Grumman XF5Fs from Aeroplane Heaven

[OBIO]

Gents,

Check out this thread in the FS2004 forum. With luck, these planes may be coming to a download library near you soon.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=22729

I had totally forgotten about these planes until about a month ago when I found them on one of my older CDs of archived downloads.

OBIO

[OBIO]

Aeroplane Heaven has granted permission to upload the planes to the various hosting sites...and they supplied a link for direct downloads from their site. So, grab your XF5F Skyrockets for CFS2, CFS3, FS2002 and FS2004.

http://www.heavenlyhangars.com/freestuff/SKyrockets/index.htm

[Jagdflieger]

Thanks for the effort Obio.

It's a fun plane to fly. If it hadn't been for the worry over the cost and extra maintenance of a second engine per plane, it could well have been our standad fighter instead of the Wildcat early in the war.

[OBIO]

I am working on a repaint template for the Skyrocket now. Will do new skins for the short nose and long nose variants. USN, USMC, USAAF, RAF, RCAF, RAAF...with this being a Should Have Been plane, there is no limit to the schemes that can be applied to it...history does not stand in the way of speculation.

OBIO

[Cowboy1968]

I love the airplane, but it has one major problem. its shocks love to compress on landing and you end up with a prop strike Makes it rough for carrier landing.

The plane holds a good line and it is very easy to correct in the glide slope to deck. you have to put her down gently but quickly or it will miss the wires.

It took me 20 landings, (first time trying the bird out on a carrier) to stick a gentle enough landing. She takes off nicely from the deck.

But if this is a fairly acurate flight model and cfg file. then I more or less seeing the Skyrocket limited to shore bases where you can take the time to gently land her.

Now as a fighter she is good, fast and agile machine. I enjoy fighting in her.

She is well named too. FAST, can we say fast, children. And those engines do give her the power to stay fast and yet agile. She would have been a good counter to the Zero.

To bad she didn't reach the Marines. Maybe the VMF-211 at Wake and VMF-221 at Midway would have done even better then they did.

[Cowboy1968]

Thought I would share this with you.

It is from the following book.

Jones, Lloyd S. U.S. Naval Fighters. pgs. 167-170, Aero Publishers. Fallbrook, Ca. 1977

When you read through the text you will see the main reason the ship didn't go into service was that the engines blocked the view of the pilot in regards of seeing the LSO.

[Cowboy1968]

I have been doing some rough calculations on the Skyrocket. I also used the Wildcat as a baseline from the era.

First lets look at horsepower. the Skyrocket has a total of 2,400 produced by both engines working together. This weights of the aircraft are light: 8,107 lbs with a loaded wight of 10,138. This roughly means in the aircraft's light wight it has 1:3.4 (1 hp: x lbs) at its gross weight the machine has a ratio of 1:4.3. Given this much horsepower and the large wing area of 303 square feet you can see how the plane i can over come its weight and turn on a dime. The Skyrocket could make speeds on a level run approaching 400 mph.

The Wildcat had 1,200 horses to work with a light weight of 5,895 lbs and a gross of 7,973 lbs. The power to weight ratios would be 1:4.9 on the light load and 6.2 at the gross load. the Wildcat had approximately 260 sq ft wing area. This gives the plane a fighter stall speed. and makes her less agile then the Skyrocket. The Wildcat could reach a speed of 320 mph

another aircraft i figured we would look at is the F3F. considered one of the most agile carrier fighters ever built. As we all know the Flying Barrel was the last of the bi-plane fighters for the USN. The F3F had a light weight of 3,285 lbs and loaded weight of 4,795 lbs with its engine turning out 950 hp. The aircraft also had 260 sq ft of wing area. Power to weight ratios were light 1:3.5 and loaded 1:5. The aircraft could reach 264 mph (drag was the big enemy to bi-planes), but where all these figures lead up to realize the aircraft was even more agile then the Wildcat

Well the opponent the Skyrocket would have faced at Wake or Midway would have been the A6M2 Zero. The light weight of the Zero was 3,704 pounds with a loaded weight of 5,313 lbs. A 950 horsepower engine was used to move the aircraft. The power to weight ratios were roughly light 1:3.9, while when loaded this rose to 1 hp:5.6 pounds of weight. Wing area was around 241.5 sq feet. If you look at the figures between the F3F and the A6M2 even though they are roughly simular the Zero can make around 330 mph because of the less drag caused by the wings.

In conclusion yes the Skyrocket was a radical departure from the current design of carrier fighters. But, with that radical design came a radical performance envelope. It could have out flown anything in the Pacific at the start of the war. Its a shame it didn't get the chance.

[OBIO]

I have the paint template done for the Skyrocket and will begin doing paints in the next few days. I am going to take accurate schemes from the F4F and modify them to work on the Skyrocket....basically standing history on its ear and asking what if the Skyrocket had been the main Naval fighter early in the war instead of the Wildcat. Mimsi III with twin engines! I will also be doing US Army style skins, RAF, RCAF, RAAF, SAAF. Some Operation Torch, some Atlantic Theater skins (that gray and white combo is stunning). USMC. Will depict the Skyrocket from 41 through 45.

OBIO

[Cowboy1968]

Cant wait. Can you do some operational paints for the short nose version as well as the long nose?

[OBIO]

I will be doing paints for three of the models (Long Nose Army, Long Nose Navy, and RAF..which is short nose with guns). I will do a few for the prototype short nose...just showing it in different insignia, based on images I have found on line. The Racers, I won't be doing anything with them..don't even have them installed.

OBIO