Flying the Grumman F6F Fighter: Meet the Hellcat (1943) 

666MikeRochip has

@typo pit - That would probably explain why there was no German 'ace in a day'.

@@otterspocket2826 Hans-Joachim Marseille had 17 kills in a day on 3 sorties on Sept 1, 1942

@@karstenerdinger2167There is considerable doubt about that now. Virtually the only reference for this claim is Tolliver and Constable. Pretty much every other reference sources from them. The RAF records don’t support that many losses for that day.

My dad too.

Haha that IS funny! Good story.

Thanks for the story! This is why its easy to love the F6F Hellcat. The Hero of the Pacific, the Helpcat! :D

NOTHING like the sound of a Hellcat engine! Want to go se one at an air show again!

So if you don't have an extra shotgun shell, if you are forced to land on some desert island you'll never get off the ground again

@@markrobinson1135Not a problem unique to the Hellcat.

ZenosWarbirds i

Since I found this video, I can't stop watching the stalls

Truth is stranger than fiction. Props to your Dad! Amazing times.👍

They'd be drilled into you until you didn't have to remember them; they'd be automatic and second nature.

yea they trained and trained and trained. These dudes were MEN too, not todays 3D printer dudes.

james marshall Sort of . The P-47 had a turbosupercharger and a mechanical super charger. The Hellcat and Corsair only had mechanical superchargers. I think all 3 had water and methanol injection for War Emergency Power.

yah i read that also! thunder bolt had some cool stuff on the engine the plane had one hell of a maximum payload

crosstimbers2 the thunderbolt was the heaviest fighter plane ever built ..with a piston engine

james marshall I think you have to qualify that with single engine. Technically the P-61 was a night fighter.

crosstimbers2 yah i knew uuu were gonna mention somthin about that ..Thats right single engine baddass mofo it is .couldnt shoot it down it was built to stay in the air..Now. the hellcats protected my dad in the south P he was on a munition ship..

Needed to be beefy to fit more in the ship, the beef carrier.

2000 to 2800 hp what a engine

Ha! Yeah, WW2 fighters were definitely about as complex as piston engine airplanes could get.

@Leonard Daniel Robertson....an amazing memory. thanks.

What ship? What VF?

Thanks to your dad we don’t speak German and you don’t speak Japanese. Greetings from the Netherlands 🇳🇱.

@@hansvandijk1487 Actually I studied German as a minor in University. I wish I also knew Dutch. One of my ancestors may have lived in the Netherlands with the Pilgrims before sailing to Plymouth Rock on the Mayflower (17th century): maybe that Colonel Robertson knew some Gaelic and Dutch, besides English. They did not starve on the long voyage off course in the storm because of the Chinese rice bags in the hold for ballast. The Pilgrim Fathers had a vote to use Hebrew or English (and maybe German), if I recall correctly, as an official language, and English won. I'm sure lots of Dutch was used in New Amsterdam before it became New York.

@@jockellis USS Langley, and maybe USS Enterprise too; but originally from USS Vega Volunteer Force 52 I believe after surviving Pearl Harbor and shooting down one plane from the big ship guns. Of the 22 in the graduating class only 2, my dad and another pilot, survived the war without injury. Most bought it at the battle of the Coral Sea I heard him say. My dad did survive friendly fire bullets through his fuselage without incident. Almost flew straight down into the water off an aircraft carrier because his propeller pitch was wrong because he did not manually touch all his instruments, doing a mental check only, but sensing danger and skidding to a halt at the edge of the deck at the last minute and having to be pulled back for another attempt, every one screaming for him to hurry up because planes low on fuel needed to land. Awarded the 100,000 miles flying club (or was it 10,000?) without accidents (except almost falling out or floating out of the plane on a dive at Corpus Christi, the 120 degree kind where you're partly upside down and have to pull yourself back in with the flying stick...but that was on a training plane, with the window open...it would have been better to wear the seatbelt...and his trainee trying to laugh because the almost died, if they did not pull up but slammed into the ground...more than one pilot there died that way).

surearrow That's funny right there....

surearrow That is funny, but that's really how you had to deal with these things. So much manifold pressure, so many RPMs, so many degrees of cylinder head temp, etc. etc.

AND BEWARE OF LO BLOOD PRESSURE.

surearrow yea but it is so simple to fly

surearrow on a more serious note the fuel mixture and manifold pressure was extremely important in fact Charles Lindbergh showed the pilots of he p38 lighting his to almost double their range by a simple adjustment of manifold pressure vs mixture

Yeah, he would have his hands full, but this looks as if it's a flight test.

