World of Warbirds on MSN

F8F Bearcat, Grumman’s extreme weight cut that turned the Hellcat’s engine into a climb monster

Grumman took the Hellcat’s powerplant and put it on a ruthless diet to create the F8F Bearcat, a compact carrier fighter built to climb like nothing else and fit where Hellcats could not. From its ...
Aviation Republic on MSN

Too late for war: The rise and fall of the F8F Bearcat

The Grumman F8F Bearcat was designed as a lightweight, high-performance naval fighter intended to counter late-war threats. Entering service just as World War II ended, it never faced the enemies it ...