Did the Wildcat airframe have any growth left in it?

[Dana Bell]

Hi gjs238,

I suspect not. The BuAer letter was clear that the F6F could not be improved, that the advantages of the F4U-1D were clear, and that the upcoming F4U-4 would outclass both.

I'm up to the armpits in other projects right now, or I'd take some time to find my copy of the memo and the exact language. Sorry I can't offer more just now...

Cheers,



Dana

 

[ThomasP]

Hey guys,

Installing the R-2800 'C' series engine would have given the F6F a boost in performance similar to what the F4U-4 got, so there was some room for growth/performance increase. I believe I remember reading somewhere that the reason the F4U was preferred over the F6F was the F4U had more potential as a fighter-bomber, primarily due to the greater number of hard points. I do not recall if the potential of the R-4360 installation (as in the F2G-1 prototypes) contributed to the decision. However, 400+ F2G-1 were on order by the end of 1944, so I would think this meant the higher ups were considering this factor also.

 

[Shortround6]

There were two XF6F-6 prototypes built with P&W R-2800-18W engines, the first flew on July 6th 1944. One book claims that the demand for the better performing F4U-4 on amount of engines available was the reason the XF6F-6 did not go into production.

Grumman designs 59 and 60 were for R-4360 powered Hellcats with variable speed single stage and two stage superchargers respectively. It was considered that installation of the R-4360 required too many changes to be practical.

 

[ThomasP]

Oooooh... (that's the noise I made in my head when I thought about what the F6F with a R-4360 would be like)

 

[Zipper730]

While I was kind of being silly when I said put a V-1710 in it, I kind of edited the FD-scale ship-bucket images of the F4F & P-40 and ended up yielding this...

I'm not sure how good the visibility over the nose would be

Credit has been given to the appropriate parties

 

[Greg Boeser]

That thing looks like it would tip right over.

 

[wuzak]

Through repackaging some internal components, the FG-1 was only a few inches longer than the F4U-1.

The configuration of the F6F, with its much shorter nose, would not enable the R-4360 to be fitted without considerable increase in length.

The F4U and F6F situation was similar in the Spitfire and Hurricane. One kept getting better engines, while at some stage there was no point spending resources improving the other.

 

[fliger747]

Are you thinking of the F2G?

 

[Conslaw]

It must be remembered that Grumman had two other fighters in production in 1945, the F7F Tigercat and F8F Bearcat, and both were faster than the F6F. TheBearcat was targeted for smaller carriers, and the F7F for a variety of roles. Grumman managed to turn out reasonable numbers of both the F8F and F7F while churing out thousands of Hellcats, but if either were to take a primary role Hellcat production would have to take a backseat. In February 1945, Eastern Aircraft was given a contract to produce over 1800 Bearcats under the designation F3M-1. I presume that Eastern's production of the F3M would have meant the end of production of the FM2 "wilder wildcat." Even if there was additional potential in the Wildcat, there was no way it was going to out-perform the Bearcat.

 

[Shortround6]

we seem to be covering a range of 2-4 years here.

The F4F development stalled for several years, that is no real improvement in power plants from 1940 to 1943, (first FM-2 was delivered in Sept 1943).

Better R-1830s did become available but not until 1944?
The R-2000 became available in 1942 but it was never fitted with a high performance supercharger and indeed it's critical (FTH) altitude/s were lower than equivalent R-1830s.
The 1300hp R-1820 only became available in late 1942 or early 1943 and production was switched to the FM-2 fairly soon, please note this engine does NOT perform as well at high altitudes as the two stage R-1830 in the F4F-4/FM-1. The Water injection and stronger crankshaft take a while longer to show up.

Work on the F8F started in the summer of 1943 although the prototype won't fly until Aug of 1944.

Anybody who wants a "Zero killer" in 1942/43 needs to figure out an alternative power plant.

By late 1944/early 1945 when you had 1350hp R-1830s and 1425hp R-1820s they were tooling up for F8Fs and F4U-4s and other high performance fighters. Even the F6F was being shuffled off to 2nd rank status. A 1350-1450hp Wildcat would have been at the bottom of the pile.


Please note that the radials in question needed a lot more than just better fuel and a few turns on the boost adjustment screw.
They needed a lot more fin area on the cylinders to get rid of the heat, they may have needed stronger cylinder heads (with more fins) they needed stronger crankshafts and so on.

For some reasons the R-1830s in F4Fs were not rated (at least early ones?) at altitude at the same 2700rpm that was used for take-off. 2550rpm seems to the max rpm used in the charts with mentions of 2700rpm being used for combat but no power ratings or time limits? later manuals might shed more light on this?

 

[wuzak]

Are you thinking of the F2G?

Yes I was. Thanks for the correction.

 

[maxmwill]

What other R-1820/R-1830 powered planes evolved with "bigger, more powerfull engines" fitted?

The P-36 Hawk comes to mind.
Perhaps a V-1710 powered F4F?

There was the USN water-cooled engine phobia.

Well, the Navy DID almost accept a two wheel version of the Airacobra