Thanks for exciting memories. I was fortunate to be a volunteer mechanic at the Historic Flight Foundation out of Paine Field Everett , WA. I spent many hours working along side the professional mechanic on all 3 of the plane shown in this video. D
Thanks! I know my old man, who got to fly an F7F for 2 yrs. as CO of VU-6, was smiling for the last 13:26...It was his favorite plane out of 30 yrs. in a lot of different seats. We used to enjoy going out to the flight line at NAS Norfolk when I was a kid and meet him coming back from his det at Gitmo. He'd climb out of the Tigercat soaked thru his flight suit with a big grin on his face, every time...
I'm a retired Cal Fire Capt. When I was a new recruit firefighter they still had a couple of this type being used as fire retardant dropping wild land firefighting aircraft. They were a sight and sound to behold rising abruptly over a ridge line after a retardant drop. What a beautiful aircraft.
The F7F was one of the most beautiful aircraft that Grumman ever produced. What a beautiful sight in Navy Blue and what a terrific sound from those twin double row radials. Too bad that the jet age had to sneak up on the Tigercat so quickly, but that's progress. Thanks for posting this video of my favorite aircraft of the Navy's fleet. You've gained a new sub.
Thank you for taking this with a camera with quality audio and not putting a dumb soundtrack on it You can't believe how many people do that. Watched with the speakers cranked!
I saw this very same plane June, 1990 @ the Texas Air Races @ Grayson County Airport, near Dennison, Texas ............ awesome is an understatement!!!
Great Vid and the Bad Kitty is a true Beauty! Someone else mentioned what it must have been like to hear her roll in on a ground target, which would be a welcome sound, but not nearly as terrifying as the Vought F4U Corsair.......known as the "Whistling Death".
Excellent video! Not sure how you filtered out background noise but this is a professional work of art. Thank you for documenting what was probably the absolute peak of U.S. piston-engined fighter technology ever. For the USN that goes double. F7F & F8F. Badass and double badass. ...Look out, IJN. We got your twin-engined fighters right here. (P.S.: Loved the three-plane flybys in the last portion. Two Wrights and two Pratt & Whitneys! Doesn't get any better. )
I agree on the awesome sounds of the tigercat! Simply one of the best warbird sounds there is. I suggest watching the TH-cam video of Steve Hinton putting on a F7F display at Oshkosh from 2014. The sounds that thing makes will give to goosebumps!
I used to live near an airport and every so often I'd hear an engine not like normal general aviation or commercial planes. That was the alert to find it and watch it. The F7F sound would've stood out from even F16s or A7D's. Sweet mechanical music!
Gotta wonder about the fuel consumption. Just read a book about P-47s inthe Pacific theater. Charles Lindbergh visited them and demonstrated how to increase R-2800 cruise fuel mileage 40% by manually controlling prop pitch. Lindbergh did the similar with the Pacific P-38s.
Most airtime of an F7F I've seen. Previously, I saw one fly for 90 secs. Siskyou Air Service had a Forest Service Contract for firefighting out of Santa Rosa, CA, in 1975. I was a new FAA controller working Ground Control, when a new pilot taxiied out in a Tigercat for his checkout flight. The Ops Mgr used ground control frequency to go over the pre-takeoff checklist, item by item. I was thinking, "this is a bit much", but who am I? He gets approved for one circuit of the pattern to a full stop landing. On left crosswind the engines quit; he leaves the gear up and continues the left turn into the infield between runways 20 and 14 for a deadstick landing. Coming to a dusty stop alongside the VORTAC building, he throws open the canopy and bails. No fire, just dust, settling. That aircraft was declared a total loss and never flew again at STS, perhaps it was restored, who knows. Fuel mismanagement, in spite of all the precautions taken. The DC6's and S-2's continued the missions in subsequent years.
Interesting story Baptiste, I was up there with Dragonfly in 88 I enjoyed Sant Rosa then! I remember the DC's and S-2's never saw the Tigercat but heard about it! Thanks for sharing. Take care.
