Question: When did the plane that the Vought XF8U-3 Crusader II was designed to compete against enter service with the U.S. Navy?

Context articles: USS North Carolina (BB-55)
Vought XF5U
McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II
Vought F4U Corsair
SM U-41 (Austria-Hungary)
Grumman S-2 Tracker
Vought XF8U-3 Crusader III
Vought F7U Cutlass
Vought
Kenneth Whiting

USS "North Carolina" (BB-55) was the lead ship of "North Carolina"-class battleship s and the fourth warship in the U.S. Navy to be named for the State of North Carolina.
 She was the first newly constructed American battleship to enter service during World War II, and took part in every major naval offensive in the Pacific Theater of Operations; her 15 battle stars made her the most decorated American battleship of World War II.
 She is now a museum ship and memorial kept at the seaport of Wilmington, North Carolina.
The Vought XF5U "Flying Flapjack" was an experimental U.S. Navy fighter aircraft designed by Charles H. Zimmerman for Vought during World War II.
 This unorthodox design consisted of a flat, somewhat disc-shaped body (hence its name) serving as the lifting surface.
 Two piston engines buried in the body drove propellers located on the leading edge at the wingtips.
The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is a tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber originally developed for the United States Navy by McDonnell Aircraft.
 It first entered service in 1960 with the U.S. Navy.
 Proving highly adaptable, it was also adopted by the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Air Force, and by the mid-1960s had become a major part of their air wings.
The Vought F4U Corsair is an American fighter aircraft that saw service primarily in World War II and the Korean War.
 Demand for the aircraft soon overwhelmed Vought's manufacturing capability, resulting in production by Goodyear and Brewster: Goodyear-built Corsairs were designated FG and Brewster-built aircraft F3A.
 From the first prototype delivery to the U.S. Navy in 1940, to final delivery in 1953 to the French, 12,571 F4U Corsairs were manufactured, in 16 separate models, in the longest production run of any piston-engined fighter in U.S. history (1942–53).
SM "U-41 or U-XLI" was a "U-27" class U-boat or submarine for the Austro-Hungarian Navy.
 "U-41", built by the Austrian firm of Cantiere Navale Triestino (CNT) at the Pola Navy Yard, was launched in November 1917.
 When she was commissioned in February 1918, she became the last boat of her class to enter service.
 She was also the last domestically constructed Austro-Hungarian U-boat to enter service.
The Grumman S-2 Tracker (S2F prior to 1962) was the first purpose-built, single airframe anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft to enter service with the United States Navy.
 Designed and initially built by Grumman, the Tracker was of conventional design — propeller-driven with twin radial engines, a high wing that could be folded for storage on aircraft carriers, and tricycle undercarriage.
 The type was exported to a number of navies around the world.
 Introduced in 1952, the Tracker and its E-1 Tracer derivative saw service in the U.S. Navy until the mid-1970s, and its C-1 Trader derivative until the mid-1980s, with a few aircraft remaining in service with other air arms into the 21st century.
 Argentina and Brazil are the last countries to still use the Tracker.
The Vought XF8U-3 Crusader III was an aircraft developed by Chance Vought as a successor to the successful Vought F-8 Crusader program and as a competitor to the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II.
 Though based in spirit on the F8U-1 and F8U-2, and sharing the older aircraft's designation in the old Navy system, the two aircraft shared few parts.
The Vought F7U Cutlass was a United States Navy carrier-based jet fighter and fighter-bomber of the early Cold War era.
 It was a highly unusual, semi-tailless design, allegedly based on aerodynamic data and plans captured from the German Arado company at the end of World War II, though Vought designers denied any link to the German research at the time.
 The F7U was the last aircraft designed by Rex Beisel, who was responsible for the first fighter ever designed specifically for the U.S. Navy, the Curtiss TS-1 of 1922.
Vought is the name of several related aerospace firms.
 These have included, in the past, Lewis and Vought Corporation, Chance Vought, Vought-Sikorsky, LTV Aerospace (part of Ling-Temco-Vought), Vought Aircraft Companies, and the current Vought Aircraft Industries.
 The first incarnation of Vought was established by Chance M. Vought and Birdseye Lewis in 1917.
 In 1928, it was acquired by United Aircraft and Transport Corporation, which a few years later became United Aircraft Corporation; this was the first of many reorganizations and buyouts.
 During the 1920s and 1930s, Vought Aircraft and Chance Vought specialized in carrier-based aircraft for the United States Navy, by far its biggest customer.
 Chance Vought produced thousands of planes during World War II, including the F4U Corsair.
 Vought became independent again in 1954, and was purchased by Ling-Temco-Vought in 1961.
 The company designed and produced a variety of planes and missiles throughout the Cold War.
 Vought was sold from LTV and owned in various degrees by the Carlyle Group and Northrop Grumman in the early 1990s.
 It was then fully bought by Carlyle, renamed Vought Aircraft Industries, with headquarters in Dallas, Texas.
 In June 2010, the Carlyle Group sold Vought to the Triumph Group.
Kenneth Whiting (22 July 1881 – 24 April 1943) was a United States Navy officer who was a pioneer in submarines and is best known for his lengthy career as a pioneering naval aviator.
 During World War I, he commanded the first American military force to arrive in Europe for combat.
 After the war, he was instrumental in development of the aircraft carrier in the United States, where he sometimes is known as the U.S. Navy' s "father of the aircraft carrier."
 He was involved in some way in the design or construction of five of the first six U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, and served as acting commanding officer of the first carrier to enter U.S. Navy service and as executive officer of the first two American carriers.
 In the earliest days of the U.S. Navy' s development of an aircraft carrier force, he led many shipboard innovations still in use aboard carriers today.