We have a full restock on the Academy 1/48 F4U-4B Corsair Fighter

This 1/48 F4U-4B Corsair represents one of the cannon-equipped Corsairs which provided great firepower for supporting ground operations.

F4U Corsairs have a distinctive and ingenious gull-shaped wing design, which serves three purposes. First, it enables the wings to fold upward which allowed more aircraft to be stored on the flight decks and hangars of the small aircraft carriers of the time. Second, the wing design resulted in a shorter and stronger landing gear strut to withstand the tremendous shock loads resulting from carrier landings. Finally, it provided ground clearance for the thirteen-foot diameter, four bladed propeller. The F4U model 4B was built under the U.S. government’s “Lend-Lease” program for the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm. The F4U-4B was equipped with four 20-mm cannons instead of 50-calibre machine guns (used in the early F4U-4 production) and eight 5-inch rockets under wings or up to 4,000 pounds of bombs on centerline and pylon racks. This made it an ideal platform to provide ground support of troops in the invasion of Japanese held Pacific Islands and also as an air superiority fighter aircraft.