I live in a part of the country that doesn't see much warbird action except at an infrequent airshows somewhere 10-40 miles away. This is why I was surprised one day when I was coming out of a store in a local strip mall and heard the unmistakable sound of radial engines. Looking up I saw a sight that I probably won't accidentally happen upon ever again. Flying over were a F7F, two F8F's and a single P-51. They were heading toward the local business airport (AGC) which was about two miles away. I drove over there and found the four aircraft fueling up. They were apparently in transit to an event somewhere and were just making a short fuel stop. This was one of the few times I wasn't carrying my camera or phone so I couldn't record what I saw.
In summer 1965, there was an F7F at Santa Barbara airport flying fire suppression - Borate bomber was the term back then. Taking off in the high humidity and heat at Goleta (Santa Barbara) airport it would use up all the runway and barely clear the elevated beach roadway that went to UCSB.
All engine!.........when I lived in Hemet, CA there was a wild fire on the nearby Soboba Indian Reservation (73 or 74). A lot of air tankers came in to Hemet Ryan Airfield to fight it. All those planes had their own slow, laborious route to gain altitude and get ready for their drops. The two Tigercats that were on hand just climbed straight to their preferred altitude and did their own thing. It was im pressive to0 say the least.
The Grumman F7F Tigercat is a heavy fighter aircraft that served with the United States Navy (USN) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) from late in World War II until 1954. It was the first twin-engined fighter to be deployed by the USN. While the Tigercat was delivered too late to see combat in World War II, it saw action as a night fighter and attack aircraft during the Korean War. Designed initially for service on Midway-class aircraft carriers, early production F7Fs were land-based variants. The type was too large to operate from older and smaller carriers, and only a late variant (F7F-4N) was certified for carrier service.
At the begining of that video , I felt that this plane had some lines of the Liner "Constelation"! I can not tell exactly where , but i feel it is around the tail , and also near the wings roots !! Love it and will study more about that bird that I never heard about before !! Bad side of my commentary is that , when there are 2 or 3 planes at the same time on the picture , it could be nice for some guys like me , to get the names of those birdies written somewhere !! Just for the cultural and educational effect !! Thanks a lot !!
That fabtastic birdies producing goosebumps to me, but hey - this will do all of the WW II. planes - with 1,2,3 or 4 engines. Very good video, thank you for the work and upload !!! Like and subscribe is done. sincerely, Frank
Holy jebus, I'm not really sure which I'd want more, the F7N3 Tigercat, the F8 Bearcat, the Rolls Royce Merlin engined B-model Mustang, or the A6 Skyraider! Either way if I was rich and I mean like Bill Gates or Elon Musk rich these would be my personal playthings/toys! This is the kind of things I'd be doing on my Saturdays and stuff!
I trained on the T28 which had a R1820 this plane's smaller brother but I miss the smell of the start & growls it made when it got going. Count six blades before you turned on the ignition to clear any oil out of the bottom cylinder.
It's hard to believe now, that the sky above Nassau County Long Island was once alive with the sounds of Grumman cats and the sky above western Suffolk County was alive with the sounds of Thunderbolts (built in East Farmingdale by Republic Aviation). It was a very different place then. There are still signs of the old long gone Mitchel Air Force base on the grounds of Hofstra University and Nassau Community College if you know where to look.
Nope' inlines made a lot of POW'S' big old pratt and whitney radials brought as lot of boys home cuz they had no vulnerable coolant lines and were a lot tougher .
In the war if you wanted to take a pretty picture of you and a plane you would do it next to a Mustang. But if you wanted to survive the war then you flew in a thunderbolt.
Absofreakinloutely the AD1-D4 Skyraiders racked up numerous kills against Mig-21's & Su-23's in support of our heliborn rescue opps for downed pilots during Vietnam. I am only even alive/exist because the Skyraiders provided close air support for the Jolly Greens when my father was shoot down in Vietnam.
