What's So Special About The Bearcat?

[Cobra]

Well, I read on a cocktail napkin once that the Saturn V was based on the JU-52.

[Pongo]

Testy.
Your picture was way more informative then your blab. Obviosly the plane does not even resemble a 190. The rest of your tiresome crap just obscured that.

[GRUNHERZ]

HI

Westy, maybe my saying "based" was too strong a word for the touchy attitude in here, "strongly influenced by" would have been better. Read this over and please say that it wasnt influenced by the 190 design.

1) The cheif designer responsible for the Bearcat goes to England and test flies the 190, and is very impressed. He says " If we put an R2800 in this thing we would have a world beater"
2) He goes back to the US, and lobbies at Grumman to have the plane designed. This means there was no specific company policy or requirement for a Bearcat type plane.
3) The plane is built and first flies August 44, just by coincidence it happends to be within inches of the 190 in every major dimensions.

So the cheif designer of Bearcat is greatly impressed by 190, says it would be best figher if it had R2800, then goes to USA, lobbies himslef to design a plane with dimensions almost exactly that of 190 with an R2800, and builds the plane.  Of course it wont look like 190 hes a Grumman dsigner and he incorporatded traditional Grumman design ques.  But to say that the Bearcat design wasnt directly influenced by the 190 is simply ignoring the facts and the designers own actions and words. If you cant accept that Westy, I dont think there is any use to discuss anything any more with you.

thanks GRUNHERZ

[Westy]

"If you cant accept that Westy, I dont think there is any use to discuss anything any more with you."

 Fine with me. End of discussion.

-Westy

[SnakeEyes]

Westy, the F8F probably was "inspired by" the FW190.  Hell, the 190 was a revolutionary aircraft, and many a/c that followed took inspiration from it.  However, it is equally true that the F8F was inspired by the idea of improving upon, and lightening, the F6F to create an aircraft that had incredible performance.

PS - Whoever asked what made the F8F so outstanding should consider the following three things:  1) It could outaccelerate virtually anything under 20K; 2) It could outclimb any WW2-era aircraft I know of up to 10K (and perhaps 20K, not sure tho); 3) Look at that visibility!!  And I'll betcha it had a humpin' rollrate.  

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SnakeEyes
o-o-o-
=4th Fighter Group=

[This message has been edited by SnakeEyes (edited 10-29-2000).]

[SnakeEyes]

 http://rwebs.net/ghostsqd/f8f.htm
 http://home.att.net/~C.C.Jordan/Grumman.html

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SnakeEyes
o-o-o-
=4th Fighter Group=

[Fishu]

Blah..  just put it in and thats it, there isn't any hope for historically accurate game anyway anymore; so no loss.

[J_A_B]

Getting back to the original point of this thread:

The F8F would be uber for this reason:

In AH, a lot of people already call the N1K2 "uber".  Compared to the N1K2, the F8F is 50 MPH faster, accelerates a LOT better, turns at least as well (maybe better), and has 1000 FPM more climbrate.  

If the N1K2 is good enough for people to call it "uber", then the F8F would be

"The Incredible ungodly kill-all emperor superfighter of certain death"

Yes, the F8F rocks.

J_A_B

[Zigrat]

I love the bearcat. It looks so awesome and was such a fantastic design. I would not mind having it as a perk. IMHO it is one of teh most beautiful american ww2 designs.

[juzz]

 

The Grumman F6F Hellcat entered service with the US Navy in late 1943 and had proved itself more than a match for Japan's A6M Zero. The Navy realized, however, that an even higher performance design would eventually be needed to replace the Hellcat.


Curtiss and Boeing each submitted designs, designated the XF14C and XF7B respectively, both of which were much larger and heavier than the Hellcat. The Curtiss design was to be powered by a new Lycoming XH-2740-4 24-cylinder, liquid cooled engine, initially rated at 2,200 hp, but the engine was not produced. A Wright R-3350-16 of 2,300 hp with turbo-supercharger was then fitted in the XF14C-2. Empty weight of the Curtiss was over 10,500 pounds. The Boeing XF8B-1 was powered by a Pratt & Whitney XR-4360-10 28-cylinder, four-row radial 3,000 hp, then the worldâs largest aircraft engine, and was even heavier, with an empty weight of over 14,000 lbs.

Grumman, however, favored a lighter and more maneuverable design, more like the German Focke Wulf 190 -- a captured example having been flown by Grumman test pilot Bob Hall in England. The resulting Grumman design, the XF8F-1, weighed only 7,017 pounds empty and was sometimes described as the smallest airframe built around the most powerful, fully developed engine, a real "hot-rod."

from this page.

It's highly unlikely there was any design influence, it's more in the concept of the plane. Ie: Small airframe with a 2000HP radial in it. Rather than something like the similarly performing F2G with that triple-row monster radial engine.

[GRUNHERZ]

Hi

WOW thanks juzz thats exactly all I was trying to point out that the Bearcat was influenced by the overall concept of the 190, becuse of the guys positive impression of the FW.

thanks GRUNHERZ

[Jigster]

Don'tcha just love this circumstantial evidence bull crap?

[Harpy]

The Bearcat is a DIRECT DESENDENT of the FW190.

[GRUNHERZ]

Hi

Jigster what exactly is so wrong with the fact that the 190 inflenced Grumman in the design of their next fighter. All airforces are influenced by others planes, are you also pissed off that the F86 was redesigned with German swept wing technology? Really guys it hapends all the time I just dont understand why some of you are so personally offended when someone points this out.

thanks GRUNHERZ

[Zigrat]

The bearcat is a much better airplane than the 190 ever was