Goodyear F2G vs Grumman F8F Bearcat

In America's Hundred Thousand empty weight does NOT include guns, gunsight, gun camera, oxygen equipment and the trapped oil and fuel. Sometimes, depending on Army or navy and the date it might not include armor, communications gear, emergency equipment. at some points in time one or another category would be shifted to include/exclude certain items.

America's Hundred Thousand isn't a manufacturer's set of specifications, either. It's just Francis Dean's book, and a good one at that. I'll have to look at a few tomorrow at the museum to see what the actuals specs say.

You may be right ...

Well, as I said, not all aircraft in the book include exactly the same things in the difference between empty and basic (or empty equipped) and even the same type of aircraft (P-40 for one) a few items change where they are added in from the "C" to the "E" model so checking Manufacturer's specs is probably a good idea. The Manual for the F8F-1 -2 on this site doesn't include weights and loadings.

I have a pdf of a manual covering the various F8F models and they give a weight that includes aircraft, ammunition, full internal fuel, and pilot with typical flight gear ... but no breakdown of empty and basic weight. It's also WAY too short to be a real manual.

But we DO have many manuals at the museum and I'm going in tomorrow, so I can look at a couple.

GregP said:

For a single engine, single-seat fighter in WWII, I believe empty weight does include guns, but not any ammunition. It also includes unusable fuel and undrainable oil.

Basic weight includes empty weight plus ammunition.

Normal weight includes basic weight plus oil, full internal fuel, and pilot or crew. Max gross includes normal weight plus any external stores of fuel and/or ordnance.

Click to expand...

I don't believe Empty Weight includes guns or ANY fuel or oil.
Basic Weight includes guns but no ammunition.
As commented on elsewhere, Normal Loaded depends very much on the particular aircraft. USN types often didn't have full ammunition at Normal Loaded and something like the P-51D isn't really flyable with full internal fuel and no external stores.
Maximum Take-Off / Gross weight might involve a compromise between fuel and ordnance balance without the possibility of a full load of both.

- Ivan.

From reading Corky Meyer's Flight Journal, it would appear that there was an error in designing the wing structure of the F8F so that the outter wing panels would break off with excessive G-load. (> 6G?)

The problem was that the wing panels often would not break off as a pair and a single remaining outter wing would cause the aircraft to roll.

It also appeared that this problem was never solved in a satisfactory manner and even went so far as to cause the death of one of Blue Angels at an Air Show. (One wing panel broke off at low altitude.)
I believe the Blue Angels went back to Hellcats after that.

One attempted solution was to wire the wingtips with explosives so that if one failed, the other would blow off also. This managed to kill a ground crewman when the explosives blew while the aircraft was parked.

Sounds like this is good enough reason to prefer the Corsair in combat over the Bearcat.
On aircraft such as Rare Bear, the wing tip sections aren't even installed so this issue would not come up.
I don't believe the 6G limit is reached often if at all in the Air Show circuit.

Do any of you know if this problem has been addressed in the modern flying Bearcats and how it has been addressed?

- Ivan.

There are very few airplanes that can fill up with fuel and payload or passengers and still fly. I can't think of a civil lightplane that can do it.

Every flight is includes weight and balance and is basically a "plan for this flight."

Ivan that was the F8F-1. The F8F-2 did away with the 'break away' wing tips, iirc.

krieghund said:

I also have this chart to compare against other US Aircraft. In this chart the XF8F-1 is climbing at 5850fpm.

Click to expand...

I must come back to this older threat.
The question is, makes it any sense to built and to introduce the F2G as a "Kamikaze" hunter, when we compare the performance data on this chart from krieghund against the F4U-4 and the F4U-5 with the 32W engine increased the overall performance.
Maybe someone of the specialists can tell me why the F2G with this enormous engine loses against the F4U in speed and the climb rate was only marginaly higher.
Can this all be traced back only to the higher gross wt. from 1300 lbs.?

