F6F Hellcat

[upyr1]

It's Eagle CEO Nick Grey's favorite plane 

[Steel Jaw]

Hellcat was the mainstay of US carrier forces in the Pacific War.  But the Corsair was far cooler…whistling death.

Edited January 15, 2022 by Steel Jaw

[Mogster]

F6F saw some ETO action also, RN and USN.

[upyr1]

4 hours ago, Steel Jaw said:

Hellcat was the mainstay of US carrier forces in the Pacific War.  But the Corsair was far cooler…whistling death.

 

We have the corsair on the way, which I really like because it is one more Korean era plane. Though both are cool for WWII

[Bozon]

On 1/15/2022 at 7:40 PM, Steel Jaw said:

 But the Corsair was far cooler…

 

Heresy!

Hellcat is a far cooler name. “Corsair” is just like a pirate, but without the “arrr”, without the eye patch, without the hook, and without the parrot - just a guy who commit crimes on the sea.

Sure F4U was a great plane, on of WWII best - if you don’t need to operate from a carrier, have lots of money to spend, and there is no war in progress so you can ssslllooowwwllyy manufacture them…

[MAXsenna]

Pretty sure it's the next WWII module from ED, unless it's a Zero, or both. 

[AG-51_Razor]

Rumor monger!!

[upyr1]

https://flyingironsimulations.com/blogs/news/2022-announcements-development-report

It's coming 

[Silver_Dragon]

8 minutes ago, upyr1 said:

https://flyingironsimulations.com/blogs/news/2022-announcements-development-report

It's coming 

Remember that has been MSFS.... Nick Grey has no talk yet about the next WW2 aircraft and I think has no get any info meanwhile not have a very advanced model.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Silver_Dragon

[upyr1]

5 hours ago, Silver_Dragon said:

Remember that has been MSFS.... Nick Grey has no talk yet about the next WW2 aircraft and I think has no get any info meanwhile not have a very advanced model.

 

I think it will be on the way soon-

[Jester986]

On 1/18/2022 at 5:25 AM, Bozon said:

Heresy!

Hellcat is a far cooler name. “Corsair” is just like a pirate, but without the “arrr”, without the eye patch, without the hook, and without the parrot - just a guy who commit crimes on the sea.

Sure F4U was a great plane, on of WWII best - if you don’t need to operate from a carrier, have lots of money to spend, and there is no war in progress so you can ssslllooowwwllyy manufacture them…

Pretty sure it has the hook...

[Cab]

On 1/18/2022 at 7:25 AM, Bozon said:

Heresy!

Hellcat is a far cooler name. “Corsair” is just like a pirate, but without the “arrr”, without the eye patch, without the hook, and without the parrot - just a guy who commit crimes on the sea.

Sure F4U was a great plane, on of WWII best - if you don’t need to operate from a carrier, have lots of money to spend, and there is no war in progress so you can ssslllooowwwllyy manufacture them…

No, unfortunately with it's long body, bent wings, and cute nose the Corsair is by far the cooler of the two.

The Hellcat, on the other hands, is the chubby kid who took karate and lifted weights. So despite it's looks, it can still kick the asses of everyone on the block.

[Ercoupe]

 

I have never heard of anyone referring to the F4U's nose as cute. It's like saying Jimmy Durante's nose was cute. All right, I know you kids don't know who Jimmy Durante was. Massive, yes. Cute, no.

[Cab]

23 hours ago, Ercoupe said:

 

I have never heard of anyone referring to the F4U's nose as cute. It's like saying Jimmy Durante's nose was cute. All right, I know you kids don't know who Jimmy Durante was. Massive, yes. Cute, no.

Granted. But I already used "long" for the body. 

How about, "prominent" nose? 

[Fairey Gannet]

18 hours ago, Cab said:

Granted. But I already used "long" for the body. 

How about, "prominent" nose? 

I am afraid "prominent" doesn't reflect magnitutude of situation here. What we have is a weaponized anteater-grade snout. How about "looming"?

