Wildcat, Best US Navy Fighter WWII

1930artdeco · Apr 5, 2014

It is neat how fast the SG shell spun the engine! Regular battery starters turn a bit slower. I am assuming there must be an advantage to the internal starters over the SG starters-I know it is not weight.

Mike

Otter · Apr 5, 2014

I think you may have hit the nail on the head there. It is a rotary engine and requires a lot of angular momentum to get it running. That would require a big motor, heavy wiring, and a meaty battery to power it all. In a carrier aircraft that extra weight is undesirable. I guess a cartridge start system is quick, reliable and lightweight, a low tec solution.

Stearmen · Apr 5, 2014

Otter said:
I think you may have hit the nail on the head there. It is a rotary engine and requires a lot of angular momentum to get it running. That would require a big motor, heavy wiring, and a meaty battery to power it all. In a carrier aircraft that extra weight is undesirable. I guess a cartridge start system is quick, reliable and lightweight, a low tec solution.

Actually, it's a radial engine. A rotary engine, is where the crank shaft is solidly mounted to the fire wall, and the cylinders and crankcase rotate with the propeller. [video=youtube;CYc-H8Wg-MQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYc-H8Wg-MQ[/video]

Stearmen · Apr 5, 2014

1930artdeco said:
It is neat how fast the SG shell spun the engine! Regular battery starters turn a bit slower. I am assuming there must be an advantage to the internal starters over the SG starters-I know it is not weight.

Mike

The advantage of an electric start over the shotgun, or inertia starter used on a lot of early WWII airplanes is, if you get either a intake or exhaust fire, you can just keep cranking the engine until it starts, then rev the engine up, and either suck or blow out the fire. With the other methods, you have to wait for a new shell to be loaded, or wait for the inertia starter to wind back up, all this, while the plane is on fire!

Stearmen · Apr 8, 2014

This video surprised even me. I have watched several Corsairs and FM-2 Wildcats take off over the years, but I never realized how little runway the tubby little Wildcat needs. No wonder they were so good on the Jeep carriers! [video=youtube;YadnMO-4xB0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YadnMO-4xB0[/video]

DesertDan · Apr 9, 2014

My great uncle was a Wildcat pilot and had kills in both theaters of the war, including a German U-boat.

Stearmen · Apr 10, 2014

DesertDan said:
My great uncle was a Wildcat pilot and had kills in both theaters of the war, including a German U-boat.

Wow! Do you have any photos of him, or his planes?

DesertDan · Apr 10, 2014

Unfortunately no. He was a model builder and had a model that was the exact replica of his plane but I only saw it decades ago, so I don't remember the numbers or markings except for the kill marks. It struck me as unusual to see them from both theaters and a U-boat as well so I remember that story.

He was a very interesting man. I understand that he left the Navy and joined the AAC and eventually was an instructor as well. So in addition to the Wildcat he flew the F4U Corsair and the P-47 Thunderbolt, but I am uncertain if he flew those in combat.

Treetopflyer · Apr 11, 2014

It is extremely rare for a Naval Aviator to have kills in both theaters of operations during WWII. The U.S. Navy was not that involved in the Atlantic as much as it was in the Pacific side, aviation wise that is. It is uncommon, but not unheard of.

Worf · Apr 11, 2014

Stearmen said:
It's a Wright 9 cylinder Cyclone. The primer might be stuck on, or a float. I am sure it works fine now. If you look at the old photos and footage from WWII, they never started one of the round engines with out one man on the fire extinguisher!

Quite true... EVERY photo I've ever seen has some poor ba***rd dressed in yellow standing next to the engine with a fire extinguisher in one hand and his heart in the other. If he didn't "go boom" then mebbe the prop got im. NOT my idea of a safe way to earn a livin'.

Worf

Worf · Apr 11, 2014

Of all the planes I flew in IL2 the Wildcat was the hardest to land. That narrow gear and high nose angle made my live miserable. Sigh...

Worf

Chas · May 9, 2014

The Wildcat was the best they had at the time and some of the tactics (i.e. the Thatch Weave) employed by it's pilots were nothing less than a brilliant adaptation in the face of superior numbers and quality of their enemies. However, numbers never lie, my friend. The Hellcat had more kills than any other Allied airframe. Best plane of the war, IMO. I've always wondered how it would have fared against the FW 190 but I'm thinking it would have outperformed that crate, too.

The Hellcat is king - I love the Wildcat too, but....

