull wing is the whole point of the silhouette, and it is rendered properly here.

Details

• 1:31 scale, 100% iron frame
• Metal propeller
• Landing wheels that roll
• Hand-painted with decal insignia
• Inverted gull wing, canopy and tail detail
• Ready to display

The aircraft

Vought fitted the largest propeller ever put on a fighter — over 13 feet — which meant the undercarriage had to be long enough to keep it off the ground. Long legs are weak legs, so instead they bent the wing downward at the root and mounted the gear at the lowest point. The result cleared the propeller with short, strong struts.

The Navy initially judged it too difficult to land on carriers and handed it to the Marines for land operations. The Fleet Air Arm worked out the approach technique first — a curving turn that kept the deck in view past that enormous nose — and the Corsair went to sea after all. It ended the war with a kill ratio above 11 to 1.