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The Grumman F6F Hellcat is an American carrier-based fighter aircraft of World War II.
Designed to replace the earlier F4F Wildcat and to counter the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero, it was the United States Navy's dominant fighter in the second half of the Pacific War.
In gaining that role, it prevailed over its faster competitor, the Vought F4U Corsair, which initially had problems with visibility and carrier landings.
The Grumman F6F Hellcat is an American carrier-based fighter aircraft of World War II.
Designed to replace the earlier F4F Wildcat and to counter the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero, it was the United States Navy's dominant fighter in the second half of the Pacific War.
In gaining that role, it prevailed over its faster competitor, the Vought F4U Corsair, which initially had problems with visibility and carrier landings.
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00:30The F-6F Hellcat
00:31After entering service with the U.S. Navy in 1942,
00:35the F-6F Hellcat quickly became a dominant factor in the Pacific campaign.
00:40Although it lacked the maneuverability of its prime adversary, the Zero,
00:44superior armor and firepower proved a deadly combination.
00:48Of the more than 6,000 enemy planes downed by the U.S. Navy in the Pacific,
00:5380% met their fate at the claws of the Hellcat.
00:56Tonight, soar high with the F-6F Hellcat on wings.
01:01During the course of the Second World War,
01:21the U.S. Army Air Force produced several successful fighter aircraft that had become legends.
01:26The P-47 Thunderbolt, P-38 Lightning and the P-51 Mustang stand out.
01:32Yet none of these famous planes ever achieved anything like the kill ratio of the solidly built,
01:38almost rotund aircraft that went by the name of the F-6F Hellcat.
01:43The model was developed almost as an afterthought
01:46and rushed into production by its manufacturer, Grumman.
01:49It was to average 19 enemy aircraft down for every one of its kind lost in combat.
01:56On these figures alone, the Hellcat must be judged one of the significant success stories of World War II aviation.
02:04It was, in addition, extremely effective as a battlefield and maritime attack bomber.
02:10Its all-around performance was a bonus to the war effort of immeasurable value.
03:14In 1942, when the Hellcat first went into service,
03:42the total concept behind the aircraft was little more than a year old.
03:47Within the span of three years, no less than 12,000 examples had been produced,
03:52all from the same factory, an engineering achievement in itself.
03:56This becomes even more impressive when considered in conjunction with the fact
04:00that it was only the second monoplane fighter that Grumman had produced
04:04and was only the third monoplane to be accepted for Navy use.
04:08The Army Air Corps, on the other hand, had considerable experience with monoplane fighter designs going back to the early 1930s.
04:20By 1932, the Army Air Corps had in service the stout little single-wing Boeing P-26, nicknamed the P-Shooter.
04:28In January 1935, Grumman sold the Navy a stubby fighter plane, the XF-2F,
04:39and since the delivery of the first one, Grumman has had fighter types under contract for the Navy without interruption.
04:45Their next plane was the F-3F, which ironed out some of the vices of the F-2F with more maneuverability and better directional stability.
04:55It was adopted by the Navy in relatively large numbers.
04:59These were the last biplane fighters produced in the U.S.
05:02The drag problems of the strut bracing of biplane wings so hampered speed that it was evident that they would be replaced by monoplanes,
05:10despite the twin problems for the Navy of the higher landing speeds of the single-wing fighters
05:15and the problem of stowage of their larger shapes within the confines of the fighting ships.
05:32The biplane had its inherent advantages of maneuverability, slower landing and take-off speeds,
05:46and the sturdiness of their bracing.
05:48However, these factors were irrelevant in the face of the speed advantage of the modern monoplanes,
05:53and the era of the biplane was well over by the time the war broke out.
06:02By the late 1930s, even U.S. bombers had long been monoplanes,
06:20whose sleek designs gave them greater speed than the Navy's biplane fighters.
06:25The Navy had to turn its attention to solving the problems in carrier use of monowing fighters,
06:30and tests were conducted employing examples of all Army fighters then in production with pretty disappointing results.
