The Grumman F6F Hellcat

[Spitfire XIV-E]

The Grumman F6F Hellcat was the direct descendant of the F4F Wildcat, but was a completely new design sharing only a familial resemblance to the Wildcat. Some tagged it as "Wildcat's big Brother". The Hellcat and the Vought F4U Corsair were the primary United States Navy carrier fighters in the second half of World War II.



Early F6F-3


The Hellcat proved to be the most successful aircraft in naval history, destroying 5,171 enemy aircraft while in service with the US Navy & US Marine Corps (5,163 in the Pacific and 8 more during the invasion of Southern France), plus 52 with the Fleet Air Arm during WW II. Postwar, the Hellcat was rapidly phased out of front line service, finally retiring in 1954 as a Night Fighter in composite squadrons.

Design & Development

Grumman was working on a successor to the F4F Wildcat well before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. While the F4F was a capable fighter, early air battles revealed that the A6M Zero was more manoeverable and possessed a better rate of climb than the F4F. The F4F did have some advantages over the Zero. Wildcats were able to absorb a tremendous amount of battle damage compared to the Zero, and had better armament. The F4F was also much faster in the dive than the Zero, an advantage Wildcat pilots used frequently to elude attacking Zeros.

These advantages carried over in to the F6F Hellcat and, combined with other improvements, created a fighter that outclassed the Zero almost completely. The contract for the prototype XF6F-1 was signed on 30th June 1941. The F6F was originally to be given the Wright R-2600 Cyclone Engine of 1,700 hp, but based on combat experience of F4F Wildcat & Zero encounters, Grumman decided to further improve their new fighter to overcome the Zero's dominance in the Pacific Theatre. Grumman installed the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp of 2,000 hp, estimating a 25% increase in performance would result. The first, Cyclone powered prototype flew on 26th June 1942 while the first Double Wasp powered aircraft, the XF6F-3 had it's first flight on 30th July 1942.

Proposed at the same time as the first Hellcat prototypes, the XF6F-2 incorporated a turbo-supercharger but performance gains were only slight and until fleet demands for improvements in speed, this variant, along with the 2 speed supercharger equipped XF6F-3, languished. However, later F6F-4 and F6F-5 variants did benefit from these initial development programs.

Like the Wildcat, the Hellcat was designed for ease of manufacture and ability to withstand significant damage. A total of 212 lbs of cockpit armour was fitted to aid pilot survival, as well as a bullet resisitant windscreen and armour around the engine oil tank and oil cooler. Self-sealing fuel tanks further reduced susceptibility to enemy fire and often allowed damaged aircraft to return home. The US Navy's all time leading ace, Captain David McCampbell USN, scored all his victories in the Hellcat. He once described the Hellcat as "... an outstanding fighter plane. It performed well, was easy to fly and was a stable gun platform. But what I really remember most was that it was rugged and easy to maintain". The first production Aircraft, designated F6F-3's flew on 3rd October 1942 with the type reaching operational readiness with VF-9 aboard USS Essex in February 1943.

2 Night Fighter subvariants of the F6F-3 were also developed. The F6F-3E, converted from standard -3 frames, featured the AN/APS-4 radar in a fairing in the starboard wing. The later F6F-3N, first seen in July 1943, was fitted with the AN/APS-6 radar in a similar fairing. By November 1943, Hellcat Night Fighters had seen their first action. Fitting AN/APS-6 radar farings to F6F-5's resulted in the F6F-5N, a smaller number of standard F6F-5's were also fitted with Camera equipment for reconnaissance duties as the F6F-5P.

Instead of the Wildcat's narrow-track undercarriage retracting in to the fuselage requiring awkward hand-cranking by the pilot, the Hellcat had hydraulically-actuated undercarriage struts set wider and retracting backwards, twisting 90 degrees in to the wings, exactly the same as the Chance-Vought F4U Corsair. The wing was low-mounted instead of mid-mounted and folded the same way as the later versions of the Wildcat, alowing the Hellcat to take on a compact, tucked in appearance on a flight deck.

Standard armament on the F6F consisted of 6 .50 calibre Browning M2/AN air-cooled machine guns with 400 rounds each; later aircraft gained 3 hardpoints to carry a total bombload in excess of 2,000 lbs. The centre hardpoint also had the ability to carry a single 150 US Gallon disposable drop-tank. 6 5 inch High Velocity Aircraft Rockets could be carried; 3 under each wing.

The next most common variant, the F6F-5, featured improvements such as a more powerful R-2800-10W engine housed in a slightly more streamlined engine cowling, spring-loaded control tabs on the ailerons, deletion of the rear view windows behind the main canopy, an improved, clear-view windscreen with a flat armoured-glass front panel replacing the curved perspex panel and internal armour glass screen and numerous other advantages. Another improvement in the F6F-5 was was the availability of more potent armament than the standard 6 .50 calibre machine guns. Trials with a cannon armed Hellcat were not followed up by a production version; although all F6F-5's could carry a mix of a pair of Hispano 20 mm cannon, one mounted in each of the inboard gunbays, with a minimum of 220 rounds per gun, along with 2 pairs of .50 calibre machine guns with 400 rounds per gun, this configuration was only used on many later F6F-5N Night Fighters.

Although trials with 2 F6F-5's with the 2,100 hp R-2800-18W Pratt & Whitney Double Blower (As fitted to the F4U Corsair) proved very successful, no production order was forthcoming due to the advent of VJ Day.

