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