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The F8F-2 Bearcat

Probably the single best Propeller driven fighter of World War II, The Grumman F-8-F Bearcat remains an aviation legend that never happened. The final refinement of the single-engine Grumman Navy fighters, the Bearcat had outstanding performance for a piston-powered fighter.



Grumman’s single-engine, single-seat Navy fighter line began with the F-2-F and F-3F biplanes (Yes, there was an FF-1 but it was a two seater.) The F-3-F is shown in photo 1. This series first flew in 1933 using a 625 HP engine. The F-3-F hit a top speed of 231 MPH and could, maybe with a light weight pilot, reach 28,500 ft., taking about a month to get there. The Navy was very happy with this fighter series and its performance was very good for its time. In fact, it was better than contemporaneous Army fighters. Still, the Navy asked for something better in 1935.



Grumman responded by taking the F-3F, removing the two wings and replacing them with a single wing in the middle of the fuselage. Pretty simple and, all things considered, cost effective. Of course, when the F-4-F Wildcat first flew in 1937, more powerful engines were available and Grumman put a 1,050 HP engine in the nose. Otherwise, the two aircraft were similar.

The Wildcat was our frontline Navy fighter at the start of WW II. Its 332 MPH top speed, 35,000 ft. ceiling and 2,500 fpm climb rate helped it to hold the line against the Japanese Zeros and Ki-43 Oscars. Both Japanese aircraft were more maneuverable than the Wildcat, but not as tough and did not have the same firepower that the six (eventually) Browning 50-caliber machine guns gave the Wildcat.



Since the Wildcat seemed to be working out, the Navy ordered a new version in March, 1941 (before the War started). Not wanting to give up a good thing, Grumman added four feet to the Wildcat’s wingspan and five feet to the fuselage’s length, put the wheels in the wings where they belonged all along, added a 1,700 HP engine and called it the F-6-F Hellcat. But before the Hellcat’s first flight on June 26, 1942, the fates allowed Grumman a giant advantage.

In an attempt to destroy the US Navy before new ships could be added to the fleet, the Japanese Fleet attacked Midway Island on June 2-4, 1942. They should have stayed home. Unstoppable up to this battle, the Japanese Navy lost four large carriers, over 250 aircraft, their best pilots and the battle. They actually lost the war at this point but it took three more terrible years for that to prove out.
Almost as disastrous for them, they lost a fully flyable Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 21 Zero when one of their pilots attempted an emergency landing during their diversionary attack on the Aleutians Island chain near Alaska. The pilot landed gear down in soft soil and was killed, but the plane was easily repaired.

Grumman got the Zero for tests, flew it and then redesigned the Hellcat specifically to out fly the Zero. The redesigned Hellcat ended the war as the most successful US fighter, destroying 5,156 Japanese aircraft in air-to-air combat plus thousands more on the ground. The Hellcat could reach speeds of 375 MPH and altitudes above 37,000 ft. It had a high climb rate over 3,500 fpm.



As was its way, the Navy then told Grumman, “hey, good airplane but can’t you make it better?” Not wanting to change things too much, Grumman had to think about it for a while. Engine power had increased a little, but the days of quantum leaps from 600 to 1,700 HP were over. The best engines suitable for sea duty were only reaching 2,100 HP and the latest Hellcat already had this engine installed.

Also not wanting to lose a big Navy contract, Grumman finally decided that, if they could not make the engine more powerful, they would shrink the airplane. So they did. They designed an airplane with a wing span three feet less than the Wildcat and just about as long. They stuffed the massive 2,100 HP engine into this tiny airplane and let it loose.

The results, from first flight on August 13, 1944, to fleet service with VF-19 in May 1945, showed that nothing could touch a Bearcat. With a top speed of 447 MPH and a ceiling over 41,000 ft., not even the early jets could stay with a Bearcat in a maximum performance climb. Production climb rate was better than 6,000 fpm, the best of any piston-engine fighter.

Even more impressive, because of its small size, the Bearcat could out turn any allied fighter and even would turn with an A6M5 Type 52 Zero. With its fast speed, great acceleration and high climb rate, the Bearcat was the definitive answer to the Japanese Kamikaze threat.

But we will never know how well the F-8-F could have done because, thankfully, the War ended while VF-19 was on its way to the combat zone. The Bearcat never had a chance to confront the enemy it was designed to defeat. So lesser fighters are now better remembered simply because they got there in time to fight. And the Bearcat is just a footnote in the annals of WW II.
How well it would have done in combat remains an open question. The French used the Bearcat in Southeast Asia, but only as a fighter-bomber, a roll for which it was never designed and really not suitable. The Bearcat was the first air-superiority fighter, not a ground attack airplane.

But several facts point to an eventual Bearcat success. The Bearcat remained as the Navy’s frontline fighter into 1952. Why? Because it out-flew and-out fought the early F-1 Phantom and Banshee jets. Only the Saber Jet, in its J4 Fury version, could finally catch the Bearcat. Even so, a lightened version of the F-8-F held the “time to climb” record from the ground to 10,000 ft. until the mid-sixties. The Bearcat went from a standing start on the runway to 10,000 ft. in 90 seconds. This rush to altitude was faster than the F-104, the F-100, the F-102 and all the other early supersonic fighters could manage. It took a stripped down version of the F-4 Phantom to finally match the Bearcat’s climb rate and then by just a few seconds.



The Bearcat was too good an aircraft not to enter the civilian market. In fact, Grumman actually produced a civilian version. Most of these went into air racing as shown in photo 5 above. In fact, the Bearcat remains in competition today, notably as the “Rare Bear” Racer and has won its fair share of Unlimited, Reno-style air races throughout the years.

As to the contest clues:

“The Grumman F8F, flown by "The Red Rippers" Squadron, remained in production even after WW II ended:"" The emblem on the airplane’s engine cowling states it belongs to the “Red Rippers” Squardron. That is a fairly good clue to the F-8-F’s identity.

“The Grumman F6F Hellcat fuselage was fat, tall and lumpy compared to the F8F's. It also had big oil cooler air intake slots under the cowling." The pictured aircraft has no oil cooler space under the cowling like the Hellcat in photo 3. The fuselage is anything but lumpy for a radial-engine fighter.

"The Grumman F7F was a twin-engine Navy fighter."
This aircraft has only one engine so that eliminates the F-7-F as a candidate.

“The Brewster Buffalo's wheels folded into the fuselage and remained visible even when retracted.”
It is fairly obvious that no wheels are visible in the pictured airplane’s fuselage. This eliminates the Buffalo.

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