• Wing Span: 60 in (152 cm)
• Wing Area: 552 sq in (3561 cm²)
• Length: 41.5 in. (105 cm)
• Weight: 5.5 lbs. (2.5 kg)
• Engine: .35 - .45 2 - stroke

(5.7 cc - 7.4 cc 2 - stroke)
.40 - .50 4 - stroke
(6.6 cc - 8.2 cc 4 - stroke)
• 4 Servos required

The Midwest Corsair 40 is one of three .40 sized semi-scale warbirds from Midwest intended for sport flyers. The kit includes a vacuum formed two piece cowl, canopy, control horns and bellcranks. Hinges, clevises, pushrods, and motor mounts are not included. The wood supplied was excellent and die-cutting was clean. Decal set includes stars, "this side up - this way foreword" arrows, instrument panel and kill markings. The instruction manual is very well done.

The fuselage is built as a box of interlocking lite ply. Formers are added to the top, sheeted with balsa, then capped with a 3/8" balsa at the rear and 1/4" in front. The cockpit sides are built up with pre-shaped balsa blocks. The appearance of the shaped and sanded fuselage is good and the construction is easy. The actual lite ply fuselage box is quite small, limiting the space inside for tank and radio to less than the average 40 size plane.

The wing is constructed of die-cut balsa ribs on spruce spars, without shear webs. It's built as five separate panels and joined using balsa wedge blocks to form the bends. When carved and shaped, the wedge blocks allow the sections to blend without a sharp transition point. The outside bends were easy to shape. The inner bends were a little tougher requiring that the block be trimmed with a razor plane then sanded to shape. Once shaped, the joints are fiberglassed using CA. There are no internal dihedral braces.

The wing is quite a bit of work and requires special attention. When the panels are complete, center lines are marked on the wedge blocks and panel ends. The instructions say to align these center lines and glue with CA. A couple of small errors can accumulate into a seriously misaligned panel. So instead, one wedge was glued to the center section. From there on, each wedge and panel was pinned and and the alignment was checked on a flat building board before being glued.

The other area requiring special attention is the landing gear. Although the plans show the L.G. blocks parallel to the spars, they actually sweep back a few degrees. The landing gear wires are bent without regard to this, resulting in a lot of toe out. The landing gear wires were re-bent for a little toe in. Also, as supplied, the gear is about 3/4" further foreword than shown on the plans. They can be bent back slightly to avoid ground handling problems. If the Corsair is flown off of a grass runway, this might not be necessary.

The model was covered with Hobby Lobby Superfabric and painted with dope. An OS 46-SF was installed. With the in-flight battery pack mounted under the tank, no nose weight was required for balancing.

Even with the landing gear bent back, ground handling is a bit tricky on a paved runway. A lot of right rudder is required for akeoff. With the CG set as shown on the plans, some up trim was required to fly level. The recommended elevator travel was too low. After running out of elevator on landing, the travell was increased it from 3/8" to 1/2" in both directions. The ailerons seem sensitive around neutral but full deflection rolls aren't that fast. Although it will fly very slowly, if pressed into a stall it has a tendency to drop a wing and roll over into a dive. With all that said, it's actually a nice flying airplane and quite fast. I's no pattern plane but it isn't supposed to be. Even with the limited control throws shown, it snaps and spins easily with instant recovery. Inverted flight takes only a modest amount of down elevator. Landings are easy. It slows well with power cut and can be landed at remarkably low speed. This model was flown by a novice who said it was a lot less sensitive than expected. However, it is not recommended as a second airplane.

The Midwest Corsair 40 kit contains excellent wood and instructions but does not include much hardware. This is the case with most Midwest kits. It is easy to build for an experienced modeler but attention must be given to alignment of the wing panels. Although it is not a true scale model it looks really nice when finished. It flies well and smoothly though not spectacular. It is a nice introduction to warbirds for those who would like to go on to one of the scale kits.