Harry

From an amateur:
The F4U was outfitted with engines that featured 2-stage compressor each. Meaning that engine power is greater at high altitudes, when compared with engines that have 1-stage compressor. Plenty of power at high altitude means that aircraft has less dense air to struggle aginst -> more speed. Lower weight also helps.
We can compare rated altitudes of the F4U-4 and F2G where they make max speed at war emergency power setting - 20300 ft vs. 14600.

Harry64 said:

I must come back to this older threat.
The question is, makes it any sense to built and to introduce the F2G as a "Kamikaze" hunter, when we compare the performance data on this chart from krieghund against the F4U-4 and the F4U-5 with the 32W engine increased the overall performance.
Maybe someone of the specialists can tell me why the F2G with this enormous engine loses against the F4U in speed and the climb rate was only marginaly higher.
Can this all be traced back only to the higher gross wt. from 1300 lbs.?

Harry

Click to expand...

A lot depends on timing. Some of these programs overlapped and were running in parallel. NO US aircraft were designed as "Kamikaze Hunters." Development or service introduction may have been given higher Priority after the Kamikaze threat appeared but any aircraft that had a hope of service use in mid/late 1945 had work started on it in 1943 (if not 1942) or very early 1944.
The first installation of an R-4360 in a Corsair airframe was doing ground running tests in May of 1943. The second aircraft was flying in Sept of 1943. Goodyear got a production contract for 418 F2G-1s and 10 F2G-2s in March of 1944. Production was later cut down to 5 of each and production was delayed while modifications were tested out. The cut down fuselage and modified fins/rudders for example.

For comparison the first flight of the F4U-4XA was in April of 1944, The XF4U-4 was in Sept of 1944 and the first production F4U-4 was in Dec of 1944. This was a result of a contract placed in Jan 1944. May of 1945 sees the F4U-4 go into action and June 10th is the first victory.
During this time there was also the F4U-3 with a turbo charged engine which came to nothing (Navy had a different company than General Electric supplying the turbo charger).

The F4U-5 was a fantastic machine but since the first one didn't fly until April 4th 1946 it had nothing to do with any Kamikaze hunting or any decisions about which aircraft to use for such a role. Aside from being an 18 cylinder two row radial of 2800 cubic inches the engine in the -5 didn't have a lot in common with the engine in the -4. Internally it had the most in common with the engine used in the F8F-2, which was considerably different than the engine used in the F8F-1.
First Flight of the F8F-1 was in August of 1944 as a result of an order for two prototypes placed on 27 November 1943. Production order was placed on 6 October 1944 based on the configuration of the 2nd prototype. 1st production plane was delivered 21 May 1945.

It was the F8F-1 that caused the cancellation of the F2G even though the vast majority of the F2Gs were intended to be shore based aircraft (no tail hooks or power folding wings).

Shortround and Tomo

many thanks for clarification.

Please, one another help:
Why was the F2G with his much more powerful R-4360 engine, in performance data sometimes behind the F4U. See my part of the question in my previous post.
If you can explain this for a layman like me, it would be great.

Harry

Please re-read my post. At high altitudes, say 20000 ft and above, the F4U-4 have had more power. The max speed, as a rule, is achieved at high altitudes. So the F4U-4 will be faster.
At low altitudes, where the F2G has inded more power, it will be faster.

Tomo Explained it in the Post previous to mine.
"We can compare rated altitudes of the F4U-4 and F2G where they make max speed at war emergency power setting - 20300 ft vs. 14600."

While the F2G could make 3000hp at sea level ( and do 397-399mph) it's power had fallen to 2400hp at 13,500ft not including RAM. and continued to drop in power even faster after that. The engine in the F4U-4 could provide Military power (not War emergency power) of 2100hp at 1000ft, 1900hp at 14,000ft and 1800hp at 23,000ft. The F4U-4 actually had more power at higher altitudes. It may have had a bit less drag too.

Shortround, Tomo,

that it is, now I unterstand it, many thanks.

Harry