I didn't know about this airplane, but it must have given the Navy many great years of service. I loved the P-51, which was flying with it also. The third aircraft looks like the P-47, but I am not sure about it.
Just imagine it off an aircraft carrier in WW2. Go Grumman!! They would have dominated everything in the air. They did make flying tanks. I worked there almost 4 years.
Nommadd75 Thank you! I do have a couple videos of a couple Corsairs if you search my channel. Flying Heritage Collection is finishing restoration of theirs, so this Summer I hope to get a lot more footage.
thank you for NOT putting music on this. I love the engines!
BULLSEYE!!!!!
Beautiful Bad Kitty! The sound of those big P&W 2800 radials is mesmerizing. What a great way to turn av-gas into wonderful noise!!!
Thanks for exciting memories. I was fortunate to be a volunteer mechanic at the Historic Flight Foundation out of Paine Field Everett , WA. I spent many hours working along side the professional mechanic on all 3 of the plane shown in this video.
D
Gorgeous Aircraft!!!
Words fail me, there are no adequate human words to convey the perfection of this aircraft, mine can only sully this machine.
My absolute favorite warbird!
My favorite Prop plane for sure. One easy ride would make my year.
The most beautiful airplane...all of the innovation that occurred through WWII...jugs, hellcats, corsairs, and it never saw combat.
Excellent stuff bro
I worked on Bad Kitty, Impatient Virgin (P-51) and the F8F.
The F7F is such an awesome airplane! Who thinks about putting 2, 2000 hp engines on a 2 seater airplane!! 👍🙋♂️🖖🏻
May I say: Stick'em!
Man! Where was that at and when was it? I love those planes. Grumman Navy planes!!!!
It would make a great COIN aircraft today.
Should the engines turn the opposite direction like the p 38
Where is bad kitty now? I saw it in Topeka Ks in 2013.
Where is this aircraft now, and is it still flying?
Thanks! I know my old man, who got to fly an F7F for 2 yrs. as CO of VU-6, was smiling for the last 13:26...It was his favorite plane out of 30 yrs. in a lot of different seats. We used to enjoy going out to the flight line at NAS Norfolk when I was a kid and meet him coming back from his det at Gitmo. He'd climb out of the Tigercat soaked thru his flight suit with a big grin on his face, every time...
Tom Wood....I was an enlisted man in the Navy electronic warfare squadron VAQ-33 stationed at NAS , Norfolk, from 1972-75. When was your Dad there ?
One of the most Beautiful Planes that I have Ever Seen! Thank U 4 Posting This!!! ; }>
I'm a retired Cal Fire Capt. When I was a new recruit firefighter they still had a couple of this type being used as fire retardant dropping wild land firefighting aircraft. They were a sight and sound to behold rising abruptly over a ridge line after a retardant drop. What a beautiful aircraft.
460 MPH and a 40,000 foot ceiling. 2,100 HP per engine. What a piston engine airplane!!! Holy cow!!
I'm just enamored with the clean curves and lines of this ole girl! Sleek and beautiful! Very nicely done presentation!
WOW I never knew about this plane . Just beautiful , and it looks lethal . Thanks for sharing 👏👍
It's really fabulous to see these old Warbirds still in use, all respect to those who keep them in the Air.
Sweet really sweet plane you have ..Awesome flying..incredible job on this video too...Thank you so much for your videos..I do enjoy watching...
such an unsung hero. awsome plane and thanks for this video!
Beautiful aircraft , perfect streamlining and proportions thanks for sharing Wales UK
Twin-engine hot rod. A beauty. Excellent photography! And, uninterrupted engine music.
Thank you for no crappy music or any other back ground noise just listing to those engines and the prop pitch is so awesome
My favorite prop plane ! Would love to have an "easy" ride in one. Love the thumping of power as it goes by. Thanks !
The F7F was one of the most beautiful aircraft that Grumman ever produced. What a beautiful sight in Navy Blue and what a terrific sound from those twin double row radials. Too bad that the jet age had to sneak up on the Tigercat so quickly, but that's progress. Thanks for posting this video of my favorite aircraft of the Navy's fleet. You've gained a new sub.
