Wildcats running wild at Mojave

[daveT]

Marine Observation Squadron 251 (VMO-251) training at MCAS Mojave included many wild flights and numerous accidents. During the period from September 1943 thru November 1943, VMO-251 destroyed 12 planes, damaged 27 and four of their pilots were killed in training accidents. This story recounts their aviation training accidents at MCAS Mojave and explores one of their crash sites.

One of the VMO-251 Wildcat crash sites has been located and explored. The crash site of Wildcat FM-1, BuNo 15442, which crashed 16 Nov 1943, killing 2Lt. Galen K. Markel was discovered five miles north of Mojave. The crash site was first visited in 2009 and again in March 2018. New discoveries were made at the crash site each time.

Enjoy the story and I welcome your comments

 

[Gnomey]

Good stuff!

 

[MIflyer]

Excellent! And I can vouch for the winds in the CA high desert being a problem. Getting my pilot's license was delayed by the frequent days in which the desert was too windy to use as a destination for a cross country.

Attached is a picture of an FM-1 that also crashed, into Lake Michigan. It was recovered and restored several years ago. At least one such recovered Wildcat is now in flying condition.

 

[tomplatten]

I was told that the Wildcat was upgraded during WWII and remained in service throughout the war. Was the Wildcat's performance improved significantly through the upgrades? Also I was also told that Jeep carriers used the Wildcats because the Hellcats were not able to land on the smaller carriers.

 

[MIflyer]

The first GM built Wildcat was the FM-1, basically identical to the F4F-4. But the FM-2 switched to the lighter single row R-1820 engine, with only a single stage supercharger and only four .50 cal guns. While the lack of a 2nd stage supercharger hurt performance above 20,000 ft, the R-1820 put out considerably more power at lower altitudes than did the R-1830 and combined with the lighter weight lower altitude performance went up, especailly climb rate. And it was much better at getting off the shorter Jeep carrier decks. A lone Wildcat was among the strike aircraft that sank the IJN Yamato.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

While the FM-1 was basically a F4F-4 Wildcat, it had a 4 gun armament as did the F4F-3 and subsequent FM-2.

While the R-1830-76/86 engines with two stage superchargers were getting 1200 HP at Sea Level, the R-1820-56 series was getting around 1300-1350 HP at Sea Level depending on the version.

For Comparison of weights:
F4F-3 --- 5426 pounds Empty -- 7543 pounds Gross Weight
F4F-3A - 5184 pounds Empty -- 7320 pounds Gross Weight
F4F-4 --- 5779 pounds Empty -- 7972 pounds Gross Weight
FM-1 ---- 5895 pounds Empty -- 8050 pounds Gross Weight
FM-2----- 5328 pounds Empty -- 7487 pounds Gross Weight

The F4F-3A had the R-1830-90 series engine with only a single stage supercharger which would explain the lower empty weight of the aircraft.
The FM-1 carried only 4 guns compared to the F4F-4 but carried substantially more ammunition for those guns.
The FM-2 carried a lighter fuel load than earlier Wildcats.
(I just finished gathering this data a few days ago for a project.)

- Ivan.