Grumman F9F Ancestors, Prototypes and Projects

ChuckAnderson

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Hi Everyone!

Does anyone have any information (specifically 3-views and other illustrations) on the Grumman XF9F-1, and if so could you please post it on this website?

Also known by the Grumman project number G-79, the only other information that I can find on this aircraft is that it was straight-winged, had four engines and a crew of two. (It almost sounds like the Curtiss XF-87 Blackhawk.)

Anyway, it never got off the drawing board (they moved on to the XF9F-2 Panther), but still I'm very curious to see what this aircraft looked like! It's one of those things that's always mentioned but never shown.

Chuck
 
Hi ChuckAnderson.

XF9F-1-----------Gromman Model G-75
X,F9F-2----------Grumman Model G-79D
 
1946. The engines were 4 Westinghouse 24C-4B. Performance was abysmal (or so it is said)
 
From Minidocavia 7. (US Naval Fighters)

The Grumman Model 75 (XF9F-1) was ordered as a night fighter in April 1946. Preliminary calculations shown very poor performance so that project was cancelled

Span: 16,9 m
Lenght: 15,4 m

The 24C-4B engine power output was 1360 kgp
 
From Grumman Aircraft since 1929,G-75
 

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From http://www.joebaugher.com/navy_fighters/f9_1.html

Serious Grumman work on jet-powered fighter aircraft did not really get underway until after the war was over. The G-75 was a postwar project begun by Grumman in September of 1945 in response to a Navy Request For Proposals for a two-seat radar-equipped jet-powered carrier-based night fighter. The G-75 was to be capable of flying at speeds of 500 mph and at altitudes of 40,000 feet and was supposed to be able to detect the presence of enemy aircraft at ranges as great as 125 miles. The G-75 looked very much like a jet-powered F7F Tigercat, and was to be powered by four 3000 lb.s.t. Westinghouse 24C-4B turbojets mounted two each side-by-side in midwing-mounted nacelles. A radome was to be mounted in the nose, and the armament was to have been four 20-mm cannon.

Competing proposals from Curtiss, Douglas, and Fleetwings were also submitted to the Navy in response to the RFP. On April 3, 1946, the Navy deemed the Douglas proposal as being the best of the lot, and ordered three prototypes under the designation XF3D-1. However, on April 11, a Navy contract was issued for the construction of two G-75 prototypes under the designation XF9F-1 as a backup just in case the Douglas design did not live up to expectations.

The XF9F-1 was appreciably larger and heavier than the XF3D-1. In the summer of 1946, further design studies indicated that the Grumman design was considerably less promising than the Douglas design, and the Navy considered cancelling the XF9F-1 contract altogether. ,p. This would ordinarily have been the end of the line, but Grumman had fortuitously been working on another totally-unrelated project under the company designation of G-79 that had been initiated only a month before the two XF9F-1 night fighter prototypes had been ordered. As originally conceived, the G-79 was a much smaller single-seat fighter powered either by a single centrifugal-flow turbojet fed by wing root intakes and exhausting underneath the rear fuselage, by two wing-mounted Westinghouse J34 axial-flow turbojets, or by two Rolls-Royce Derwent centrifugal-flow turbojets mounted in the wing roots. Alternatively, during the early summer of 1946, Grumman proposed the use of a single 5000 lb.s.t. Rolls-Royce Nene centrifugal-flow turbojet which would be built under license in the USA as the J42. In case the J42 ran into unexpected difficulties, the 4600 lb.s.t. Allison J33 was considered as a possible alternative, since it was about the same size as the Nene but was somewhat less powerful.

Enough interest was generated in this list of projects that the Navy was persuaded to amend the XF9F-1 contract rather than cancel it outright. On October 9, 1946, the XF9F-1 contract was amended to provide for the construction of three single-seat prototypes (BuNos 122475/122477), a static test airframe, plus design data for a swept-wing version. By November, the Navy had narrowed its choice of powerplant options and specified that two of the G-79 prototypes should be completed as XF9F-2 powered by Rolls Royce Nene turbojets and that the third should be powered by an Allison J33 turbojet and be designated XF9F-3.
 
And here is a drawing found somewhere on a Brasilian forum. It allegedly shows early concepts of the Grumman G-79, which are mentioned at Joe Baugher's website.

Piotr
 

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Thank you my dears XP67_Moonbat,Skyblazer and Petrus.
 