Back to the topic - I always liked F6F a bit more over Corsair, I am not sure why, though. From an engineering standpoint, Hellcats production was an interesting process, where demand for high quality, high volume and low price were mixed together - and with success.

[Bozon]

8 hours ago, Fairey Gannet said:

I am afraid "prominent" doesn't reflect magnitutude of situation here. What we have is a weaponized anteater-grade snout. How about "looming"?

Back to the topic - I always liked F6F a bit more over Corsair, I am not sure why, though. From an engineering standpoint, Hellcats production was an interesting process, where demand for high quality, high volume and low price were mixed together - and with success.

Exactly. The Hellcat was a perfect balance between performance, carrier capability, cost, and ease of production. Really, a master-piece of a well rounded design.

Vought on the other hand tended to suffer a classic case of "best is the enemy of good". You can see that in both F4U Corsair and F-8 Crusader - Vought produced top notch fighters, except that they were supposed to be carrier fighters and not land based fighters. Both were not great around the boat which led to a large number of accidents, low servicibility, and the F4U was not even cleared for carriers before most of the war was over and they didn't matter any more.

Grumman on the other hand designed the Hellcat with "just enough" performance - because once you have a fighter that dominates the skies, an even better fighter makes little difference. What does makes a difference during a war is producing a lot of these fighters and fast! The Hellcat cost was almost half as much as a Corsair. Grumman were producing them at a rate of about 300 a month on average. At times they achieved double that rate - this means enough planes to equip a full new squadron every 2 days, or less! The performance concessions made the Hellcat A LOT better around the boat, and a lot more reliable than the Corsair.

The result of the above was that although the F4U started flying long before the Hellcat (from land bases), by the time the Corair had its issues ironed out and made carrier capable, the US Navy was already full of Hellcats that completely won the dominance in the skies. Being the best is not enough - you have to be there when the battle happens! and hence the huge differene in the kill counts in favor of the Hellcat, inspite of being "inferior" in performance to the Corsair. As a land-based fighter the Corsair beats the Hellcat and is a good contender to the top of the WWII list, except that this was not the requirement.

Grumman by the way fell for the same trap with the F8 Bearcat - its was too good, too late, too complicated, lacked the Hellcat's perfect balance, and at the time it was available didn't really answer any need. Cool plane though.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Bozon

[Fairey Gannet]

19 minutes ago, Bozon said:

Exactly. The Hellcat was a perfect balance between performance, carrier capability, cost, and ease of production. Really, a master-piece of a well rounded design.

Vought on the other hand tended to suffer a classic case of "best is the enemy of good". You can see that in both F4U Corsair and F-8 Crusader - Vought produced top notch fighters, except that they were supposed to be carrier fighters and not land based fighters. Both were not great around the boat which led to a large number of accidents, low servicibility, and the F4U was not even cleared for carriers before most of the war was over and they didn't matter any more.

Grumman on the other hand designed the Hellcat with "just enough" performance - because once you have a fighter that dominates the skies, an even better fighter makes little difference. What does makes a difference during a war is producing a lot of these fighters and fast! The Hellcat cost was almost half as much as a Corsair. Grumman were producing them at a rate of about 300 a month on average. At times they achieved double that rate - this means enough planes to equip a full new squadron every 2 days, or less! The performance concessions made the Hellcat A LOT better around the boat, and a lot more reliable than the Corsair.

The result of the above was that although the F4U started flying long before the Hellcat (from land bases), by the time the Corair had its issues ironed out and made carrier capable, the US Navy was already full of Hellcats that completely won the dominance in the skies. Being the best is not enough - you have to be there when the battle happens! and hence the huge differene in the kill counts in favor of the Hellcat, inspite of being "inferior" in performance to the Corsair. As a land-based fighter the Corsair beats the Hellcat and is a good contender to the top of the WWII list, except that this was not the requirement.

Grumman by the way fell for the same trap with the F8 Bearcat - its was too good, too late, too complicated, lacked the Hellcat's perfect balance, and at the time it was available didn't really answer any need. Cool plane though.

