Author Topic: F7F Tigercat  (Read 9848 times)

Offline mthrockmor

  • Gold Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2649
F7F Tigercat
« on: April 11, 2016, 05:47:57 PM »
Is it fair to say that of all the twin engine birds of WW2 the F7F Tigercat would have smoked them all. (ie Mossy, any P-38, Dina, etc.) And for that matter, smoked most of the single engine birds as well.

I know, we can't add the F7F but...

boo
No poor dumb bastard wins a war by dying for his country, he wins by making the other poor, dumb, bastard die for his.
George "Blood n Guts" Patton

Offline GScholz

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8910
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #1 on: April 11, 2016, 06:50:18 PM »
Tigercat vs. Hornet would be an interesting "what if".


"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."

Offline Widewing

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8802
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2016, 10:23:56 PM »
Corky Meyer thought it was a monster... So did Captain Fred "Trap" Trapnell, the Navy's chief test pilot and commander of the Naval Air Test Center. Trap flew everything in the US inventory from the 1930s until his retirement.

"For many years Capt. Trapnell was the top test pilot in the Navy; his word was law, both in the Navy and industry flight-test circles. An example of his influence: he came for a three-hour flight evaluation of the first XF6F-3 Hellcat soon after its first flight and he gave the official Navy go-ahead for mass production on that day! The Hellcat eventually passed all of its contractual demonstrations two and a half years later, after more than 8,000 aircraft had delivered to fighting squadrons! Also, to his credit, the Hellcat racked up a record 19 to 1 kill-to-loss ratio the highest recorded in WW2.

When he came to Grumman to conduct the preliminary evaluation of the Panther in early 1948, I was the only Grumman test pilot who had flown the company's first jet fighter. At every opportunity during his three-day evaluation, I tried to pry his opinions out of him; his only responses were grunts, which I interpreted as "Cool it, Corky!" At the end of his evaluation, as we walked out to his F7F-4N Tigercat for his return trip to the Naval Air Test Center, I proudly told him that I was the Tigercat project pilot from 1943-1946. He immediately burst into a diatribe about the Tigercat's many deficiencies: the over-cooling of the engines; a lack of longitudinal stability; excessively high dihedral rolling effect with rudder input; the high, minimum single-engine control speed, etc. He ended his oration with: "If I had been the chief of the Test Center at the time, I would have had you fired!" Each criticism of the Tigercat was absolutely correct. I was devastated and fervently wished that I hadn't gotten out of bed that day.

Just as we reached his Tigercat, I blurted , "If you dislike the Tigercat so much, why do you always fly it?" He explained: "The excess power of its two engines is wonderful for aerobatics; the cockpit planning and the forward visibility in the carrier approach is the best in any fighter ever built; the tricycle landing gear allows much faster pilot checkouts; the roll with the power boost rudder is faster than the ailerons; and it has a greater range than any fighter in inventory." Again, he was absolutely right. As he climbed up the ladder to the cockpit, he turned around, grinned and told me, "It's the best damn fighter I've ever flown." I realized he had thrown the entire test-pilot schoolbook at me with his succinct tirade and that we were probably pretty close in our opinions regarding the handling characteristics that define a really good fighter. I went home happy that night."

There's also plenty of stories of VMF(N) 531 F7F-2Ns beating the living hell out of AAF P-51Ds in the area of Okinawa....
My regards,

Widewing

YGBSM. Retired Member of Aces High Trainer Corps, Past President of the DFC, retired from flying as Tredlite.

Offline bozon

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6037
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2016, 07:03:58 AM »
Tigercat vs. Hornet would be an interesting "what if".


(Image removed from quote.)
The hornet would have swallowed it whole and released a big burp.
Mosquito VI - twice the spitfire, four times the ENY.

Click!>> "So, you want to fly the wooden wonder" - <<click!
the almost incomplete and not entirely inaccurate guide to the AH Mosquito.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGOWswdzGQs

Offline GScholz

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8910
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2016, 09:33:56 AM »
Yeah, probably. Still think pilot quality would be the determining factor, but the Hornet/Sea Hornet pilot clearly has a performance advantage. It's not that great though. 15 mph in speed and 500 fpm climb...
« Last Edit: April 12, 2016, 09:35:36 AM by GScholz »
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."

Offline GScholz

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8910
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #5 on: April 12, 2016, 11:37:55 AM »
Awesome looking and sounding machine!

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."

Offline nrshida

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8632
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #6 on: April 12, 2016, 12:40:05 PM »
Wow De Havilland Hornet. Think I've got a semi. Had a technical article about the construction once. Very interesting approach.

Oh yeah, the Tigercat's alright I suppose (no hijack!).
"If man were meant to fly, he'd have been given an MS Sidewinder"

Offline oakranger

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8380
      • http://www.slybirds.com/
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #7 on: April 12, 2016, 02:11:02 PM »
Both wonderful looking birds.  If anything, wonder how the Westland Whrilwind would end up if WAL worked out the issues and improve the plane.  IDK,  they could have designed better varients of it.
Oaktree

56th Fighter group

Offline GScholz

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8910
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #8 on: April 12, 2016, 02:54:19 PM »
To make the Whirlwind a top of the line fighter they would have had to put Merlins in it. They got two Spitfires for the same investment so in the early war years the Whirlwind was a dud having to use old Kestrels.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."

Offline bozon

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6037
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #9 on: April 12, 2016, 03:47:27 PM »
Yeah, probably. Still think pilot quality would be the determining factor, but the Hornet/Sea Hornet pilot clearly has a performance advantage. It's not that great though. 15 mph in speed and 500 fpm climb...
The hornet would have been the better day fighter. Still, the F7F was an awesome bird, it had radials and it was a Grumman so it can't be bad no matter what. The other Grumman (F8F bearcat) would probably beat both of them as a short range day fighter.
Mosquito VI - twice the spitfire, four times the ENY.

Click!>> "So, you want to fly the wooden wonder" - <<click!
the almost incomplete and not entirely inaccurate guide to the AH Mosquito.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGOWswdzGQs

Offline Brooke

  • Aces High CM Staff
  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 15737
      • http://www.electraforge.com/brooke/
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #10 on: April 12, 2016, 11:26:52 PM »
Another to add to the list for pondering is the Do 335.



Supposed top speed 474 mph.

Offline Brooke

  • Aces High CM Staff
  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 15737
      • http://www.electraforge.com/brooke/
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #11 on: April 12, 2016, 11:35:03 PM »
And if the F-82 had made it out a bit earlier.



Top speed 482 mph.

Offline Brooke

  • Aces High CM Staff
  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 15737
      • http://www.electraforge.com/brooke/
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #12 on: April 12, 2016, 11:41:03 PM »
Another "what if":  the P-38K.


Offline oakranger

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8380
      • http://www.slybirds.com/
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #13 on: April 13, 2016, 12:00:14 AM »
And if the F-82 had made it out a bit earlier.

(Image removed from quote.)

Top speed 482 mph.

It did some good in the Korean War against 2 x La and 1 x mig
Oaktree

56th Fighter group

Offline GScholz

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8910
Re: F7F Tigercat
« Reply #14 on: April 13, 2016, 12:13:07 AM »
The F-82's always puzzled me... Two engines. Two cockpits. Two pilots...

Wouldn't it just be better to have two separate P-51s?
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."