Months of ground school and flight training.

yz450223 Technically, the requirement of pilots of that age was even greater because while the equipments are not as complex as today.... they were mostly manual... today's aircraft by comparison are heavily automated in most of the mundane operations (and in the case of civilian aircraft, they are automated to such degree the aircraft literally can fly with preprogrammed flight plan with minimal pilot input. in comparison, the pilots in WW2 era and up to early cold war were essentially very much a stick and rudder pilots who had to be able to feel their aircraft and know it inside out to fly it to it's best capability... and heck, for some aircrafts... you had to be familiar with the aircraft's quirks to even survive flying them.

They flew using what was called radio navigation (as opposed to what we'd now call IFR). Carrier ops required it because there aint no land marks at sea. They used ADF/NDB. The range of NDB is good at sea - typically 90-120NM (or more). Downside is it transmits on the AM band so any lightning and the ADF points directly at the thunderstorm rather than the transmitter. This is a problem - a really big problem as it sends you off course as well as into a thunderstorm to boot. No plane can withstand the forces of a thunderstorm. The wind goes up at 6000ft/min or more and down at a similar speed in close proximity creating shearing that tears planes to pieces. The hail is often huge as it goes up and down in the wind getting a coat of ice from supercooled water each time until its too heavy for the wind to hold it in the cloud and it falls to earth melting on the way down. The lightning inside is more violent than what we see when it hits the ground. The top of the thunderstorm is often above 35000ft in the tropics. No, you don't want to fly into a thunderstorm or be downwind of a thunderstorm. There are many rules in aviation to avoid them right down amount of fuel required for holding if they are forcast to upwind and down wind passing distances.

leighsoft me too, I never realized it until I saw the picture of the one crashed on the flight deck with a sailor trying to get the pilot out.

+James Robert There's no doubt in my mind that he'd have to adjust throttle. You would want plenty of power in a climb or sharp turn, but wouldn't want to over speed in a dive. Not sure what else he'd have to fiddle with, though. Obviously, he'd be very busy while fighting!

Energy management is key. Engine management would aid in that. Especially if that pilot wanted to return to base and not grenade the engine.

You must mean best kill ratio. The Messerschmitt shot down more enemy aircraft, but was also the most produced aircraft in history.

@@hb9145 I stand corrected. 19 to 1 ratio. And yes being aware of just one Bf pilot like Gunther Rall and his 275 confirmed. Now how many Hellcats and Bfs mixed it up? Surely the Brits operated a few Hell kittys.

Wiki shows one of the prototypes w a 4 blade, but I don’t think anything but the familiar 3 blade was ever used operationally.

+leftcoaster67 Americans are smart enough to use multiple systems at the same time, but the rest of the world is so stupid that they can only handle one... 'MURICA!!! :P

RonJohn63 well I'm an Aussie & even though I'm only 50 I can still work stuff out in miles Klms inches & cms, even distance in Yards metres & Chains & rain in inches & cms & points! "Straya"!!

Who, in his right mind, would measure temperature in anything but Centigrade.

RonJohn63 There is life outside the U.S.A . I'm canadian and familiar with both systems . I'm 51 by the way .

@@vincentlefebvre9255 54 here. They say us Americans don't know metric.....when I have a 9mm and 5 grams on me. :)

Grumman did make a few developmental F6F-6s which had the 4 blade prop. My source (The book Hellcats at War) states that it could go 417 mph. But at that time the F8F Bearcat was pretty close to being adopted so the navy decided to focus on that. So in other words right you are!

@KJ....yes, so 'mechanical' unlike modern aircraft.

You should check out the B-29 Superfortress flight procedures, lolol..

And this plane was considered to be one of the easier ones to fly, especially compared to the Corsair and Thunderbolt.

I think it is

It might also be due to the Corsair's ability to stay aloft longer then the Hellcat

That's not true. The Japanese had some late-war designs that, while not mass produced in enough numbers to make any real difference, does put a hole in your argument. The Ki-84 and N1K were both faster than the fastest Hellcat variants. The Ki-84 was faster than the F4U-1, but not faster than the F4U-4. The Hellcat could not go 400mph. The last variant, the F6F-5, only went 390. The F6F was outclassed by the Japanese late-war fighters in speed, climb rate, and maneuverability. Only thing it had going for it were better pilots and more numbers.

