This Grumman Cat was Built on A Winner But Its Career as a Fighter Was Short Indeed
The straight-winged Grumman F9F Panther was a workhorse for the US Navy and Marine Corps during the Korean War. But when the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 showed up in the skies over Korea, it became obvious that a swept-winged fighter was needed for the Sea Services, and needed quickly. Grumman, who had a long history of designing and building fighter aircraft for the Navy, reasoned they had a good foundation for a swept-winged fighter in the Panther- and they took advantage of it.
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Building a Better Panther
Grumman essentially took the Panther design and added a 35-degree swept wing with leading and trailing edge flaps of wider chord, spoilers for yaw control on the upper wing, full-chord wing fences, an all-flying swept empennage, larger airbrakes, and a larger rudder. Other modifications to the basic Panther included moving the engine intakes forward and stretching the fuselage two feet in order to add internal fuel needed because the tip tanks could not be mounted on the wingtips. The swept wings also were hinged for folding up near the wing roots adjacent to the air intakes.
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Better Around the Boat
Test pilot Fred C. Rowley flew the initial prototype of Grumman’s Design 93, the XF9F-6, for the first time on 20 September 1951- only six months after the contract was signed. Some engineering tweaks to the control surface configuration produced a swept-winged jet that had better handling around the boat than the straight-winged F9F-5. The jet’s critical Mach number was increased from 0.79 to 0.86 at sea level and to 0.895 at 35,000 feet. Power for most Cougars was provided by a Pratt &Whitney J48-P-8A turbojet engine (a license-built Rolls-Royce Tay).
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Into Service
Fighter Squadron THREE TWO (VF-32) Swordsmen became the first fleet squadron to equip with the F9F-6 Cougar in November of 1952. VF-24 Checkertails was the first fighter squadron to deploy with the Cougar, doing so aboard the USS Yorktown (CV-10) in August of 1953, but they arrived too late to participate in the Korean War. Cougars were armed with four nose-mounted 20 millimeter cannon aimed using the Aero 5D-1 weapons sight paired with the APG-30A gun-ranging radar. Hardpoints under the wings enabled the F9F-6 to carry a pair of 1,000-pound bombs or 150 gallon drop tanks. Many Cougars were modified with a UHF homing antenna under the nose. Cougars equipped for inflight refueling had their probes mounted right up front on the nose radome. The last of the 646 F9F-6 Cougars was delivered on 2 July 1954.
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First Pass at a Photo Cougar
Grumman fitted sixty F9F-6 Cougar airframes with nose-mounted cameras in place of the 20 millimeter cannons. These first photo-Cougars were designated F9F-6P and delivered between June of 1954 and March of 1955. F9F-6Ps were nine inches longer than standard F9F-6s to accommodate the photo reconnaissance equipment in the elongated nose. Many of the F9F-6Ps were also equipped with inflight refueling probes mounted to the front of the photo nose.
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Improving the Breed
In April of 1953 work began on the next Cougar variant (the F9F-8) with three primary improvements in mind- lower stall speed, increased range, and improved control of the aircraft at high angles of attack. The wing grew by 37 square feet, a dogtooth was added, and chord was increased. The fuselage was stretched by 8 inches as well. These changes resulted in the desired improvements. Top speed increased to 704 miles per hour while minimum catapult speed was lowered to 146 miles per hour. First flown on 18 January 1954, the F9F-8 was capable of supersonic flight in a steep dive. 601 F9F-8s were delivered between April of 1954 and March of 1957. When Navy fighter aircraft began deploying with the ability to fire AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles for the first time in 1956, VA-48 F9F-8 Cougars were carrying them.
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