Unless you can come up with another stat that will convince me- like kills per sortie, whatever. I understand what you mean when you compare Wildcat numbers vs. the cream of the IJN and IJA aircrews and the comparison vs F6f kills were against inferior Japanese aircrews.

The design of the F6F was so good, in fact that even with the acquisition of the Akutan Zero Grumman already knew that it had the fighter that the USN needed.

Stearmen · May 10, 2014

Yes and no to the Hellcat. If you look at my original post, you will see, just the FM2 is counted. So only, through a strange quirk of the Navy deciding that the latter Wildcat variant should be counted separate from the earlier models, does the FM2 beat out the Hellcat in kill ratio. Like you said, numbers don't lie! It is ironic, but of course, the Hellcat was a better plane then any of the Wildcat variants. People need to lighten up, it's a fun fact, just like, the Hurricane shot down more planes then the Spitfire during The Battle Of Britain, a fact, but, with extenuating circumstances!

Chas · May 10, 2014

Hey, I am "lightened up." I enjoy a lively debate more than most (and definitely more than some here in the FL).

So what you are essentially saying is that for a time the FM2 was the most successful a/c that the Allies had in the Pacific (and possibly the war). You could be right, I don't know. I haven't seen the stats.

I think it has as much to say about the achievement of USN logistics that they could produce so many capable pilots in such a short time that could wring that much capability out of the plane as the IJN and IJA pilots were some of the best trained and experienced in the world, flying planes like the Zero.

Otter · May 27, 2014

I knew I had seen a report on this: http://www.history.navy.mil/download/nasc.pdf

If you scroll down to pp14/15 you will find the info in a table , the F6F had 66530 combat sorties, 5163 aircraft kills for a ratio of 0.077 kills per sortie, combat losses of 270 aircraft for a kill ratio of 19:1.
The F4F had 2628 combat sorties, 905 aircraft kills for a ratio of 0.344 kills per sortie but 178 combat losses giving only a 5:1 kill ratio.

(Edited: losses are combat related excluding operational losses ans losses to A/A. The conclusions on pp59 are that you cannot compare the whole period, only year by year as the conditions changed too much)

Lee Hutch · May 27, 2014

I am partial to the Corsair but only because my grandfather flew them during the War. No other reason than that. Otherwise, I think the Hellcat was a fine aircraft.

Stearmen · May 28, 2014

Otter said:
I knew I had seen a report on this: http://www.history.navy.mil/download/nasc.pdf

If you scroll down to pp14/15 you will find the info in a table , the F6F had 66530 combat sorties, 5163 aircraft kills for a ratio of 0.077 kills per sortie, combat losses of 270 aircraft for a kill ratio of 19:1.
The F4F had 2628 combat sorties, 905 aircraft kills for a ratio of 0.344 kills per sortie but 178 combat losses giving only a 5:1 kill ratio.

(Edited: losses are combat related excluding operational losses ans losses to A/A. The conclusions on pp59 are that you cannot compare the whole period, only year by year as the conditions changed too much)

Again, this is only the Eastern FM2 Wildcat variant, not the Grumman F4F! The Navy separated the two, so you are wrong.

Stearmen · May 28, 2014

Here is another fun fact about the FM2. The top five Hellcat and Corsair squadrons had a 76 percent destroyed, to claims. Meaning, out of the total number of planes the pilots claimed to have shot down, 76% were actually confirmed. The FM2 overall percentage was 94%! Of course, again, we are only talking about total kills of 422, and most of those were Kamikazes, who's pilots had Target Fixation! I am not sure, but I bet, the top five Hellcat and Corsair squadrons had more then 422 kills between them! Still, it is funny, how a few kills, can so skew the entire Bell Curve.

Otter · May 28, 2014

If you read the report, one of the conclusions is you cannot make broad brush statements. Differing combat conditions applied in different areas within the theater and at different times in the war. What was a very successful aircraft in , say 1942 might not be successful in '43, but potentially due to how and where it was being used and how much opposition it was facing.

Stearmen · May 31, 2014

Otter said:
If you read the report, one of the conclusions is you cannot make broad brush statements. Differing combat conditions applied in different areas within the theater and at different times in the war. What was a very successful aircraft in , say 1942 might not be successful in '43, but potentially due to how and where it was being used and how much opposition it was facing.

“I fly close to my man, aim well and then of course he falls down.” — Oswald Boelcke

Wildcat, Best US Navy Fighter WWII

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