WOW. Great video- love all the flybys!!!!!
That plane is just out of sight! omg
ClayZ No kidding! It was definitely a favorite!
A thing of beauty. What a privilege it must have been to fly one in battle and see and feel the design perform its intended purpose. Wow.
Absolutely gorgeous!!!
This is one beautiful badass bird! Would love to see some performance figures and comments on OEI op’s. Thanks for sharing this cool video.
The sound that it makes is AWESOME.
that's a whole lot of horsepower...impressive
Thank you for taking this with a camera with quality audio and not putting a dumb soundtrack on it You can't believe how many people do that.
Watched with the speakers cranked!
Oneof the most beautiful aircraft ever built, IMHO !
That is one beautiful aircraft.
I saw this very same plane June, 1990 @ the Texas Air Races @ Grayson County Airport, near Dennison, Texas ............ awesome is an understatement!!!
Richard Youngblood
I saw this plane do the 2 cat flyby at the Reno air races in the mid 2000s. Also the rescue P38 from Iceland
Great Vid and the Bad Kitty is a true Beauty!
Someone else mentioned what it must have been like to hear her roll in on a ground target, which would be a welcome sound, but not nearly as terrifying as the Vought F4U Corsair.......known as the "Whistling Death".
Loved watching these when they were used to fight fires.
Excellent video! Not sure how you filtered out background noise but this is a professional work of art. Thank you for documenting what was probably the absolute peak of U.S. piston-engined fighter technology ever. For the USN that goes double. F7F & F8F. Badass and double badass. ...Look out, IJN. We got your twin-engined fighters right here.
(P.S.: Loved the three-plane flybys in the last portion. Two Wrights and two Pratt & Whitneys! Doesn't get any better. )
Another wonderful one, Jason. You are one of the best in the business.
I agree on the awesome sounds of the tigercat! Simply one of the best warbird sounds there is. I suggest watching the TH-cam video of Steve Hinton putting on a F7F display at Oshkosh from 2014. The sounds that thing makes will give to goosebumps!
My kid just asked me if it was a Transformer. I said it was the first one before bumble bee.
@John Nicodemus This thing has a Corsair on each wing.
I used to live near an airport and every so often I'd hear an engine not like normal general aviation or commercial planes. That was the alert to find it and watch it. The F7F sound would've stood out from even F16s or A7D's. Sweet mechanical music!
In every aspect, there is a unbeliveable variety of aircraft the americans had and have- simply wonderful!
That is one badass kitty!
I can see why she is one of your all time favorites. Out of all the airshows I've been to, I've never seen one fly.
Sexy and sleek and that sound!!!
Gotta wonder about the fuel consumption. Just read a book about P-47s inthe Pacific theater. Charles Lindbergh visited them and demonstrated how to increase R-2800 cruise fuel mileage 40% by manually controlling prop pitch. Lindbergh did the similar with the Pacific P-38s.
I believe with the P-38s it was fuel/air mixture (leaning out the Allison V-12).
He showed taught them to decrease rpms but increase the manifold pressure with the P-38s.
Also Corsairs
Most airtime of an F7F I've seen. Previously, I saw one fly for 90 secs. Siskyou Air Service had a Forest Service Contract for firefighting out of Santa Rosa, CA, in 1975. I was a new FAA controller working Ground Control, when a new pilot taxiied out in a Tigercat for his checkout flight. The Ops Mgr used ground control frequency to go over the pre-takeoff checklist, item by item. I was thinking, "this is a bit much", but who am I? He gets approved for one circuit of the pattern to a full stop landing. On left crosswind the engines quit; he leaves the gear up and continues the left turn into the infield between runways 20 and 14 for a deadstick landing. Coming to a dusty stop alongside the VORTAC building, he throws open the canopy and bails. No fire, just dust, settling. That aircraft was declared a total loss and never flew again at STS, perhaps it was restored, who knows. Fuel mismanagement, in spite of all the precautions taken. The DC6's and S-2's continued the missions in subsequent years.
