I had a Flight Instructor in the 90s who flew USN Bearcats in the 1950s. He said, you never pushed the stick over on takeoff because the prop clearance was so tight. "Apply power and just let'er fly off . . .and she climbed like a homesick angel."

I recall somebody asking Neil Armstrong what his favorite airplane flown during his career was.  Without hesitation, he grinned and simply said "Bearcat."  The F8F was by no means a perfect airplane, but it was apparently a great winner of young fighter pilot hearts!

It seems to me the Bearcat was specialized for one mission, fleet defense vs kamikazes.   In late ww2,  this was the Navy's biggest problem, but once the Japanese surrendered the problem evaporated.  Less expensive, less limited, more versatile aircraft simply became more desirable once the kamikazes were removed from the equation.

The accounts I have seen of the Bearcat's 94 seconds to to 10,000 feet indicate that two flights were conducted by US Navy pilots flying F8F-1's at the Cleveland air races.  The times were something like 96 seconds and 94 seconds.  The planes were modified only by defeating some of the interlocks that limited take off power.  The planes were further helped by taking off into a 30 mph head wind allowing  the gear to be raised quickly.
However there was a major difference in the plane's condition compared to the Navy performance test.  The actual Navy test report indicates that the plane was in a "combat" condition for a normal fleet defense mission carrying 1110 pounds of fuel and about 300 pounds of ammunition. The rate of climb in this condition at sea level was 5610 fpm.   The planes at Cleveland were probably carrying no ammunition and only a minimum amount of fuel.  This would save around 1100 pounds of weight and add tremendously to the rate of climb with no major change to the airplane.

It just makes you realise how superior the Corsair was and what they achieved with basically the same engine .I always thought the Bearcat was the pinnacle of prop airplanes ,but it wasn't.

The Bearcat is the plane that impressed me  the most at Duxford air show. So powerful and fast

I grew up on Long Island and Grumman was the largest employer, with Fairchild Republic and with all the parts suppliers, almost everyone had someone in the family that worked in the airplane industry. Today there is nothing left, terrible.

Hands down your videos are the most detailed aircraft reference. Viewers do not know how time consuming the research takes to put a video such as this together. Thank you for posting.

How on earth did i miss this channel.
Great content

That Bearcat at 29:38 is I believe the one I fueled up when I worked at a small airport in Farmington New Mexico in the the 1970s. That plane and a Mustang stopped there on their way to the Reno air races for fuel. After fueling, they took off and the Mustang was granted a low pass over the airstrip at full speed... Awesome.

EDIT: I had a guy ask me to build a model for him of a plane his uncle flew. He gave me a home movie on disk that he had. It was in color and was of an airshow in Texas. It had several Bearcats, Hellcats, Twin Mustangs, Buccaneers and a flyby from an early B-36 (no outboard jets) and other late 40's - early 50s planes in it. It is dated 1950 and all the planes are still in US Navy markings so it may have been from a Navy base airshow. I haver never posted to YouTube but I might have to do it just to share this video with every one as it is really cool.

*Qualitative improvements to the Corsair cockpit may actually have had their introduction in the Goodyear F2G and F4U-4. Clearly Vought and Goodyear took cues from the improved ergonomics of the F6F Cockpit. Also, the R-2800-32W made a distinctive sound that not other -2800 had, on account of its laterally arranged Supercharger configuration. You can hear it in a couple of YouTube videos.

Exceptional. I have listened to this multiple times especially whilst reading “Devotion”

Just to explain in a felt sense of that climb rate, 10,000 ft in 94 seconds is 72.5mph - in ONLY the vertical. It's averaging 72.5 mph straight up. Wild.

My dad attended an air show in the late 40s an F-80 Shooting Star and a F-82 Twin mustang raced in a dive leveled out over the runway and climbed out off the end of the runway. The F-82 out ran the F-80 until they started to climb out. This proves what you were talking about with the jet, as it accelerated down the runway it's engine got into the power curve and overwhelmed the prop plane. Every time you produce one of these I always learn something usually many things due to the angle of your presentation. Thanks john g

Edwin Barrineau, a cousin flew the Bearcat.

