Powered by a 500 hp (370 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-1340D Wasp 9-cylinder air-cooled radial engine driving a two-bladed fixed-pitch propeller.

This was actually an O3U-3 Corsair featuring that model's rounded fin and rudder, an all-metal wing structure,[7] and was fitted with a cowled Pratt & Whitney R-1535 Twin Wasp Junior, and first flew in June 1932.

[8] Aviation historian William T. Larkins observes that under the designation system the XO4U-2 should have been a minor modification of the XO4U-1.

Initially trapped in the cockpit by the inertia of the spin, he escaped to parachute safely as the airframe came down.

Part of these tests were to evaluate the cooling of the Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp radial engine, while others dealt with the relation of the slipstream to stability and control.