Interesting story Baptiste, I was up there with Dragonfly in 88 I enjoyed Sant Rosa then! I remember the DC's and S-2's never saw the Tigercat but heard about it! Thanks for sharing. Take care.
I saw one of these at Duxford in the UK a few years back. The sound made my chest rattle.
I realize that all the really high performance aircraft were inlines but there just is something beautiful these radials.
Always love a nice Grumman...qudos sir.
I live in a part of the country that doesn't see much warbird action except at an infrequent airshows somewhere 10-40 miles away. This is why I was surprised one day when I was coming out of a store in a local strip mall and heard the unmistakable sound of radial engines. Looking up I saw a sight that I probably won't accidentally happen upon ever again. Flying over were a F7F, two F8F's and a single P-51. They were heading toward the local business airport (AGC) which was about two miles away. I drove over there and found the four aircraft fueling up. They were apparently in transit to an event somewhere and were just making a short fuel stop. This was one of the few times I wasn't carrying my camera or phone so I couldn't record what I saw.
Love the Grumman Cats...
The wire harness was state of the art for that time period.
Espectacular muy bueno 😃👍👍
In summer 1965, there was an F7F at Santa Barbara airport flying fire suppression - Borate bomber was the term back then. Taking off in the high humidity and heat at Goleta (Santa Barbara) airport it would use up all the runway and barely clear the elevated beach roadway that went to UCSB.
Art in motion...I was born 40 years too late
The most beautiful aircraft to come out of Grumman, in my opinion.
All engine!.........when I lived in Hemet, CA there was a wild fire on the nearby Soboba Indian Reservation (73 or 74). A lot of air tankers came in to Hemet Ryan Airfield to fight it. All those planes had their own slow, laborious route to gain altitude and get ready for their drops. The two Tigercats that were on hand just climbed straight to their preferred altitude and did their own thing. It was im pressive to0 say the least.
The Grumman F7F Tigercat is a heavy fighter aircraft that served with the United States Navy (USN) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) from late in World War II until 1954. It was the first twin-engined fighter to be deployed by the USN. While the Tigercat was delivered too late to see combat in World War II, it saw action as a night fighter and attack aircraft during the Korean War. Designed initially for service on Midway-class aircraft carriers, early production F7Fs were land-based variants. The type was too large to operate from older and smaller carriers, and only a late variant (F7F-4N) was certified for carrier service.
Really awesome Tigercat...
Imagine being infantry or armored troups on the ground and hearing this bad-ass coming before you see it?
Bob P t yvyjcghcghgcghcycyuvi
Bob P Very awe inspiring indeed ! Nice Job with the video .😎🏁
Which is why on strafing runs you would have to cut the engines because anything with a pair of ears would be running for cover. I know I would.
Fantastic video!!!!!!
Put A 13 Speed Trans, Air Horns And A CB I Would Have A Ball,By Bears!! WDA Thank You
Beautiful airplane!
Both engines turn counter clockwise. I thought that was a bad idea due to torque. ... And thanks for not adding music. ..
Totally awesomeness
At the begining of that video , I felt that this plane had some lines of the Liner "Constelation"! I can not tell exactly where , but i feel it is around the tail , and also near the wings roots !! Love it and will study more about that bird that I never heard about before !! Bad side of my commentary is that , when there are 2 or 3 planes at the same time on the picture , it could be nice for some guys like me , to get the names of those birdies written somewhere !! Just for the cultural and educational effect !! Thanks a lot !!
Bearcat next to it hahaha. It's like "Do you want small or large?"
Thanks for posting!
Glad they are keeping the bearcat, sad to hear of this leaving though.
JohnVHRC Bad kitty! Stay!
The sky sure cleared up nicely at 6:48.
o had a nice close up of Bad Kitty a few months back when they stopped in to refuel
That fabtastic birdies producing goosebumps to me, but hey - this will do all of the WW II. planes - with 1,2,3 or 4 engines. Very good video, thank you for the work and upload !!!
