"vincent p. norris" wrote:

Anyone here old enough to know the take-of distance of an F4U under
ordinary circumstances? (i.e., not loaded to the gills with ammo,
drop tanks, bombs, etc)

For a clean early (no Water inj.) F4U-1 with full internal fuel (incl.
wing tanks), oil and ammo weighing 12,676lb., 750 feet at sea level, Hard
surface, ISA and no wind. This from Dean's "America's Hundred Thousand",
based on the flight manual and USN flight test data.

He gives 840 feet for the F4U-1D (12,289 lb.). Assuming that's not a
typo, the extra t/o run despite the lighter weight is presumably due to
the fitment of the stall strip on the starboard wing, as that apparently
decreased the max. lift coefficient considerably.

I have the S.A.C. chart for the F4U-4, but unfortunately it doesn't show
data for a clean a/c mission. The lightest mission shown is with a 150
gal. drop tank (900 lb. of fuel plus the weight of the tank), at a gross
weight of 13,597 lb. In that configuration, t/o distance from a deck in
zero wind takes 790 feet; with 25 knots wind it's 377 feet. Presumably
t/o from an airfield would be somewhat longer. Dean shows a clean F4U-4
(12,281 lb.) needing 630 feet, which seems reasonable. I'm guessing all
of Dean's figures are for deck T/Os.

How about landing roll?

Sorry, no info.

(I realize the answers vary by altitude, temperature, wind, etc., but
would like just a "round number" answer.)

Zeno's warbird site used to have the F4U-1 takeoff and climb chart (along
with several others for it and other a/c) online as viewable/downloadable
pdf files. They tend to be a bit hard to find on the site, as they're
pushing videos, but you can usually locate them with a bit of looking.
If you can't find it, I can email you the file.

Can anyone provide the same info for an F-4?

From the USAF SAC chart for the F-4C, T/O ground run with 4 x AIM-7s and
three tanks is 3,380 feet. In ferry config. with 3 tanks and no ordnance
it's 3,120 feet. The slightly lighter F-4D is 3,360 and 3,090 feet, for
the same configs, and the (probably unslatted) F-4E is 3,490 and 3,230
feet. Losing the tanks saves 9,575lb., but I don't have any data on t/o
distance at that weight. It's kind of moot, though, because F-4s just
don't go anywhere without external fuel.

Guy