New Guy with a question

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F

FOG

Recruit
8
0
Jan 11, 2010
Mountain Home,Arkansas USA
Hi I'm from The Ozarks in AR . I'ma Modeler currentlly helping a friend to construct a large WW II fighter and I cannot find any refrence data for it.

He has a plastic model with good detail but it is not Identified.

We think it is a later model of Grumman F6f but it differs in a few signifanct ways.

It is not a Bearcat but uses the same engine apperantlly. The gear is articulated and retaacts parallel to the wing. That is, it was too long to just swing up , it has a Knee bend tha folds outward while the wheel swings inward.

Has a bubble canopy like a Bearcat .

I can't find any plane, between the F6F and The F7F .

Any Ideas?

Bill
 
Ok mistery solved,

It is a P47 or F8f Bearcat.

If you look at the pictures , the area behind the canopy is not even with the top of the canopy , some call this the razorback.

The landing gear has a "Knee" wich buckles outward first then folds inward.

These two features are what threw me a curve. I have since seen videos of both of these features on Bearcats (or at least P47s) I'm not sure if there is a diffrence.

Here's the video: View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw6UWPaTUt0

It clearly shows both of thesae features.

Thanks all
 

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Whoa! I didn't look at the second photo, as the first one is huge! You'll need to re-size them to no more than 800 x 600, but the first pic shows a model of a Bearcat. There's a heck of a differnce between a F8 Bearcat and a P47 Thundrbolt. I'm not sure what you mean by the undrcart having a knuckle which folds around - the P47 gear retracts inwards, towards the centreline of the aircraft, in a straight line from the anchor point - far as i know, the Bearcat does also, without any articualtion of the gear legs. The term 'Razorback' was applied to the earlier P47's up until, and including early Block numbers of the 'D' model, and also to the P51 B and C Mustang, and refered to the shaoe of the rear fuselage, where it ran in a continuous line from the fin to the windscreen, incorporating the canopy within this line. To improve visibility, both these aircraft later had 'cut down', lower rear fuselages, with a one-piece, blown canopy, giving rise to the term 'Bubbletop'.
If your model is a P47, Razorback or Bubbletop, you'll find that the wing is longer, and a completley different shape to that of the Bearcat, as is the fuselage, fin, tailplane, nose, engine cowling, canopy................(turn to page **, covering the small details etc!!)
 
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1. and some don't... you will generally find aircraft in their earlier 'razorback' configuration have the line of the rear dorsal fuselage a continuation (of sorts) of the canopy. Strictly speaking, the only official razorback by name was the P-47 but the P-51 and the Spitfire all obeyed the same rule. In a familial sense, so did the F6F to the F8F though these were different aircraft of the same manufacturer. The P-40 almost did with the XP-40Q.

2. I can only guess at what you mean here. If you mean the V-shaped angularities around the 'knees' of the oleo legs, those are suspension components which will return the strut to its normal position of travel once the load has been borne by the landing. They don't serve to bend the strut in any way, the two metal linkages at the top of the strut will pull the undercart inwards in order to tuck it away but nothing bends while this is happening.

3. You're throwing yourself a curve Nice pics by the way, any chance you could reduce to 800 pixels?
 
Interesting... a modeller who doesn't know of what aircraft model he makes.

Hej Fog , next time you will want to post a pic, resize it to 830 pixels in its width firstly, please.....
 
Sorry about the image size. Willresize any future pics.

I didn't realize the diffrence between the F8f bearcat and the P47 thunderbolt. I thought trhey were the same aircraft.

I know better now

Well thew Bearcat definatlly has a knee in the gear. a portion bends outward as the main folds inward. Aperantlly to clear tha monster prop they needed a gear taller than the had room for , so they had to fold it.

FOG
 
FOG said:
Well the Bearcat definitely has a knee in the gear. A portion bends outward as the main folds inward. Apparently to clear the monster prop they needed a gear taller than they had room for, so they had to fold it
Click to expand...
See pic below for F8F undercarriage leg and let me know where it bends.

The other 'plane you mentioned however, the P-47 actually DID have a technique for getting around the enormous airscrew but this was a telescopic arrangement, rather than any complex folding mechanism; the leg was actually shorter when stowed and longer when deployed for landing.
 

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There is definitely no "knee joint" in the Bearcat gear. Here is a shot of a Bearcat on takeoff and the gear do not do anything unusual. Colin's comment about the suspension parts of the gear are absolutely correct. I have seen many a Bearcat fly many, many times.

 
Colin has already mentioned the linkage on the Bearcat (and Thunderbolt) gear legs which is what we presume you mean when you refer to a 'knee' joint. This 'knee' link is sometimes called a 'scissor link', the correct term being 'torque link', and it is a two-part linkage, swivel-hinged in the centre, which connects the axle stub to the landing gear strut containing the Oleo, or damper. It's fuction is, basically, to retain the the gear leg and axle, whilst allowing the Oleo to perform its task of acting as a shock absorber, or damper, without the oleo overp-extending. Many, many types of aircraft undercarriage assemblies employ this system, from pre- WW2 fighters, to todays military jets and airliners, and it does not mean that the gear leg bends - quite the opposite in fact. It is intended to keep the leg straight!
Now you know that the Bearcat and P47 are not the same aircraft, which is a good start. They are also from different manufacturers, and to an extent, different eras, as the Bearcat was just too late to see action in WW2. If yoo look at the two aircraft, apart from differing roles, the Bearcat being originally intended for naval, carrier operations, you'll see that there are tremendous differences is overall shape and size, not to mention weight! A quick read of the specifications, and design histories of the two types, should enlighten you even further. To say that they are the same aircraft is rather like saying a Model T Ford is the same as a Ferrari. They're both cars - but vastly different!
 
Looks like a Bearcat to me. How would I know? I had a calendar last year with a picture of a Bearcat one month and I built the old Testors 1/48th scale kit back around 1979.

Not very impressive qualifications but I just had to get my two cents in.
 
You know Chris, when our friend mentioned that it looked like a Bearcat but wasn't, I immediately thought of the Ryan, but I'll admit I couldn't remember the name 'Fireball' at the time. And there once was a kit of this, by a small company, possibly mixed media, which could explain the lack of information with the kit.
The thing is, so far, we've only seen pics of a model of a Bearcat - with a rather droopy wing too! I also thought perhaps, with nothing to refer to regarding scale/size, that maybe our chap had a Skyraider on his hands. A photo of the actual model in question would work wonders!
 
I know. I thought the same when posted and then went rushing to my library as I do have a book on the history of the Ryan. But do you think I could find it??!! Only after several minutes did I remember "Fireball".
 
I was the same. I could picture the thing, see in my mind photos, silhouette three-views and a profile. I knew it was probably a Ryan product I was thinking of, but couldn't remember the name, and was too stiff and sore to make the trip across the room to my book shelves - or was that just laziness?!!
 
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