06:37It was a case of building new planes for practical carrier deployment.
06:49Stripped of one wing but otherwise not radically altered,
06:53the F-3F emerged as the XF-4F in 1936,
06:57but it offered little improvement on the biplane's performance,
07:01and was abandoned and replaced with a new design, the XF-4F-2.
07:06The new shape was quickly refined in response to strong interest not only from the United States Navy,
07:12but from the British and French fleets as well.
07:15During 1939, a new variant, the F-4F-3, was settled,
07:20and contracts were signed with all three navies,
07:22though none of the French planes had been delivered by the time Hitler's blitzkrieg had knocked that nation out of the combat.
07:30Named the Wildcat, the new plane employed Grumman's answer to the problems of stowage
07:35and movement of the planes around the carriers, a folding wing.
07:39Cranked back alongside the fuselage, this novel solution reduced the aircraft's demand for space,
07:44although some of the early export models had fixed wings.
07:49The stout shape was extremely clever.
07:52In spite of its stubbiness, it was aerodynamically very efficient.
07:56Defying the trend to inline engines that European designs had led,
08:01Grumman stuck with the radial power plant,
08:03valuing the extra resilience they offered and their lower demand for maintenance hours,
08:08easing the burden on carrier crews operating at sea.
08:11Though outmoded in its original role,
08:15the plane stayed in production with little refinement right through to the end of World War II.
08:20General Motors produced the Wildcat in the thousands for supply to the U.S. and British navies.
08:26By the end of 1939, the war clouds over Europe had broken,
08:31unleashing a storm of destruction as German forces overran Poland and France
08:36behind the stunning assault of the Luftwaffe's air power.
08:41The British Navy's F-4Fs, under their designation the Martlet,
08:50were actually credited with the first kill of World War II by a U.S.-built airplane
08:55when two British-flown Martlets identified and intercepted a Junkers 88 medium bomber
09:01over the United Kingdom.
09:03Though the 88 was a fast plane for its type,
09:06it was no match for the stout little Grumman planes and it was quickly dispatched.
09:10The fleet air arm normally flew its Martlets from aircraft carriers in the role they had been designed for,
09:34as the war progressed and the Royal Navy found itself involved in the vicious attrition of the Atlantic campaign.
09:41Trying to protect the convoys and keep the sea lanes open,
09:44the F-4Fs were employed in that cold and bleak environment.
09:48They provided invaluable service, often working from small carriers with very limited flight decks,
09:54an ability that ensured their continued service in the years to come.
09:58Back in Bethpage, Grumman was well aware that the Wildcat was limited
10:06and that the Navy would need a larger, more powerful fighter.
10:10Leroy Grumman, the company's president and chief engineer,
10:13had been involved in discussion with the Navy to determine their longer-term need for a more advanced plane.
10:19Within the Grumman philosophy, build it strong and build it simple,
10:23the engineers hammered out a new design to improve on the Wildcat.
10:27To provide any marked improvement resulted in a completely new plane being developed.
10:38The Navy flyers of the Wildcat were clear on what they wanted, more speed.
10:44To provide this meant the use of a more powerful engine,
10:47and this meant that the entire structure had to be strengthened.
10:50The new plane would be 3,000 pounds, or over 60 percent heavier than the Wildcat.
10:57The previous undercarriage would have been totally inadequate,
11:00and in designing a totally new system, the engineers also repositioned it beneath the wings,
11:06creating a wider track and making the plane more forgiving in carrier landings.
11:12It was Japanese carrier forces that would bring America into the war.
11:20When the Japanese task force attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941,
11:37they destroyed an important part of the United States naval strength in the Pacific.
11:42But the American carrier force was not in port at the time and was preserved.
11:46In the subsequent battles of the Coral Sea and Midway,
11:50these ships were critical,
11:51since the outcome of those battles effectively closed the phase of Japanese expansion.
