F4F Wildcats

Greetings crew ... Is there anyone out there that has flight experience with the F4F? ... current flight experience and hopefully WW2 flight experience. My reason is ... F4F's back in the day, had hand crank landing gear,

1. How difficult was it to take off from a carrier, raise the flaps, reduce or give power and hand crank the landing gear all in such a short time after take off from the flight deck.

2. Do the current flyable wildcats still have hand crank landing gear ... or has anything new been done to the gear to make it self powered hydraulic?

Just wondering because my Father has a very large broken thumb from a carrier take off in a wildcat. He was hand cranking up the gear and lost his grip, the crank swung back fast and broke his thumb. He said just too much to do after takeoff.

Any wildcat drivers out there?

Mark

[Mudge]

Not a Wildcat driver, but I have to ask...What are you doing with a user name like that...ooops...have we done this before

Mudge the stirrer

"Just funnin', son. Just funnin'"

ps. I AM interested in the answer, though. Never knew they were hand cranked.

[Steve Nelson]

Not a pilot myself, but I used to volunteer at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo. I can tell you their FM-2 still has the hand-cranked gear. I was told you could tell when a Wildcat was being flown by a novice..the nose would "bob" up and down 28 times after takeoff while he held the stick in one hand and cranked up the gear with the other.

Steve the Oldsmobile Driver

Last edited by Steve Nelson on Thu Jul 26, 2007 2:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Jack Cook]

Paging Randy Wilson..........
Has far as I know all Wildcats still have the great bicycle chain hand cranked landing gear.
I maybe wrong but I recall something about the new built F3Fs having
a powered system (non human that is ).

ha ha ha .... don't start with me Mudge ... I know where you live ... lolol ... BYW ... trying to change my name to "6F6 Hellwithit Driver ... ha ha ha

[img][img]http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x192/mam121061/F4F.jpg[/img][/img]

[Nathan]

I heard thirty cranks will get the gear up and the same for going down. Must have been weird trying to take off a carrier with one hand and cranking with another!

[Aircraft Mech Paul]

Yep,

28 times around for up and 28 times around for down and locked. All Hand Cranked. I worked on one of the Planes of Fame's Wildcats....hand crank and bicycle chain drive landing gear.

Paul

How about these guys? ... Funky!!!! ... a super wildcat? ... more like a bearcat to me ...



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[Lightjug]

I was told you could tell when a Wildcat was being flown by a novice..the nose would "bob" up and down 28 times after takeoff ..............
Steve the Oldsmobile Driver

Too funny

[SPANNERmkV]

according to THE BIG E- by Stafford... (Finest Naval Aviation book EVER!)
Early on a number of pilots were killed flying Wildcats when their hands would slip on take-off, allowing the landing gear handcrank to catch the wires to their flying helmets.
This would result in the pilot's head getting pulled down into the cockpit below the sightline, usually with fatal results.
The fix?
A (dis) connector at the back of the flying helmet.

Naval Aviators-

Sounds like an old girlfriend I used to take flying with me ... oops! ... I didn't say that. ... lolol

[Rogue]

My uncle flew Wildcat's recon.

He told me about if you let go the handle would come around and break your wrist, kinda like a Model T.

[Tom Crawford]

I don't know what the navy used to teach, but I think I would get off the deck and get a little altitude before I would start cranking..I've always heard you could tell a veteran Wildcat driver by how level he kept the wings on departure...Tom

[Randy Wilson]

Having been paged by Jack, yes, all the F4F and FM-2 Wildcats that I know of had the manual, hand-cranked landing gear retract/extend system - 28 or 29 turns depending on rigging and the pilots ability to count during the climb out. You also had to keep the airspeed down during the retraction or the air load could get more than even a Wildcat pilot's right arm could handle!

Some civilian FM-2s were later converted to use an electric motor for the gear - Howard Pardue's being one I'm familiar with. Also, I think, but am not 100% sure, that the original batch of F3F reproductions had electric motors for the gear - I know that the LSFM F3F had it at one point, as the motor failed at one of the last few shows in Breckenridge. Of course, the manual hand crank was still available as a backup.

The only problem I ever had in the several years I flew the CAF's original FM-2 N681S with the gear was at a show when I had just unlocked the gear to start cranking it down and another plane got my attention as it swung in closer than I liked on downwind and I must have relaxed my grip on the gear handle. Talk about getting smacked on the back of the hand and a big welt! Joe Foss later told me to use my leg to slow and stop the handle if it ever happened again. Good advice which I remembered but fortunately didn't have to ever use again. Joe was a real gentleman.

I may have wondered a bit from the original question - if so, feel free to put me back on track. Fly safe.

Randy

[Randy Wilson]

On rereading the original post about taking off from a carrier and cranking the gear up, try launching under Tora, Tora, Tora at an air show when you are unable to climb out to keep the speed down to crank the gear and at the same time are playing, sort of, chicken with a Tora Kate!

I have a huge respect for all the Wildcat pilots who flew them in WWII, combat or not. I hope no one takes any of my comments about flying them years later as part of the air show scene otherwise.

Let we forget.

Randy