The last Hellcat rolled out in November 1945, the total production figure being 12,275, of which 11,000 had been built in just 2 years. This impressive production rate was credited to the sound original design, which required little modification once production was underway.


Operational History

The Hellcat first saw action against the Japanese on 1st September 1943 when fighters off the USS Independence (CVL-22) shot down a Kawanishi H8K "Emily" flying boat. Soon after, on 23rd & 24th November, Hellcats engaged Japanese aircraft over Tarawa, shooting down a claimed 30 A6M Zeros for the loss of only one Hellcat. Over Rabaul, New Britain on 11th November 1943, Hellcats and Corsairs were engaged in day long fights with many Japanese aircraft including A6M Zeros shooting down nearly 50 aircaraft. Hellcats also utilised the "Thach Weave", which had been developed in to a formation tactic to compensate for the earlier F4F's definciencies.

Hellcats were involved in virtually all engagements with Japanese Air Power from that point onward. It was the major US Navy fighter type involved in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, where so many Japanese aircraft were shot down that Navy aircrews nicknamed the battle "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot". The F6F accounted for 75% of all aerial victories recorded by the US Navy in the Pacific. Radar equipped Hellcat Night Fighter Squadrons appeared in early 1944.

Navy and Marine F6F's flew 66,530 combat sorties (45% of all fighter sorties of the war, 62,386 sorties were flown from Aircraft Carriers) and destroyed 5,163 (56% of all Navy/Marine Air Victories of the war) at a cost of just 270 Hellcats, an overall kill to loss ratio of 19 : 1. The Hellcat performed well against all of it's Japanese adersaries including the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, Nakajima Ki 84, Kawanishi N1K1 and Mitsubishi J2M. The F6F became the leading Ace making aircraft in the american inventory, with 306 Hellcat Aces. Although it should be noted that the quality of Japanese pilots diminished after 1942 as they sustained heavy losses, whilst the US Navy & Marine Corps could count on ever increasing numbers of good pilots and of course aircraft.

In the Ground Attack role the Hellcat dropped 6,503 tons of bombs.

The Fleet Air Arm received 1,263 F6F's under Lend/Lease and dubbed it Gannet I. The name Hellcat was was eventually retained in early 1943 for the sake of simplicity, as the Royal Navy at that time adopted the use of the existing US Navy names for all american made aircraft supplied to it. So the F6F-3 became the Hellcat FI, F6F-5 - Hellcat FII and the F6F-5N became the Hellcat NFII. They saw action off of Norway, in the Mediterranean and in the Far East. A number were fitted with photographic equipment similar to the F6F-5P and were designated Hellcat FRII. The FAA Hellcat units saw 18 aerial combats from May 1944 to July 1945. 1844 Squadron FAA, aboard HMS Indomitable of the British Pacific Fleet was the highest scoring unit with 32.5 kills. In British service the Hellcat proved to be a match even for the main Luftwaffe fighters, the Messershmitt Bf 109 and the Focke-Wulf Fw 190.

Postwar, the Hellcat was succeeded by the Grumman F8F Bearcat which eclipsed the F6F in performance but was developed too late to see service in WWII. The Hellcat soldiered on in a number of second line USN duties including training. The French Aeronavale was equipped with F6F-5's and used them in Indochina. The Uruguay Navy also used them until the early 1960's.




Left to Right - F6F-3's on 1st January 1943, An F6F-5 ready in catapult on USS Randolph and an F6F-3 on the flightdeck of USS Yorktown (CV-10) having it's wings extended prior to a mission.




Left to Right - F6F-3 on board USS Yorktown (CV-10) in late 1942. Non-specular blue-grey over light-grey scheme, F6F-3's in Tri-Colour paint scheme, Aircraft captains ready VF-82 Grumman F6F-5 Hellcats for launch from USS Bennington (CV-20) off Okinawa in May 1945. These aircraft are in the late war Glossy Sea Blue Scheme.

[Spitfire XIV-E]

Some footage from the John Wayne film - "Flying Leathernecks". Just listen to the beautiful sound of the Double Wasp Engine.

YouTube Video

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Spitfire XIV-E

Standard armament on the F6F consisted of 6 .50 calibre Browning M2/AN air-cooled machine guns with 400 rounds each; ...F6F-5's could carry a mix of a pair of Hispano 20 mm cannon, one mounted in each of the inboard gunbays, with a minimum of 220 rounds per gun, along with 2 pairs of .50 calibre machine guns with 400 rounds per gun, .

John Wayne's particular Hellcat had about ten thousand rounds per gun !

[Spitfire XIV-E]

I searched Youtube for some decent footage but this was about the best I could come up with. John Wayne aside, I do like the Carrier Footage which is at least genuine

[Dave]

I really enjoyed the footage, we are lucky to have colour film of so many Hellcats.

I am a little confused as to where it came from as "Hellcats of the Navy" starred Ronald Reagan, not John Wayne - and it is a submarine movie !
I can't check you tube just now from where I am but I will look at this again later....

EDIT: Aye Spit it seems that - apart from the obvious studio shots of the big man with his finger stuck on the fire button - this is nearly all genuine combat footage as used in the John Wayne movie "Flying Leathernecks" 1951. Excellent !

[Spitfire XIV-E]

Sorry that's it !! - "Flying Leathernecks". Will edit accordingly. Yes some very nice combat footage. All the other stuff I could find had other aircraft at Airshows as well as a Hellcat which isn't quite so good.

[Jim]

The loading of the BOMBS reminded me of something from Formula One, they seemed as efficient ..