11:58During both of these campaigns,
12:00the only fighter aircraft available to the U.S. Navy was the F-4F,
12:05and although they gave valuable service, they were hard-pressed.
12:08The Wildcat was the slowest of all U.S. wartime fighters,
12:12yet they were fairly successful.
12:14Their generous wing loading gave them better maneuverability and climb rate
12:18than some of their faster contemporaries,
12:21and with a pragmatic reliance on well-conceived tactics,
12:24they more than held their own against the Japanese carrier planes in the battles.
12:29The ferocity of the naval-aerial war
12:32against Japanese opponents who fought with tenacity and bravery is now legend.
12:37The Wildcats' hard-fought victories against the Japanese Zeros were a major credit to them.
13:07The Wildcats as well
13:21said to me that heads up.
13:24T Эссор
13:24THE FIGURE PAGE
13:25THE FILGURE PAGE
13:27THE PLEAS
13:29THE LEW ICH
14:00It was really kind of funny because all the veterans were getting ready to duck under them.
14:07We're sitting up on the flight deck.
14:09We wanted to see what happened.
14:10And when the first strafing made their run, you just couldn't find a soul on the deck after that.
14:16So we learned real fast that it wasn't a picnic out there.
14:26The Mitsubishi Zero was another legend of World War II.
14:31Extremely light at the expense of armor plating, it had been designed with three criteria.
14:36Most importance had been given to maneuverability, followed by long range,
14:41and the requirement that the plane have a speed that was at least competitive with other nation's fighters.
14:47Though it could best any Allied plane in a dogfight,
14:50its very simplicity and lightness made it vulnerable to an enemy who refused to play to its strengths.
14:55It lacked a heavy punch with its guns and the ruggedness to absorb hits itself.
15:01Because of its competitive edge, special tactics were employed against it to allow the Wildcat to cope.
15:06But clearly a faster, more heavily armed aircraft was needed to subdue the Zeros once and for all.
15:12Such a plane was already on the drawing board.
15:16The Chance Vault F4U Corsair.
15:18This powerful fighter with its distinctive gull wing had been under development for some time
15:23and was intended for use on the new Essex-class carriers,
15:26which were big enough to provide large fighters with sufficient runway to take off and land.
15:32But with the U.S. in the war and with the Corsair still needing refinement,
15:35the Navy had to look for another alternative to provide the more powerful fighter that was needed to replace the Wildcat.
15:43Meanwhile, Grumman's new concept was gathering momentum.
15:47Designated the XF-6F, the top secret project was being presented to the Navy as an aircraft
15:52that could go into production very quickly once the go-ahead had been given.
16:05Though conventional and strongly resembling the Wildcat,
16:10it was a totally new plane down to the last nut and bolt.
16:14But it still reflected the principle of keeping things strong and simple.
16:18The Navy placed its first order on June 30, 1941,
16:22and the plane given the name Hellcat went into production.
16:25All manufacture of the Wildcat and much of that of the new Grumman Avenger dive bomber
16:30was transferred to General Motors,
16:32and Grumman turned their whole Bethpage plant to the Hellcat.
16:38The first flight took place less than 12 months after the order was placed on June 26, 1942,
16:46and production planes were being completed only five months after that.
17:02A feature that the Hellcat shared with its smaller stablemate, the F-4F,
17:18was its folding wings,
17:20as the innovation had proved itself a real success,
17:23and there was no point in changing it.
17:24A sturdy strut undercarriage, totally new on a Grumman plane,
17:32had been adopted to deal with the heavy load of the new fighter.
17:35The great bulk of the stubby design was to be propelled
17:38by the 2,000 horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine.
17:44Both the engine and the undercarriage were only slightly modified as the plane evolved.
17:49You can get some idea of the size of the aircraft as crew climb aboard it.
17:56Its bulk would demand too much for the small escort carriers,
18:00so these would remain the domain of the Wildcat with its short takeoff requirements.
18:04requirements.
19:05Once it was sealed, a wrench caught between gears or pulleys could destroy the entire project before it got off the ground.
