World War II American Hellcat fighter information

The F6F Hellcat fighter was a carrier-based aircraft serving in the US Navy during World War II. Due to its excellent performance, it became the main carrier aircraft of the US military in the middle of World War II. F6F is more advanced than the old F4F wildcat in internal structure and equipment, but it is almost the same in appearance except for its larger body, so it is also nicknamed "the big brother of wildcats". Big? Brother). In World War II, the shooting down ratio of this plane to Japanese fighters was as high as 19: 1.

F6F Hellcat fighter is a carrier-based aircraft that served in the US Navy during World War II. F6F is more advanced than the old F4F wildcat in internal structure and equipment, but it is almost the same in appearance except for its larger body, so it is also nicknamed "the big brother of wildcats". Big? Brother)? . In the middle of World War II, F6F gradually replaced F4F as the main force of the US military with its excellent performance, and shot down 517/kloc-0 fighters for the US military (8 of them were shot down in the south of France). The F6F serving in the Royal Navy also shot down 52 planes. After the war, F6F was still used by the US military until 1954. After the American squadron was independently equipped with night fighters, it was completely retired and served in other countries for a longer time. F6F produced a total of 12275 aircraft, of which 1 1000 aircraft were built in two years.

The history of F6F can be traced back to 1938, when the prototype XF4F-2 of Grumman F4F-2 was undergoing flight test. Both the US Navy and Grumman want to put a more powerful engine into F4F to further improve its performance. However, based on the basic design of XF4F- 1, the overall improvement of performance can not be guaranteed only by reloading, and the wing area needs to be increased, so the very successful XF4F-3 appeared, which provided valuable experience for the future development of F6F. XF6F- 1 can be regarded as an enlarged version of F4F. The normal takeoff weight of XF6F- 1 is 5,896kg, which is twice as heavy as that of F4F, and its geometric size has also increased by 20%. Both of them are from Grumman's "blacksmith shop" design team, so it is not surprising that the two planes are similar in appearance. The fuselage and tail structure of XF6F- 1 have inherited F4F, but their geometric dimensions are different. XF6F- 1 redesigned the mid-wing, so that the main landing gear can be retracted into the wing instead of the fuselage like F4F, and the trajectory of the main landing gear of F6F is much wider than that of F4F, which is more suitable for operation on aircraft carriers. XF6F- 1 also strengthened the armor of pilots and increased the ammunition capacity. The large-scale carrier-based aircraft has greatly improved the tactical performance of XF6F- 1, and the same trend has also appeared on its competitor XF4U, whose weight has reached more than twice of zero. ? Due to the urgency of the war, F6F-3, as the first modification, was ordered to set up a production line before the test flight. When the first plane left the factory, it was only 14 months from the design start date of F6F, which set a record for the development of fighters. ? August 3 1, 65438, 0943, F6F-3 entered the war for the first time, and soon showed her advantages in speed, firepower and survivability, and became the nemesis of "Zero" aircraft for the first time. The performance completely surpassed that of F4F and F4U served by the US Navy at that time. 1May, 944, the production line gave way to F6F-5 with better performance. ? F6F is the product of comprehensive redesign based on F4F after fully listening to users' opinions. Therefore, although they have many similarities in appearance, F6F's body has been expanded by 60%, its armor and firepower have been strengthened, and its engine power has doubled, making it a large single-seat single-engine carrier-based fighter with high power at that time. ?

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Like F4F, the design feature of F6F is convenient for production and stable structure. The F6F originally used Wright's R-2600 engine. However, in order to enhance combat effectiveness, Grumman decided to further improve F6F to change the dominant position of Zero Type in the Pacific Ocean. Grumman installed Pratt & Whitney for F6F? R-2800？ Engine, horsepower increased to 2000, the overall power increased by 25%. And the star engine of R-2800? (radial? Engine) design also ensures that after any cylinder is hit, it can still keep flying through the operation of other cylinders. In addition, the protective armor of the cockpit weighs 2 12 pounds (96 kg), and it is equipped with bulletproof glass, and the sealed fuel tank and cooler are equipped with armor, which makes the F6F not easy to leak oil, be seriously damaged or even lose power in battle, and improves the return rate of the damaged aircraft. ? Like F4U, the basic armed forces of F6F are all six Browning M2 machine guns. Later modifications enabled the F6F to mount a 2000-pound bomb or carry an additional fuel tank of 150 gallon. The wing can also be equipped with ***6 5-inch HVARs rockets to attack ground targets. ? Compared with F4F's small and difficult-to-control landing gear, F6F adopts hydraulic landing gear, which increases flexibility and strength, and can make the landing gear take a 90-degree right angle and fold inside the wing. The layout of the wing at the bottom makes the F6F landing on the flight deck more stable.

