The Corsair’s Big Nose

This Aircraft Was a Beast!

It wouldn’t take long for someone to figure out one major flaw with the Corsair. Once seated inside the Corsair’s cockpit, you can clearly see the sheer size of its nose.

The aircraft’s huge nose caused a lot of issues during its earlier days. Landings on aircraft carriers require the pilot to see what’s in front of them – and with the Corsair being a carrier-based aircraft, you can assume how hard that was for the pilots to operate.

Fortunately, the British would figure out how to land on carriers more effectively. Rather than coming straight in and landing, British pilots would “crab it in”, coming in at the last minute to straighten and land. This, in turn, made the Corsair an actual functional carrier aircraft instead of a hypothetical one.