19:30Using the same cartridge-like starter of earlier Grumman aircraft, the F6F is being readied for ignition.
19:36With the successful firing of the engine, the pilot directs the ground crew to remove the chocks, and the Hellcat is ready to take off.
20:50In some ways, the success of the Hellcat is a model of the cooperative effort by the defense forces and American industry to meet the demands of war.
21:00The engine had found itself plunged into the war with little overt preparation.
21:04In fighter aircraft, there were insufficient numbers of mostly outdated designs, and yet in a short time, the U.S. was turning out planes that could not only do the jobs given them, but do them very well.
21:16In addition, they were being produced in numbers that were well beyond the capacity of the Axis powers.
21:22What the U.S. Navy needed and what the F6F provided was a plane that made optimum use of established and proven technology, and that could be delivered quickly in large numbers.
21:33The engineering might of North American industry was brought to bear as a potent military advantage for the Allies.
21:40While Nazi designers were working with new, still largely theoretical technology in developing jet and rocket-powered planes to regain their previous advantage, their existing arsenal was confronted by overwhelming numbers of excellent conventional aircraft.
21:56The Germans knew technology would arrive too late and insufficient quantity to swing the combat around.
22:03The Hellcat, typical of most U.S. fighters, was much heavier than its opponents, but offered comparable or better performance, in conjunction with more firepower and greater armor protection for its pilots.
22:15These planes were more likely to return to base after sustaining damage, so the attrition in U.S. pilots was far lower than their opponents.
22:24The U.S. pilots, well-trained and flying better planes, survived their early combat exposure to become experienced warriors.
22:31But the Japanese forces, flying planes that relied on flight rather than protection, quickly lost their core of battle-skilled veterans.
22:39After the first two years of the wider conflict in the Pacific and Asia, Japanese planes were being flown into battle by pilots who were not only inexperienced in combat, but virtually untrained.
22:51Rushed into production to cover the delays in the Corsair project, the Hellcat impressed the Navy.
22:58With the expanding need for planes, it was easy to convince the Navy to purchase the Hellcat in large numbers.
23:06It was a very maneuverable airplane. It was a very maneuverable airplane. It did aerobatics. It did everything that was demanded of it.
23:13It was a green pilot's airplane, and we had very few problems with maintenance or the aircraft itself, or with flying it. We all flew it.
23:24The nation went to war in the armaments factory as it did on the battlefield.
23:42Eventually, the availability of the instruments of destruction would be the deciding factor in the outcome of the war.
23:48Here, Grumman made a major contribution. Not only did it deliver a plane that could be quickly deployed to do the job, but it delivered the machinery to make them.
23:58The workforce, the techniques and skills needed were assembled and trained to produce the aircraft in phenomenal numbers.
24:05Women workers, young and old, joined the workforce, and even the disabled found places in the mobilization of industry to meet the war's demand.
24:14I am the best.
24:26The world JP Joaqu Bin
25:01Here, the massive 2,800 double WASP engines are fitted, and the propellers with their complicated
25:27gear mechanisms are assembled.
25:31The major sub-assemblies prepared in their own sections of the plant are brought together
25:38in the final assembly area to make up the plane.
25:41The final assembly area is the main part of the film, and the main part of the film was
28:02Over the production life of the Hellcat, even the paintwork varied only once.
28:07In changing from the three-tone blue early camouflage to the overall dark navy blue, almost a gloss
28:14black, which remained in use till well after the war.
28:25Let's shoot out!
28:26Please consider commenting or commenting on the inner constructions.
28:27Thank you!
28:29Here, a finished Hellcat leaves the paint shop, fully inspected by Grumman's
28:59ground personnel.
29:00Next, it must go through hands-on testing by the Grumman test pilots.
29:04Their job was to look for faults from construction failures, an inherently risky business, before
29:09planes were cleared for delivery.
29:12In this dangerous job worked some of the unsung heroes of the war, and it is of interest to
29:16note that several of these pilots were women.
