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R Leonard said:Well, since you seem to want to be pedantic, "Rarebear," as pointed out, was not so named until long after the 1972 event. I'd also point out that this aircraft was NOT a true F8F having been modified in both airframe and engine. Further, eyeballing performance charts does not count when you're talking about setting records. Flights for record require continuous monitoring and recording of the event, so any guestimate one might make from a chart is strictly a WAG.
So, you can contest to your heart's content whether the record breaker was an F-16 or an F8U or any other aircraft (and, frankly, jets versus pistons, who really gives a crap), but if the aircraft in question was not actually making a flight for record, then it doesn't count. And since every plane you seem to want to drag out is a jet powered fighter, exactly what are you trying to prove . . . that there was an airplane in competition for the record prior to the F-16 cited in the post? Okay, I'll buy that as long as the aircraft was actually in competition and you aren't just picking a point on a climb chart. I am sure that the jet aircraft you named could probably have beat a climb to time record set by a R2800 powered F8F in 1946, but to my knowledge none did actually so compete, i.e., making a monitored and recorded attempt to supplant the existing record.
It is still apples and oranges to compare jet fighter performance, even for record, to piston fighter performance, just as it is also apples and oranges to compare a military equipped F8F performance to some bastardized civilian hybrid.
And as for my numbers on the 1946 record . . . it helps when I have the pilots log book for one of the actual pilots.
Salim said:Edit: I just looked something up on the bearcat. It held the world record for fastest climb rate (10,000 feet in 91 seconds) for 30 years before it was broken by the F-16 falcon! Now that's a major plus as a dogfighter.
syscom3 said:Thats quite possible. The early jets were not known as fast accelerators in those days.
As a Dogfighter the F8F was arguably the best of the US fighters with reservation in comparing to P-51H which makes the discussion not so cut and dried. Having said that, The Spitfire and the last Yak and La series of fighters were also exceptionally agile.
The spool up time on the early jets was really slow. Watch a group of L-29s take off after watching an F-18 take off and you will see a huge difference. But we are also talking about a huge difference in engines.
As a Dogfighter the F8F was arguably the best of the US fighters with reservation in comparing to P-51H which makes the discussion not so cut and dried. Having said that, The Spitfire and the last Yak and La series of fighters were also exceptionally agile.
The P-51H was lighter than the P-51C/D by a bit, but not enough to make it into something the C/D units weren't. It was faster by about 10% climbed a bit better but not enough to climb with a Bearcat. It could roll about the same as a P-51C/D and the Bearcat was better at that, too. I very strongly doubt it could accelerate with a Bearcat, but it very certainly COULD fly higher and go farther.
Some years ago I read an account of the only Bearcat vs Mustang encounter known to me. Shortly after hostilities ceased on VJ day, a carrier with a squadron of F8Fs was in the Gulf of Mexico and called on the port of New Orleans as a PR exercise. Nearby, on shore, was based a squadron of P51s. The guy relating the story was one of the Bearcat pilots. He said that several times both units would go up and "happen to" meet for simulated dogfights. He pointed out that no F8F was ever bested in these encounters. Who can say what the relative quality of the pilots was, flight time, etc., but it is the only example of such an encounter I'm aware of. Another account by a pilot who flew both planes said the 'Cat was clearly the stronger performer - that its throttle response was instantly felt seat-of-the-pants, while the Mustang first made more noise, then began to accelerate. The Bearcat would have been an excellent anti-kamikaze device, though that was not its initial designed purpose. The Mustang proved superb as a long range bomber escort and many B-17 aircrew survived the war because the P51 could go all the way there and back on the long missions. Hats off to William Overstreet, who passed in 2014. He flew 100 P51 missions, survived being shot down 3 times, flew a FW190 back to England for one of his escapes, and chased a 109 under the Eiffel Tower, shooting it down over Paris. Many eyewitnesses corroborated this event.
I'd venture to guess that the P-51H would out-accelerate the F8F-1 from 400-420 mph on without trouble. As far as the RoC, I don't believe that F8F-1 was able to out-climb the P-51H above 20000 ft, let alone if the fuselage tank of the P-51H was without fuel.