 

I would not say that myself better. Thank you. This leads to my favourite Pacific theatre fighter - the Wildcat. It was there since beginning, carried USN through toughest fights and was good match for an enemy. When F6F's and F4U's arrived, it wasn't phased out, in fact it was updated with FM-2 variant, and formed backbone of escort carriers flight decks. And that says something. Not to mention foolproof design, that went out of production alongside with more capable F6F. I guess enemy didn't really introduced that many new designs and in serious numbers, so F4F's could stick around.

As for Bearcat - it was new direction for Grumman, high quality and expensive plane. That idea with explosives to shear off wingtips was a bit too much though on the weight saving front.  

Edited January 29, 2022 by Fairey Gannet

[Rudel_chw]

I’d prefer a Zero instead of yet another allied aircraft … hope ED will do it while there still is a flyable example:

 

 

Edited January 29, 2022 by Rudel_chw

[Fairey Gannet]

2 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

I’d prefer a Zero instead of yet another allied aircraft … hope ED will do it while there still is a flyable example:

Well, Zero is must have to actually use any allied planes in Pacific anyway.  My guess is Corsair is being developed without counterpart, because it was used in Korea, so for now it can find some use out of the box. Any follow-up on Far East WWII will need for at least Zero. And ton and a half of AI assets.

[rkk01]

Very curious as to how a FF Zero will perform in DCS…

… I suspect much better than many might expect. The key US multipliers of numbers, tactics, training can’t be easily replicated here. A disciplined pilot, flying to the Zero’s strengths may do well.

I was always surprised to read accounts of Zero vs Spit Vb engagements - the Spitfires held little advantage in terms of turn, dive or climb (IIRC…)

[Pikey]

I think the same as with most modules, they don't meet our imagined performance because we use them fearlessly in an isolated bubble that hasn't got much relation to what happened, in some way. Also because the AI flight model is wonky if that is in the picture.
The best part of DCS is that we can recreate completely different things and use different behaviours and tactics, so Its no more charming, just different from stories and expectations.

[EL CARIBE]

On 1/24/2022 at 2:16 PM, Silver_Dragon said:

Remember that has been MSFS.... Nick Grey has no talk yet about the next WW2 aircraft and I think has no get any info meanwhile not have a very advanced model.

 

I agree Mr. Grey has not mentioned it, but one of the ED BizDev heads indicated in an interview last year that after the Mosquito, their focus will be on the East and that Mr. Grey was particularly interested in developing the Hellcat first.  Of course this was awhile ago and who knows whats happened since.  Would be an awesome module though.

[Silver_Dragon]

I agree Mr. Grey has not mentioned it, but one of the ED BizDev heads indicated in an interview last year that after the Mosquito, their focus will be on the East and that Mr. Grey was particularly interested in developing the Hellcat first.  Of course this was awhile ago and who knows whats happened since.  Would be an awesome module though.

We know then, on fact, Nick has none confirm them on "modules", only a "I like build a hellcat and Bob modules", but none officially confirmed.

We need wait to see what happens, on fact the only official actually has been complete the mosquito, bug fixes, Marianas WW2 map and continue expand WW2 assets pack.

Enviado desde mi RNE-L21 mediante Tapatalk

[upyr1]

On 2/9/2022 at 1:20 AM, Silver_Dragon said:

We know then, on fact, Nick has none confirm them on "modules", only a "I like build a hellcat and Bob modules", but none officially confirmed.

We need wait to see what happens, on fact the only official actually has been complete the mosquito, bug fixes, Marianas WW2 map and continue expand WW2 assets pack.

Enviado desde mi RNE-L21 mediante Tapatalk
 

As the Hellcat is Mr. Grey's favorite plane I would really be shocked if flying iron doesn't port the F6F to DCS. 

On 1/29/2022 at 5:58 PM, Rudel_chw said:

I’d prefer a Zero instead of yet another allied aircraft … hope ED will do it while there still is a flyable example:

 

 

 

The zeke would be awesome

[NoodI]

Why does it have to come to msfs and not dcs