Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan_Cunningham
Concur. I think the reason you see so many more Mustangs, Spitfires, and Corsairs is largely because people recognized early on how beautiful and unique they were when compared to other aircraft of the time and made it a point to keep them.
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The Mustang and Corsair stayed in inventory longer because they were also good ground attack platforms. A bit like the F4 Phantom had long inventory times because it was versatile. The Hellcat was a great adversary to the Japanese planes and freed the Corsair to carry the ground attack role and overcome its carrier teething problems. There were many Japanese pilots met their end thinking the Hellcat was a Wildcat due to the similar shapes and fighting them in the vertical.