Cats (the flesh-and-blood variety, that is) are natural predators of birds (again, the flesh-and-blood variety).
.Yet the time-honored Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation/Grumman Aerospace Corporation had a long-standing of naming its mechanical warbirds — all built for the US Navy — after types of cats. Simple Flying now takes a brief look at the history of Grumman’s ferocious furry feline fighters. (Hey, ya like that alliteration?)
F4F Wildcat
As noted by Brian Nicklas of the Smithsonian’s Air & Space Magazine in a September 2006 article:
“GRUMMAN’S FIRST FIGHTERS FOR THE U.S. NAVY WERE BARREL-CHESTED BIPLANES, known only as the F2F and F3F; they had no nicknames, much less the feline names that became near-synonymous with Grumman’s Navy fighters. “
Thus it was that the F4F Wildcat would be the warbird to get the ball rolling on Grumman’s feline fighter nomenclature tradition…and the first to draw blood with its proverbial fangs and claws in combat.
The F4F made its maiden flight on September 2, 1937, and entered operational service with the USN in December 1940, about a year before America’s entry into the Second World War via the Pearl Harbor raid.
Though the F4F was technically inferior to the Imperial Japanese Navy’s vaunted Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter in terms of speed and maneuverability, the hardy, stubby little fighter remarkably held its own, thanks to (1) its greater survivability due to its armor and self-sealing fuel tanks, and (2) its four wing-mounted Browning .50 caliber machine guns could light up the unarmored Japanese planes like tinderboxes. The development of the “Thach weave,” named for then-Lieutenant Commander (later retired four-star Admiral) John Smith Thach (April 19, 1905 – April 15, 1981), also helped partially offset the Zero’s advantages:
The abilities of the Wildcat pilots to embody the military principle of “Adapt, Improvise, Overcome” enabled Wildcat drivers to claim an aerial combat kill-to-loss ratio of 5.9:1 in 1942. The highest-scoring Wildcat ace was Major Joseph Jacob “Joe” Foss (April 17, 1915 – January 1, 2003) with 26 victories — making him either the second-highest or *the* highest-scoring US Marine Corps ace of all time — and recipient of the Medal of Honor.
F6F Hellcat
The Wildcat’s immediate successor, the Hellcat — along with the Vought F4U Corsair — is the fighter plane that finally *did* allow the USN and USMC to attain air superiority against the Zero.
What about the F5F, you may ask? It was officially known as the twin-engine XF5F, nicknamed ‘Skyrocket.’ In other words, Grumman skipped the feline naming convention for the XF5F. Although the Skyrocket exhibited good flight characteristics, the USN expressed concerns that the fighter was too heavy. Only one airframe was built, making iits maiden flight on April Fool’s Day 1940 and being retired on December 11, 1944.
In terms of kill tally and overall damage inflicted upon enemy forces, the Hellcat was far and away the most successful of Grumman’s “Cat” fighters. Just how deadly and dominant was it?
- F6F pilots were credited with destroying a total of 5,223 enemy aircraft while in service with the USN, USMC, and Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm.
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It was the plane flown by Captain David “Mac” McCampbell (January 16, 1910 – June 30, 1996), who:
- Was the highest-scoring USN ace of all time, with 34 victories.
- Still holds the American record for most enemy planes shot down in a single day; **nine** Japanese planes (seven Zeros and two Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusas [隼/”Peregrine falcon;” Allied reporting name “Oscar”]) downed on October 24, 1944, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
- Was also the fighter flown by the previous American record-holder for most aerial kills in a single day, Commander Alex Vraciu (November 2, 1918 – January 29, 2015), who bagged six Japanese warplanes (Yokosuka D4Y Suisei [彗星/”Comet;” Allied reporting name “Judy”] dive bombers in eight minutes…using only 360 rounds of ammunition)!
F7F Tigercat
A so-called “heavy fighter” with a max takeoff weight of 25,720 lb (11,666 kg) and armament consisting of four .50 caliber machine guns **and** four 20 mm cannons — the F7F was the only twin-engined prop amongs the Grummnan felines, and for good the first twin-engine fighter to be deployed by the USN, making its operational debut on November 2, 1943 and entering operational duties the following year.
The Tiger was delivered too late to see actual combat in WWII, it did serve in reconnaissance roles…and then made up for lost time and action as a night fighter and attack aircraft during the Korean War, credited with shooting down two Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes (NATO reporting name: “Mule”), (courtesy of Marine Corps night fighter squadron VMF[N]-513.
F8F Bearcat
This would turn out to be the last of the piston-engine (propeller-driven) Grumman ‘Cats. But, in a manner of speaking, it went out with a bang, as it was the most powerful of Grumman’s prop-driven fighters; it was powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-2800-34W engine, rated at 2,400 hp (1,789 kW) for takeoff and an emergency combat rating of 2,800 hp (2,087 kW).