Like and subscribe is done.
sincerely,
Frank
Thanks. Too bad it did not see action in WW2. What A beautiful A/C!
Grumman should have been called "The Cat Box",,,,what a Beautiful Plane
Holy jebus, I'm not really sure which I'd want more, the F7N3 Tigercat, the F8 Bearcat, the Rolls Royce Merlin engined B-model Mustang, or the A6 Skyraider! Either way if I was rich and I mean like Bill Gates or Elon Musk rich these would be my personal playthings/toys! This is the kind of things I'd be doing on my Saturdays and stuff!
Look up Larry Ellison, his Wikipedia page is a good starting point.
gotta add a P-38 to the list
charlie sinatra and the Corsair
Beautiful.
kitty with full floating muscle,
of course can fly
What a beauty!!
What a cool plane. I wish it had counter-rotating props, like the P-38 - then it would be perfect.
Roy Grumman sure knew how to build awesome fighter planes back in the day.
Completely agree. (No connection with the great late Don W.? Just a long shot and mention of Roy Grumman.)
Bummer about Bad Kitty- She was beautiful to watch in our Pacific Northwest skies...
pearsonba350 Yes, very unfortunate. However we get to look forward to seeing the Mosquito take to the skies in the spring!
The Pratt & Whitney R-2800 was possibly the best radial of WWII.
Did Pratt and Whitney make in-line engines, or just radial engines?
No possibly about it. It WAS the best radial of WWII.
Radial only.
TheWaywardWind I kind of thought so.
Ever heard the "Music of the Merlins"?
This Is like a muscle car with wings
WOW' that baby could move' with dual pratt and whitney r2800 double wasps she was really making some music.
The Pride of Bethpage Long Island NY.....
I trained on the T28 which had a R1820 this plane's smaller brother but I miss the smell of the start & growls it made when it got going. Count six blades before you turned on the ignition to clear any oil out of the bottom cylinder.
It's hard to believe now, that the sky above Nassau County Long Island was once alive with the sounds of Grumman cats and the sky above western Suffolk County was alive with the sounds of Thunderbolts (built in East Farmingdale by Republic Aviation). It was a very different place then. There are still signs of the old long gone Mitchel Air Force base on the grounds of Hofstra University and Nassau Community College if you know where to look.
Whoever is flying that gem I hate him *sigh*
just the sound of those engines should be enough to put fear in the heart of the enemy
Nice radial sound. but IMHO nothing beats an inline Merlin on a Mossie.
George Hinton - Haven't had that pleasure yet... but it will happen soon. she is in the paint Shop now.
Nope' inlines made a lot of POW'S' big old pratt and whitney radials brought as lot of boys home cuz they had no vulnerable coolant lines and were a lot tougher .
In the war if you wanted to take a pretty picture of you and a plane you would do it next to a Mustang. But if you wanted to survive the war then you flew in a thunderbolt.
George Hinton A1D took out Migs in Vietnam too
Absofreakinloutely the AD1-D4 Skyraiders racked up numerous kills against Mig-21's & Su-23's in support of our heliborn rescue opps for downed pilots during Vietnam. I am only even alive/exist because the Skyraiders provided close air support for the Jolly Greens when my father was shoot down in Vietnam.
I didn't know about this airplane, but it must have given the Navy many great years of service. I loved the P-51, which was flying with it also. The third aircraft looks like the P-47, but I am not sure about it.
F8F Bearcat.
Just imagine it off an aircraft carrier in WW2. Go Grumman!! They would have dominated everything in the air. They did make flying tanks. I worked there almost 4 years.
Beautiful! "Bad Kitty"... I love that! Do you have any videos of the F4U Corsair? Unforgettable sound of a single prop. New sub!
Nommadd75 Thank you! I do have a couple videos of a couple Corsairs if you search my channel. Flying Heritage Collection is finishing restoration of theirs, so this Summer I hope to get a lot more footage.