How to fly your F6F Hellcat.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

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[browningautorifle]

I understand they were a handful compared to others, like the little Wildcat for instance. Difference was, the were just what was needed to deal with the Japanese threat.

[GeeRam]

I understand they were a handful compared to others, like the little Wildcat for instance. Difference was, the were just what was needed to deal with the Japanese threat.

Hellcat was very benign to fly compared with other carrier fighters of the time, such as the Corsair, and its excellent handling qualities, ruggedness and easy of maintaining along with it being a very stable gun platform, all amounted to its success as a carrier borne fighter, not to mention it was right pretty much out of the box, which allowed them to build nearly 11,000 of them in the space of just 2 years!
The Hellcat accounted for 75% of all the USN aerial victories in the PTO, with some 305 Hellcat 'aces' and Dave McCampbell, the USN top scoring pilot scoring all his 34 victories with the Hellcat.
I used to love seeing the Hellcat fly at Duxford when the Fighter Collection owned one for a number of years.