Mission Completed

At United Aircraft's Chance Vought plant in Dallas last week, the end of an aviation era was marked. The company announced that the last propeller-driven fighter to be made in the U.S. was off the production line. It was the 12,571st Corsair, a descendant of the planes once flown from Guadalcanal to the Inland Sea by such hot pilots as Marine "Pappy" Boyington and the Navy's "Ike" Kepford. Corsairs, with their inverted gull wings, were the first fighters to exceed 400 m.p.h.; during World War II they splashed a total of 2,140 enemy aircraft, v. a Corsair loss of but 189. With its Corsair mission completed, Chance Vought will now concentrate most of its production on the jet-powered F-7U Cutlass, a Navy fighter in the 650-m.p.h. class.

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