Skyblazer said:
"Vague hints"?? To me it's pretty much a jet Tigercat!

But a jet Tigercat with a side-by-side cockpit squeezed into the fuselage ;)
 
It may have been submitted elsewhere on the site but Australia's CAC was interested in developing a two seat night fighter variant of the Panther with the radar operator seated inside the fuselage without a canopy. I wonder if they had been aware of the F9F-1 as that would have ben the perfect candidate for Australia's penchant for re-engining other peoples aircraft.
 
Volkodav said:
It may have been submitted elsewhere on the site but Australia's CAC was interested in developing a two seat night fighter variant of the Panther with the radar operator seated inside the fuselage without a canopy. I wonder if they had been aware of the F9F-1 as that would have ben the perfect candidate for Australia's penchant for re-engining other peoples aircraft.

Here you've got the drawing of the Australian variation of the Panther.
 

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At a Russian webpage http://aviadejavu.ru/Site/Arts/Art8805.htm you may find pictures that were published in the "Air Enthusiast" issue 3 of 1996 in an article "From Fisherman's Bend. CAC Projects, Proposals and Concepts" by J.Vella. Among the pictures there is a drawing of "P186, based upon the Grumman Panther".

Apparently it had a radar in its nose, and two-man crew was seated side-by-side.

Piotr
 

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The Grumman G-75;

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Built-1-144-American-GRUMMAN-G-75-Fighter-Aircraft-US-Navy-/302428008621
 

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Petrus said:
At a Russian webpage http://aviadejavu.ru/Site/Arts/Art8805.htm you may find pictures that were published in the "Air Enthusiast" issue 3 of 1996 in an article "From Fisherman's Bend. CAC Projects, Proposals and Concepts" by J.Vella. Among the pictures there is a drawing of "P186, based upon the Grumman Panther".

As the name and designation both imply, this was not a Grumman design, but a Commonwealth Aircraft Corp. (Australia) one.
Probably you understood that much, Petrus, but the CAC abbreviation may not be known by everyone, and needs disambiguation anyway, as it was used by other aircraft companies at different times.
 
We can change the title into; Grumman F9F Ancestors,Prototypes and Projects

From ; Grumman F9f Panther by Brad Elward
 

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Has there ever been an project of F9F (Panther or Cougar) with radar ? :)

Grumman proposed an F9F-8T night fighter derivative in 1955. That was to have a Westinghouse AN/APQ-50 set.

As for built types, I think only the AN/APG-30 radar-ranging for F9F-5 guns.
 
Grumman proposed an F9F-8T night fighter derivative in 1955. That was to have a Westinghouse AN/APQ-50 set.

As for built types, I think only the AN/APG-30 radar-ranging for F9F-5 guns.
Do you have some pics or drawings of the F9F-8T night fighter ?
 
Last edited:
And was there a project for a two-seater straight wing F9F Panther ? I couldn't find anything on the net.
 

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Do you have some pics or drawings of the F9F-8T night fighter ?

I don't but I've attached my supposition (Mods: Please delete this image if deemed inappropriate).

The challenge that Grumman faced would have been similar to that of originally developing their Cougar trainer. In that case, the fighter's entire forward fuselage forward of the speed brake had to be redesigned. That included pushing the position of the windscreen forward along the nose.

-- https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/02/f8f-8t-cougar.html

Using the F4D-1 Skyray to scale the AN/APQ-50 radome, it would appear to fit forward of the F9F-8T's windscreen (where the structural breakpoint for the nosecone was). But note that the line of the lower fuselage has to be 'straightened' to align with the Douglas radome size. Not impossible ... but not easy either.
 

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I don't but I've attached my supposition (Mods: Please delete this image if deemed inappropriate).

The challenge that Grumman faced would have been similar to that of originally developing their Cougar trainer. In that case, the fighter's entire forward fuselage forward of the speed brake had to be redesigned. That included pushing the position of the windscreen forward along the nose.

-- https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2011/02/f8f-8t-cougar.html

Using the F4D-1 Skyray to scale the AN/APQ-50 radome, it would appear to fit forward of the F9F-8T's windscreen (where the structural breakpoint for the nosecone was). But note that the line of the lower fuselage has to be 'straightened' to align with the Douglas radome size. Not impossible ... but not easy either.
So I'd assume with the forward fuselage rearrangement and incorporation of the AN/APQ-50, this night fighter derivative would have lost it's guns?

Regards
Pioneer
 

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