Near the end of the war in the Pacific, the Navy was pushing for outfitting our carriers with interceptor aircraft of the highest-performing types 'to combat the threat of low-flying suicide aircraft'. They worked on the F2G Corsair with the R4360 engine, and a few others. The F8F performance from brake release to practical altitude exceeded all others. The frangible wing tip thing sounds zany now, but at one time, ejection seats were killing almost as many pilots as they were saving. I think Grumman got a chance to build the hotrod they craved, and most knew that jets were coming soon. I think it is important to accept that aircraft designers generally know what they're doing, and Grumman built the fighter with the range and performance the Navy specified. I'm guessing as well that with thousands of neophyte pilots in training, the F8F would be easier to learn to fly on and off a carrier than the F4U. I enjoyed this video, quite educational, and even some of the apples-to-oranges comparisons with other fighters that were designed for entirely different tasks, such as, high-altitude, long-range bomber escort,  extended maritime patrol/attack, or fleet-defense standing top-cover patrols.

Bearcat really does have 'Space Shuttle' status.

Awesome video.

On a side note with a dollop of trivia, I've been obsessed with Jimmie Thach for a number of years. His contributions to the Navy from the early 1930s (when he was lent out to MGM to fly what was supposed to be Clark Gable's plane in the film Helldivers - Google Thach and Gable to get a great photo of Thach and other naval pilots alongside Gable and Wallace Beery) throughout the decade as a test pilot, in which role he literally became the first navy pilot to fly a Grumman aircraft in the competition that ended Boeing's previous dominance in producing planes for the service. In the lead up to WW II he both trained and easily out flew all of the pilots who became the leading naval pilots of WW II, including Butch O'Hare (his preferred wingman and only pilot who made him work in a dogfight), David McCampbell, and Alex Vraciu. Prior to the start of the war he developed his Beam Defense (later redubbed "The Thach Weave"), which Bull Halsey refused permission to implement as a standard tactic. But at Midway, with nearly the entire Japanese CAP swarming Thach and the two Rookie pilots flying with him, he ordered them to implement the Weave. For over 15 minutes the entire CAP struggled to shoot down Thach and his two rookies (after the final American torpedo plane had been dealt with), so that when the dive bombers arrived ,they were astonished to discover no defending Japanese fighters. At Midway, however, Thach was 37, and upon returning from combat was put in charge of producing training materials for new fighter pilots. Working closely with Walt Disney (I mean, the studio, but also the man), he wrote, provided technical aid, and narrated ten short films for use in training (most of these films can be found on YouTube). Late in the war he became Admiral John McCain aide (that's the grandfather of the senator), under whom he planned and oversaw those gargantuan thousand plane raids of Japan and designed the "Big Blue Blanket " defense against the kamikaze. After the war he became a carrier captain, ending that part of his career as captain of the Midway class carrier USS Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  From there he went on to create the anti-submarine branch of the Navy (an award with his name is still given to the ship or unit in the branch most exemplifying the goals of the service).

So here is the trivia. In the 1960s, in one of Thach's final assignments (he had long been an admiral at this point), he was put in command of the aircraft acquisition department.  He had two major achievements in this role. The first was to put the final nail in Defense Secretart Robert McNamara dream of making the F-111 the main fighter for all branches of the US Military. With his background,  he was able to explain why the F-111 could never become an effective carrier-based aircraft.  And following that, he oversaw the specs for a next-generation fighter for the Navy, to replace the F-4 Phantom. The aircraft that eventually fulfilled the specs was the F-14 Tomcat. Quite a career.

Joe Stalin:  "Quantity has a quality all it's own".

"Grumman had another one" 45:40 I guess the Tigercat fits.