Experiment and modification

The first aircraft of the early test model F6F was tested on June 26th 1942, while the XF6F-3 with a new engine took off for the first time on July 30th of the same year. At the same time, new improvement measures were introduced immediately. XF6F-2 is equipped with a one-stage two-speed supercharger, and its performance is not ideal. At that time, the navy was not keen on further improving the high-altitude performance of carrier-based aircraft, so it did not pay attention to XF6F-3 with two-stage supercharger, but these tests provided experience for later F6F-4 and F6F-5. ? F6F-3 At the same time, F6F-3 also derived the night fighter. F6F-3E is equipped with AN/APS-4 radar on the wing tip fairing, and then F6F-3N? (1July, 943) AN/APS-6 radar was installed at the same location. These night fighters were sent to the battlefield at 1943+0 1 The same radar configuration as F6F-3N was later equipped with F6F-5s, from which another night fighter model ──F6F-5N was derived. The F6F-5s with camera was designated as F6F-5P by the Navy. ? F6F-5F6F-5 is the most commonly used model. Including the improved engine, the spring-controlled aileron, the deletion of the rear cabin window cover, and the use of new tempered glass for the front window cover. As for the F6F-5s, there is another outstanding change, trying to increase the flexibility of choosing weapons. In addition to the original six Browning machine guns, F6F-5s can also remove 1 Browning machine guns (with 400 rounds of ammunition left) from each side and replace them with 220 Hispano-Suiza? HS.404 machine gun. However, due to the heavy and unstable gun, this configuration has not been officially put into production line, and it was only used on some F6F-5N night fighters in the later period. ? The following is the basic information of F6F-5: Length: 33 feet 7 inches? ( 10.24m)？ Span: 42 feet 10 inch? ( 13.06m)？ Height: 13 feet 1 inch? (3.99 meters)? Maximum takeoff weight: 15,415 lb? (6990 kg)? Fuel quantity: 250 gallons in the inner cylinder? (946 liters), up to 3 150 gallon (568 liters) loading cylinders? The experimental machine of F6F-6F6F-6 consists of two parts? F6F-5s is modified, namely XF6F-6. The most obvious difference between the two is the improvement of the engine and the adoption of Pratt & Whitney? R-2800- 18W four-leaf engine, the output power is increased to 2 100 horsepower. Therefore, F6F-6 has become a leader in the F6F series, with a maximum airspeed of 4 17 mph. However, with the surrender of Japan in the near future, F6F-6 has no big production plan.

Other models

There are two special models of F6F, namely F6F-3K and F6F-5K. K number indicates that this model can be unmanned and operated remotely by ground personnel. This plane is not used for fighting, but to enter dangerous airspace for detection, or to be used as a drone. ?

Fighting history?

The F6F on Bumblebee (CV- 12) is ready to attack the Japanese targets in Taiwan Province Province. The number 22 is F6F-3 and the number 4 1 is F6F-5. Note that the window cover of F6F-3 is relatively flatter than that of F6F-5. ? A group of F6F fighters are providing fire support for the American troops landing on Iwo Jima. ? American fighters after the war: F4U-5P ranked third from top to bottom, followed by F6F-5P, F8F-2P, F9F-5P, etc., showing the development of fighters before and after the war.

United States armed forces

F6F month 1943 first battle 1. It took off from the aircraft carrier Independence and shot down a Japanese warship. . 165438+1October1All day, the mixed formation of F6F and F4U fought fiercely with the Japanese fighter group over rabaul, shooting down nearly 50 enemy planes. 1 65438+1On October 23rd and 24th, F6F shot down another 30 fighter jets over Tarawa Atoll, while F6F only lost1fighter. F6F also inherited the special combat system of F4F. See en:Thach for details. Weaving. From the first battle, F6F basically participated in all air combat in the Pacific War after 1943. Including the so-called "Mariana Turkey Shooting Competition" in the Philippines, most of the air combat shooting results were obtained by this machine.

Generally speaking, F6F arranged 75% of the air combat victories of the US Navy aviation. After 1944, night F6F fighter formations equipped with radar also went into battle one after another. F6F also participated in 66,530 small-scale encounters, accounting for 45% of the total number of World War II, most of which belonged to the navy: 62,386 were dispatched by aircraft carriers. . These campaigns F6F destroyed 5 163 enemy planes at the cost of 270 sorties, accounting for 56% of the total naval battles, and the shooting down ratio was 19: 1. As for fighter Zero, the shooting down ratio is 13: 1, the blast is 9.5: 1, and the lightning is 3.7: 1.

F6F has also bred the most ace pilots, with a total of 306. In addition to the advantages of the body, this success is also attributed to the decline in the quality of Japanese pilots and the appropriate strategy of the US military. As for the ground attack, F6F dropped 6503 tons of bombs.

British army

The British army also obtained 1263 f6f through the lease bill, which was once known as Gannet? Me? (gannet? I), until 1943, in order to simplify and reduce confusion, the name Hellcat was used back. F6F-3 is called Hellcat in the British army? f？ Me, F6F-5 is Hellcat? f？ Second, F6F-5N is Hellcat? NF？ F6F of the British army participated in the battles in Norway, the Mediterranean and the Far East. A part of F6F was also converted into a photographic fighter by the British army (similar to the F6F-5P of the US army), which was called Hellcat? Fred? Second, the British F6F didn't have much actual combat experience, and shot down 52 sorties in 18 battles between May 65438 and July1945. Among them, the unyielding aircraft carrier (HMS? The indomitable 1844 team contributed the most, accounting for 32.5 sorties. In the late World War II, these F6F and other leased aircraft were quickly replaced by British-made fighters. In VJ-Day of 1945, only two of the flying teams of 12 were equipped with F6F, and even these two teams were dissolved by 1946. The service situation also points out that the performance of F6F is comparable to that of German Bf? 109 and Fw? Compared with 190.

Postwar and other uses

Because the design of F6F is conservative, it can't effectively improve the performance. Therefore, at the end of World War II, F6F on American warships began to be replaced by F4U, which solved the landing problem of warships and was replaced by a better F8F after the war. After that, only a small amount of F6F-5K was used in the Korean War, and most of them were transferred to second-line training. Zina also uses the F6F-5 of the French Navy. The F6F-5 of the Uruguayan Navy was used until the early 1960s. .

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England?

Royal Navy?

America?

The U.S. Navy?

United States Marine Corps?

Uruguay?

Uruguay navy