HELLCAT VERSUS CORSAIR

Whenever Navy and Marine Corps aviators who flew and fought in propeller-driven fighters gather, there is always the argument about which was the better airplane: the “bent-wing bastard,” as we lovingly dubbed the Chance Vought F4U-lD Corsair, or the Grumman Hellcat? I am sure that many beers have been consumed and many loud, emotional discussions have taken place on this subject.

In the desperate climate of WW II, the Navy decided that the easiest, quickest, and least costly way to tweak the utmost performance out of its fighter planes would be to let rival manufacturers test the latest versions of one another’s products. So, in the summer of 1943, the Navy delivered into Grumman hands the newest Corsair (F4UlD Buno 17781). I was privileged to be the project engineering test pilot for the F6F-3 Hellcat at the time.

Grumman’s specific orders from the Navy were to improve the Hellcat’s speed by 20 knots and put better ailerons on it so that it would compare favorably with the incomparable Corsair. We were motivated by the strongly implied “or else” in between the lines.

We were also pleased to learn that we had not been singled out for harassment of our sterling product when we heard that Chance Vought, our friendly competitor from the other side of Long Island Sound, was sent an F6F-3 Hellcat and ordered to improve the Corsair’s visibility, cockpit internal layout, and stall characteristics and to redesign the landing-gear Oleos (the Corsair bounced badly on landing). In other words, make the Corsair fly as well as its friendly competitor, the Grumman Hellcat.

If the contest between the two airplanes had been for beauty of design, we would have given in immediately. Our baby, the Hellcat, was beautiful to us, but in comparison with the graceful lines of the Corsair, the Hellcat looked more like the box it came in than a new Navy fighter. We always