The Air Zoo is a world-class, Smithsonian-affiliated aerospace and science museum, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Plan your visit: www.airzoo.org Merch: www.airzoostore.org
The Wildcat is my favorite plane, hands down! Would love to come by and see it. Another difference, thanks to the new engine, is the cowling and in turn, exhaust outlets! If I’m not mistaken, F4Fs before the FM-2 had exhaust outlets only facing down. The FM-2 has outlets facing down as well as on the port and starboard sides of the aircraft
The major difference was the two different types of engine, but it's not mentioned. The F4F had a twin row 14 cylinder, 1,200hp Pratt & Whitney R-1830 The FM-2 used a 9 cylinder 1,350hp Wright R-1820
Yea, but the F4F-3 had a 2 stage supercharger on it's Pratt&Whitney R1830 engine meaning it would have had vastly superior performance at an altitude where it could still make it's 1,200 HP and the Wright R1820 would be down around 900 HP. The pilots who flew the different versions liked the version with the 2 stage Pratt&Whitney R1830 engine and 4 guns, they didn't like the 6 gun version because it reduced the firing time to less than 20 seconds where the 4 gun had over 32 seconds of firing time. Like them I'll give up 150 HP at sea level for something that has a 2 stage supercharger, altitude is what it's all about and if you can make the same HP at 20,000 ft that you make at sea level you'll tear up anyone who's in a plane that's lost ⅓rd of it's power up where you're fighting.
@@dukecraig2402 Agreed, this was the first application of this type of supercharging if I remember correctly. It also sounded much better than the FM-2 🙂
@@Slaktrax Yes, the Wildcat was the first airplane in the world civilian or military to fly with a 2 stage high supercharger on it. The system the Army chose to have their aircraft designed with was an engine with a single stage single speed supercharger with a turbo to start feeding it at medium altitude where it's single stage supercharger could no longer produce maximum boost, the P38, P47, B26, B17, B24, B29 and several others all used that system, the P39 and P40 were both originally supposed to have that system but the turbo was dropped from both of them for the sake of speeding up their development time so they could be put into production because every air force in the world including the Army's was screaming for aircraft, if they'd have both had just 6 more months development time both of them would have had it and the P51 probably never would have been designed because there wouldn't have been a need for it.
I wonder how a land based version of hellcat would have faired - like taking out supports for carrier specific operations like a tail hook, or not needing a folding mechanism. How would it’s performance compare to FW190 or BF109?