The Bearcat made its maiden flight on August 21, 1944, and was officially introduced into USN service on May 21, 1945, less than three months before the end of WWII, too late to see combat against the Japanese. It was a superlative aircraft by single-engine prop standards, but the advent of the Jet Age ended the Bearcat’s career as a USN fighter almost before it began, and most F8Fs were withdrawn from service before the Korean War. That said, the French military and the Royal Thai Air Force flew Bearcats until 1963.
The F8F also found a new lease one life as a racing legend, due to the F8F’s maximum airspeed of 455 mph (772 km/h, 395 kn) and a range of 1,105 miles (1,778 km, 960 NM). The Bearcat was even briefly used by the USN’s world-famous Blue Angels demonstration team.
F9F Panther
Speaking of the Jet Age, This warbird represented the Grumman ‘Cats foray into that then-new era…and jet-to-jet combat thanks to the Korean War.
As I noted in an article on the Panther that was published in The National Interest back in January, to this day, official US Air Force records credit 1st Lt. Russell J. Brown as the victor of history’s first-ever jet vs. jet air battle, taking place on November 8, 1950, whist [sic] flying a Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star. However, Soviet records – which must of course be taken with the proverbial grain of salt – insist that Brown’s victim actually survived the engagement. A fair number of Western aviation miltary historians believe the Soviets’ version of events, amongst them the highly respected Dario Leone of The Aviation Geek Club. Leone insists that the credit actually belongs to U.S. Navy pilot Lt Cdr William ‘Tom’ Amen, at the controls of a Grumman F9F Panther, achieved on the day after Lt. Brown’s battle.
More grist for the interservice rivalry miss, I suppose!
LCDR Amen’s victim was a MiG-15 (NATO reporting name “Fagot”), just as in the case of the 1st Lt Brown incident. However, the straight-winged F-80 and F9F alike were outclassed by the swept-wing MiG-15, which in turn necessitated the arrival of the North American F-86 Sabre to give American pilots a better fighting chance against the sleek MiG jets.
The Panther was a history-maker nonetheless. Making its maiden flight on November 21, 1947, and officially going operational in September 1949, the F9F packed an impressive arsenal to the tune of four 20mm cannons (considerably more powerful than the .50 caliber machine guns on the much more heralded USAF F-86.
And the F9F pilots certainly didn’t waste any time in putting that powerful Panther punch to good use: “On July 3, 1950, barely two weeks after the commencement of hostilities in the so-called ‘Land of the Morning Calm,’ Lieutenant (j.g.) Leonard H. “Len” Plog of Fighter Squadron (VF) 51 was piloting an F9F-3 when he shot down a North Korean Yakovlev Yak-9 “Frank” (not to be confused with Imperial Japan’s Nakajima Ki-84 “Frank” fighter of WWII), thus becoming the first USN jet pilot to destroy an enemy aircraft, thus earning an Air Medal for his achievement.
The most impressive air-to-air combat exploit of the Korean War was pulled off by LT Royce Williams of VF-781 on 18 November 1952, when, in a single 35-minute encounter, he shot down four MiG-15s in spite of the latter planes’ aforementioned technical superiority. LT Williams’s accomplishment is even more amazing when you consider that he was outnumbered seven-to-one and that his F9F sustained 263 — that’s right, two hundred and sixty-three(!) — enemy cannon shells and shell fragments. Unfortunately, for political reasons, Mr. Williams’ incredible achievement was kepy hush-hush by the U.S. Government for many years.
XF10F Jaguar
Not to be confused with the much more successful SEPECAT Jaguar (a joint Anglo-French attack jet from 1968 to 1981), this feline warbird (yes, mixing my mammalian and avian metaphors here) shared the name of my second-favorite automobile in the world (next to the classic Ford Mustang of course), but alas, has the most ignominious and lackluster history of all the planes on this list.
In theory, it was supposed to (1) apply the lessons about swept-wing jet fighter superiority learned from the Korean War, and (2) take those lessons learned to the next level, as it was the world’s first variable-sweep-wing fighter.
However, in practice, during its maiden flight on May 19, 1952, it was revealed that the XF10F revealed stability and control problems and an inadequate powerplant. Ergo, only one prototype airframe of this Jaguar was ever built. However, two decades later. the variable geometry wing design would be successfully emulated by the next feline fighter on this list…
F-14 Tomcat
The final and most famous of the Grumman clowder, thanks to the blockbuster Top Gun film franchise.
“Yes, that’s right, a group of cats is called a clowder (sounds like ‘chowder’).”–Cats.Com
Of course, the Tomcat has plenty of impressive real-life combat history pedigree to back up its movie stardom: a 5:0 kill ratio with US Naval Aviators at the controls and an additional 130:4 kill ratio attained by Iranian Air Force (IRIAF) Tomcat pilots going up against Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Air Force (IqAF) warplanes during the Iran-Iraq War (September 1980 to August 1988).
The iconic Tomcat made its maiden flight on December 21, 1970, and officially entered operational service with the US Navy on September 22, 1974. It was finally retired from US Navy service on the 32nd anniversary of its debut, Sept. 22, 2006. Yet incredibly, the IRIAF still keeps their F-14s flying to this very day.