29:21The work of the female ferry pilots in the U.S. flying planes from the factories to bases
29:26is better known, but these company pilots, flight testing Hellcats, like the women on
29:31the factory floor building the planes or those in the control tower, made a major contribution
29:36to the war effort, and their particular courage and dedication deserves note.
29:42In this case, the product of their labor, the F6F, was, as far as the Pacific Theater was
29:47concerned, the key to victory.
30:00Daily the ferry pilots would come to collect the planes as they were cleared for delivery.
30:05The Hellcats rolled from the factory in a constant flow.
30:09This mammoth industrial activity, reflected in hundreds of other plants around the country,
30:13was to create the situation where, by war's end, the United States industrial output had
30:19soared to be larger than that of all the other combatants combined.
30:43And they were, by war's end, of the day after the war, the National Space Patrol made a
30:53film, at night after the연령.
30:56However, the U.S. flying over were the most dramatic, theر
31:08The squadron that I joined was VF-15 out of Air Group 15, and it was a highly decorated
31:35fighter squadron, just having come out of the Battle of the Philippine Sea in the later
31:42stages of the Marianas Turkey shoot, in which the Japanese air opposition was still there.
31:57Although a few Hellcats operated from land bases in the Pacific, most, like the Wildcats,
32:03were deployed to carriers.
32:06Navy and Marine F-6Fs crewed the larger carriers, like the Essex class, as rapidly as they could
32:11be produced.
32:13As you can read, subscribe, and keep your life quiet.
32:16We'll see you next time.
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32:22Let's get it.
32:22Yes!
32:23You and the-
32:24obil لو.com
32:25Let's get it.
32:26The new ones are the most important.
32:27You and the ladies are the most important.
32:28This is the third one.
32:30Let's move into your arms.
32:31I want to make a new-
32:33The first one is the third one.
32:34The third one is the third one is the third one.
32:36The third one is the third one.
32:37The third one is the third one.
32:38The third one is the third one.
32:39The third one is the third one is the third one.
32:40Within weeks of rolling from the factory, the Hellcats would be employed thousands of
32:50miles away at sea, doing what they were designed for, waging war.
33:06The limitations of carrier space dictate a need for Navy planes to be capable of varied
33:12missions, since accommodating specific types for different roles is obviously inefficient.
33:18So where a tactical attack capacity may be desired for the Army, it is essential in a
33:22naval fighter.
33:24The Hellcat had air-to-surface capability included from the start, and with its high rate of dive,
33:29it excelled in ground attack duties.
33:36The Hellcat is one of theiche konnten, and has a broad range of Voyager, speed and wide
33:41intensive, and so on.
33:43The old player has a strong attack of the Army.
33:47The Werectanoia has a strong attack of the Army.
33:52The body has a strong attack of the Army.
33:56The Army was a strong attack of the Army, the Army, the Army was a strong attack of the Army,
34:02in order to achieve the Army.
36:35They left base with enough fuel for a one-way flight only, with one aim, to sink an aircraft carrier.
36:42Increasingly, as the war progressed, the carriers had become the most important targets.
36:46It had been the fact that the U.S. carriers had been spared at Pearl Harbor that had stopped the Japanese advance, and it was the Japanese carrier losses from midway on, losses that Japan could not make good, that were to decide the issue.
37:02There was no greater prize for attacking pilots on either side than the enemy's carriers, and to the Japanese, there was no price too high to pay.
37:12Aboard the bunker hill, we would have had, oh, approximately 16 5-inch guns and about 40 sets of quad 40s and over 120 millimeters.
37:27So when you set up a curtain, it was really pretty good.
37:31But the kamikazes were, you could actually have them in flames of that.
37:35You'd have to blow them out of the sky or they would just continue in.
37:38They wereu They were out of the sky or they were touched during the time of the air.
37:43You could say that the time the laddie
37:50If you want a Damami cosmic cancer, they don't need you to move or some rider in flames.
37:52Aboard by display
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