F8F Bearcat derived from FW190?

[Navalwarrior]

I recently came across this statement in print:
In 1943 Grumman test pilot Robert Hall flew a captured Focke Wulf 190 in Britain. Much impressed, he returned to Bethpage, Long Island, NY and said to Roy Grumman, "Boss, if we put an R2800 on that airframe we'd have a world-beater." THus began the F8F Bearcat, influenced by one of the most successful Axis aircraft of WWII.
Anyone heard of this?

 

[Shortround6]

I have heard of it before.
How true it is something else.

The company history is unlikely to credit a foreign design as being the basis (or even inspiration) for one of their major aircraft, so that may not be a good avenue to pursue. Official line is that Roy Grumman was becoming worried that the twin engine designs they were working on (like the F7F) were too big for the majority of the navies carriers and would have a limited market. End of July 1943 he sent an outline to his chief engineer, Bill Schwendler, proposing a new lighter fighter.
I don't know when in 1943 Robert Hall is supposed to have flown the 190.

Aside from a few features in the the engine installation I am not sure what the Fw 190 and F8F have in common.
I would note that such features as the sliding bubble canopy were becoming quite common in US fighter designs at this time (even if taking a while to show up in production) so it takes more than few superficial items to really back up this story.

 

[Navalwarrior]

I have heard of it before.
How true it is something else.

The company history is unlikely to credit a foreign design as being the basis (or even inspiration) for one of their major aircraft, so that may not be a good avenue to pursue. Official line is that Roy Grumman was becoming worried that the twin engine designs they were working on (like the F7F) were too big for the majority of the navies carriers and would have a limited market. End of July 1943 he sent an outline to his chief engineer, Bill Schwendler, proposing a new lighter fighter.
I don't know when in 1943 Robert Hall is supposed to have flown the 190.

Aside from a few features in the the engine installation I am not sure what the Fw 190 and F8F have in common.
I would note that such features as the sliding bubble canopy were becoming quite common in US fighter designs at this time (even if taking a while to show up in production) so it takes more than few superficial items to really back up this story.

Resp:
Thanks. The F8F certainly didn't make it in time to play a part in the air war in WWII, so if it occurred it had no effect.

 

[special ed]

In Rene Francillion's book Grumman Aircraft since 1929, Leroy Grumman sent a memo to Bill Schwendler 28 July 1943 requesting he come up with a single engine fighter superior in performance to the F6F and F4U as he had doubts of the XF7F and XTB2F-1 acceptance by the Navy as too heavy. Contract signed 27 Nov 1943 for two XF8F-1 carrier fighters.

 

[flypaper2222]

And I had read that the 190 was a copy of the Hughes racer! Milch said to Hermann if ve puts a zwatsticka on it boss it'll be uber alles!!!

So tired of this Nazi adderation, they were scum who killed millions.........

 

[fubar57]

Such a nice made up word......

 

[pbehn]

Such a nice made up word......

Correctly it should be Nadderation, it is an effect in the English language called the nasal shift. From the original German "a nadder" to the present English "an adder".

 

[GrauGeist]

The Hughes H-1 influenced the aircraft industry because of it's design, and many radial types strove for comparable performance, but no one "copied" it.

And the myth that was floating around, was that Jiro Horikoshi copied the H-1 when he designed the A6M (which he didn't), not Kurt Tank.

But the myth (one way or another) somehow stays alive due to adoration for that sort of thing, it seems

 

[fliger747]

I'd have to find the quote, but in Corky Meyer's book I remember Leroy Grumman having flown a captured FW190 in England and mentioned that "This is the plane we should have built", meaning instead of the F6F. So third hand hearsay... Good enough for NY Times these days, almost as good as "I saw it on the Internet".

Let you know if I find the quote, as an important Grumman Test Pilot, Meyer's book is quite interesting!

Certainly not an Fw190 copy, but a general idea, yes!

 

[The Basket]

I thought the Bearcat was a copy of the Zero? Or a continuation of the Hellcat/Wildcat family?

Roly Beaumont was saying that the canopy of the Fw 190 impressed him that he pushed for the Hawker Typhoon to have a bubble canooy. Not a copy but he certainly liked the concept.