A couple of minor points: 1) The Replenishment groups did not accompany the Fast Carrier Forces, too slow. It would have severely restricted their movement ability. Instead there were regular rendezvous points set up based upon the Fleet's activities. Usually only one or two of the Task Groups would replenish at any one time. 2) The Light Carriers, (CVL), were always in the front lines with the Fleet Carriers. Escort Carriers (CVE) traveled with the replenishment Groups to provide replacement aircraft and Pilots. Also all carriers carried a limited number of each type of aircraft on-board for loss replacement and spare parts. 3) I do not recall reading anywhere that the USN adopted "Milch Cow" type submarines to replenish submarines on Patrol Stations. They returned to base for reloads and rest between War Patrols. As the War progressed those Bases were moved closer and closer to the Patrol areas as Forward bases were captured and made secure. 4) The biggest thing the Japanese had going against them towards the end of the war was a lack of Trained and Experienced Pilots. They did not rotate out their Experienced Combat Pilots like the U.S. did to train new pilots. They were coming up with newer more capable aircraft, but could neither produce them in sufficient quantity, nor work out technical glitches for them to have an effect on the outcome of the war.

Oleo struts.

Hugh Johnson Are you kidding? This is an incredibly simple plane to fly especially considering it's performance. It's really not much harder than a Cessna 172 and it's landing and stall speeds are about the same. Grumman really thought out what was needed to allow 22 year olds to be safe and effective fighter pilots. The control groupings are the standard everybody has followed ever since. It's just a very safe, simple and stable aircraft by any definition and has no bad habits.

Karen-Audrey .Todd Becareful...Your ignorance is showing... Ive flown several WW2 vintage aircraft... None are easy to fly... some are easier than others... but none are easy. Just interpreting the "steam guages" were a chore, particularly in stressful conditons.. You wouldnt want to fly this airplane under IFR conditions. Fighter airplanes of this vintage were very unstable by nature...they had to be in order to be nimble in a fight. You cant mention C-172 and F-6F in the same sentence..they are not comparable..

+Fred Brillo It sure was easier to land then the german BF109

+1barnet1 Perhaps...I couldnt tell you..Ive never flown a 109..

it had a landing gear the the width of a shopping cart with a v12 with way over a thousand horsepower and no visibility whatsoever. there is a reason why a lot of good pilots died trying to land one.

Not enough of them to make a difference, like the ME262. Yes?

@@1mattadams Agree

+Scott Taylor I would do that job just to get the hamburger stand hat and bell bottom pants

An army advanced infantry trainer told me: “If you have to think in a combat situation then we haven’t done our job.” The same could be said by flight instructors. The Hellcat was an OJT fighter with plenty of armor to give pilots a fighting chance to learn from their mistakes. It didn’t have the tag Ensign Eliminator like the Corsair.

Those aviators would you usually train to the point where all those steps became muscle memory. In my opinion, this plane isn’t as difficult to fly as a Corsair or a P47.

He did fly the F4U as the Martlet (Wildcat) from the Audacity (a converted Banana boat, not very big) and he loved it said it was simple to land with its very compliant u/carriage and also the floatation bags for use when ditching. He did shoot down the heavily armed Condor - simply take it on directly from the front. and watch the pilot cringe. He lists the F6U as the fighter in the Pacific Theatre which introduced fighting in the vertical plane which helped it gain a Kill/Loss ratio of 19 to 1, The Zero was only better when used in the Horizontal plane and could use its phenominal turn.

@@derekambler Interesting about comparison of zero and hellcat in combat! Which was the better plane? I thought the hellcat could go up to 400 miles per /hrs.. and was heavily armoured with 3 50/cal. machine guns on both sides! A modified wildcat is what it was! But it had the most kill ratios out of all fighter planes during ww2?? Can that be clarified , and how would it stand against the mebf109 , fw190, and Great Britains spitfire!

Finally somebody says that :)

gary mathews 2000 hp

@gary mathews...i think it was around 385 mph...a bit lower than the Corsair, with similar engine.

Think the later would do 413, IIRC.

I thought it was 410mph at full throttle top speed! The Corsair was about410- 412. The Navies hellcats and corsairs were some of the best on both sides of the world!

Well, it was the only way to design it if you wanted a prop' large enough to generate any real speed.

Grand Inquisitor quite amazing how big those engines were. Nowadays we can get the same BHP from an engine 1/4 the size. (maybe even smaller im just guessing)

REAL pilots flew taildraggers!!!

orange70383 There were no really good visibility carrier planes that developed over 350 MPH back then. On the carrier deck there were crew to assist with parking the plane. On land you will see crew men laying on the wings of P-47s while they taxi. You have to have a big paddle to go fast.

ketatrypt 2800 cubic inches

This is a training video. Believe me, those boys knew how to get them in the air quick.

It would be a hell of a complicated procedure today.

You should look up starting a Liberator or Fortress - you had 4 engines to sort out - lucky you used pretty constant settings on a bomber!!