F4F Question

Elvis · Mar 15, 2008

Does anyone know, for certain, if the F4F Wildcat was ever fitted with a P&W R-2000 raidal engine?
For some reason, this rings a distant bell in my mind, as in testing for an aircraft of improved performance over the (then) existing F4F.
Maybe early testing that resulted in the F6F?

Elvis

renrich · Mar 15, 2008

My reference shows no use of R2000 in Wildcat. The Hellcat originally was designed for the R2600.

Elvis · Mar 16, 2008

Yeah, see? I couldn't find anything on the net about that, either.

...man, that just sounds so familiar, though...

Oh well, I think I recognize half the people I see on a daily basis, too.

Maybe I'll just chalk this one up to "W.C Fields Disease" and leave it at that.

Thanks for chiming in Renrich.

Elvis

Micdrow · Mar 16, 2008

Some of the cowlings and engines used on the F4F wild cat from the book squadron signal F4F walk around.

Phoenix9 · Mar 16, 2008

I believe the most powerful variant of the Wilcat was the FM2, equiped with the Wright R-1820 engine (1,350 horsepower). Maybe you got the F4F Wildcat mixed up with the F6F Hellcat?

The Navy ordered four prototypes of the F6F, each with a different engine for test and evaluation purposes. Less than a year later, on 26 June 1942, the first prototype (the XF6F-1, with a Wright R-2600 Cyclone engine) flew for the first time. Before much meaningful evaluation of the various engines could be made, however, the Navy decided to press the Hellcat into production by fitting the XF6F-1 prototype with the most powerful engine available, the Pratt Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp. (This turned it into an XF6F-3. The XF6F-2 and XF6F-4 were never evaluated.)

Marshall_Stack · Mar 17, 2008

Just my speculation, but maybe the airframe of the Wildcat wasn't strong enough for the R-2800.

SoD Stitch · Mar 17, 2008

Marshall_Stack said:
Just my speculation, but maybe the airframe of the Wildcat wasn't strong enough for the R-2800.

The R-2800 was quite a bit heavier than the R-1820; I don't think it was a question of strength or power, but weight. The R-2800 was too much weight up front for F4F, it needed a bigger airframe.

Elvis · Mar 18, 2008

That's why the R-2000 makes more sense.
Its simply the R-1830 with cylinders and pistons from the R-1340 added on.

...still searching, but not finding anything.
Maybe I'm just mistaken about the whole thing.

Elvis

Phoenix9 · Mar 18, 2008

This is not to say that the Wildcat was without shortcomings. In 1940, consideration had been given to improving the Wildcat by using the more powerful Pratt Whitney R-2000 engine.[1] Instead, Grumman developed the second member of the "cat" series of fighters, the Hellcat. The Hellcat had an even more powerful engine than the R-2000, and other improvements. The empty weight of the F6F-5 Hellcat was 60% greater than the F4F-4 Wildcat. Even so, the Hellcat's design was heavily influenced by the Wildcat.

Perhaps Grumman also should have gone forward with the R-2000 engine improvement to the Wildcat. The Wildcat's weight would increase significantly, and more power would have helped. The Hellcat would not start to join the fleet until February 1943. But even without the more powerful engine, the Wildcat was good enough to battle the Zero and other Japanese warplanes.

from The Wildcat Was a Strong Opponent to the Zero

Maybe they tried it anyway with the FM2 variant of the F4F? It would have given the plane an additional 100 HP...

maxs75 · Mar 18, 2008

I believe I read much about Wildcat, but I never read about R-2000.
Take in account that it is difficult to find an evidence that something was not done, so you'll probably never read that R-2000 was never fitted to a Wildcat.

Max

Elvis · Mar 19, 2008

Stephen Leibowitz said:
In 1940, consideration had been given to improving the Wildcat by using the more powerful Pratt Whitney R-2000 engine. Instead, Grumman developed the second member of the "cat" series of fighters, the Hellcat.

I'M NOT CRAZY!
I thought that sounded familiar.
Thank you very much for posting that link, Phoenix9.
Very interesting article.

Elvis

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