My favourite story in this regard is the Tu-16 Badger. A Soviet designer was told to fit the engines somewhere and get on with it. He was unsure what to do until he saw a magazine with a deHavilland Comet and then had the novel idea of putting them in the wing roots.

Good ideas or good design is going to be copied.

 

[wuzak]

I think the clear influence the Fw 190 had on the F8F (and Tempest II) was the cooling and exhaust arrangement.

Though the F8F still did have cowl flaps.

Bubble type canopies weren't new to the RAF when they encountered the Fw 190. Both the Whirlwind and Miles M20 were fitted with that style canopy in 1940, before Fw 190 encounters.

 

[Shortround6]

I am not sure when P&W got a good look at the FW 190 but they were flying their P-40 test hack with R-1830 with a cowl that had minimal flaps and grouped ejector exhausts in 1942. P&W is less than a hundred miles from Grumman (by air) and was supplying the engines. I am sure quite a bit of cross talking went on.

 

[The Basket]

The early Tornado Typhoon didn't have bubble canopies and Beaumont used the 190 to say get on with it as Hawker was not amenable to the design change.

 

[special ed]

Again referring to Grumman aircraft since 1929, Leroy Grumman asked Schwendler for an aircraft the size of the F4F, normal gross weight 8500 pounds, two speed R-2800, armament of four .50-in guns. He wanted internal fuel capacity 170 gallons, bubble canopy, wide track L/G with adequate prop clearance, "performance superior in every way to that of the Hellcat",power loading at normal gross of 4 lb/hp, and wing loading of 33 lb/sq ft. All this on 28 July 1943.

 

[special ed]

Short rounds is likely referring to the XP-42 by curtiss. Tightly cowled radial with fan cooling, long before knowledge of the 190.

 

[Shortround6]

Short rounds is likely referring to the XP-42 by curtiss. Tightly cowled radial with fan cooling, long before knowledge of the 190.

No, referring to this

Had a two stage supercharger which is why the large air scoop on the top.
This picture shows no cowl flaps although it just may be the angle and shading of the photo?
Exhausts grouped and exiting in one duct on either side.

 

[Navalwarrior]

In Rene Francillion's book Grumman Aircraft since 1929, Leroy Grumman sent a memo to Bill Schwendler 28 July 1943 requesting he come up with a single engine fighter superior in performance to the F6F and F4U as he had doubts of the XF7F and XTB2F-1 acceptance by the Navy as too heavy. Contract signed 27 Nov 1943 for two XF8F-1 carrier fighters.

Resp:
I think it logical that Grumman would want to continue to build advanced aircraft. The question is whether the FW 190 influenced the F8F. From the responses here, the impetus of a new single engine fighter by Grumman would likely have materialized regardless of whether it was influenced by FW's fighter. Too bad it never made it into combat prior to the end of WWII. Also, the F6F performed quite well.

 

[The Basket]

The Spitfire 9 came about because of the Fw 190. Was the F-15 a copy of the MiG-25? Technologies advances and so does the competition. Look at modern motor sports. It's an arms race in which having yesterday's tech loses.

 

[Navalwarrior]

The Spitfire 9 came about because of the Fw 190. Was the F-15 a copy of the MiG-25? Technologies advances and so does the competition. Look at modern motor sports. It's an arms race in which having yesterday's tech loses.

Resp:
Mostly true inre to technology, but not always. Would the F8F changed anything in the Pacific if it came out in 1944? Did Germany's ME 262 change anything? Of course one could argue Hitler's decision to make it into a Bomber, delayed its use for air supremacy . . . where it truly shined. A lot of what ifs. As the war drew on, much of the skill of the average pilot declined . . . !

 

[Shortround6]

Getting back to the original question. Many designers picked up a trick or two from somebody else's existing airplane, or saw how a feature could improve things. That is how progress is made.
But that is a lot different than taking an existing airframe and slapping a different engine on it and then saying that was the starting point. Especially when the the finished product is so different. Different wing, different flaps, different landing gear, different fuselage and on and on.

Grumman made carrier planes. The stalling speed of the 190 was quite a bit higher than any carrier of the time operated planes at.
Grumman could look at a 190 and say "big engine, small airframe" and perhaps pick up a few details here and there but the 190 would have been a bust trying to operate of the smaller carriers and the Grumman people would have known it in minutes (if not seconds).