Grumman F9F Panther


The Grumman F9F Panther is one of the United States Navy's first successful carrier-based jet fighters, as well as Grumman’s first jet fighter. A single-engined, straight-winged day fighter, it was armed with four cannons and could carry a wide assortment of air-to-ground munitions.
The Panther was used extensively by the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps in the Korean War. It was also the first jet aircraft used by the Blue Angels aerobatics demonstration team, from 1949 through late 1954. The aircraft was exported to Argentina and was the first jet used by the Argentine Naval Aviation.
Total F9F production was 1,382. The design evolved into the swept wing Grumman F-9 Cougar.

Design and development

Development studies at Grumman for jet-powered fighter aircraft began near the end of World War II as the first jet engines emerged. In a competition for a jet-powered night fighter for the United States Navy, on 3 April 1946 the Douglas F3D Skyknight was selected over Grumman's G-75, a two-seater powered by four Westinghouse J30s. The Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics also issued a contract to Grumman for two G-75 prototype aircraft on 11 April 1946, being given the Navy designation XF9F-1, in case the Skyknight ran into problems.
Grumman soon realized the G-75 was a dead end, but had been working on a completely different, single-engine day fighter, the G-79. In a bureaucratic maneuver, BuAer did not cancel the G-75 contract, but changed the wording to include three prototypes of the entirely different G-79. It became the Panther.
The prototype Panther, piloted by test pilot Corky Meyer, first flew on 21 November 1947. American engines available at the time included the Allison J33 and Westinghouse J34, but these were not considered sufficiently reliable, so the Navy specified the imported Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet, which was also more powerful, at of thrust. Production aircraft would have a Nene, built under license by Pratt & Whitney as the J42. Since there was insufficient space within the wings and fuselage for fuel for the thirsty jet, permanently mounted wingtip fuel tanks were added, which incidentally improved the fighter's rate of roll.
The F9F was cleared for flight from aircraft carriers in September 1949. During the development phase, Grumman decided to change the Panther's engine, selecting the Pratt & Whitney J48-P-2, a license built version of the Rolls-Royce RB.44 Tay. The other engine that had been tested was the Allison J33-A-16. The armament was a quartet of 20mm guns, the Navy having already switched to this caliber. As well, the Panther soon was armed with underwing air-to-ground rockets and up to of bombs.
From 1946, a swept-wing version was considered and after concerns about the Panther's inferiority to its MiG opponents in Korea, a conversion, known as Design 93, resulted in a swept-wing derivative, the F9F Cougar, which retained the Panther's designation number.
In 1949, the Panther was considered by the Australian government, as a possible locally-built replacement for the Mustang Mk 23 and De Havilland Vampire then operated by the Royal Australian Air Force. The other designs considered initially were an Australian design, the CAC CA-23 and the Hawker P.1081. By mid-1950, however, RAAF Mustangs were in action in Korea and seen as highly vulnerable to the MiG 15. An immediately available stop-gap in the shape of the Gloster Meteor F.8 was operated by the RAAF in Korea from July 1951.

Operational history

US Navy

The Grumman Panther was the primary US Navy and USMC jet fighter and ground-attack aircraft in the Korean War. The Panther was the most widely used Navy jet fighter of the war, flying 78,000 sorties. F9F-2s, F9F-3s and F9F-5s, as rugged attack aircraft, were able to sustain operations, even in the face of intense anti-aircraft fire. The pilots also appreciated the air conditioned cockpit, which was a welcome change from the humid environment of piston-powered aircraft.
On 3 July 1950, Lieutenant, junior grade Leonard H. Plog, of VF-51, flying an F9F-3 scored the first US Navy air victory of the war, by shooting down a propellor-powered Yak-9.
Despite their relatively low speed, Panther pilots also claimed seven Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s, for the loss of two F9Fs. The first MiG-15 was downed on 9 November 1950, by Lieutenant Commander William Amen of VF-111 flying an F9F-2B, during a UN Command attack on the Sinuiju bridges, near the mouth of the Yalu River. Two more MiG-15s were downed on 18 November 1950.
In a unique feat on 18 November 1952, Lt Royce Williams of VF-781, flying off destroyed four MiGs, in one 35-minute encounter, during a series of air strikes against the North Korean port of Hoeryong. This combat has remained little-known, due to the involvement of the US National Security Agency – the existence of which was then top secret – in planning the mission; the MiGs had been intercepted as a result of intelligence provided by the NSA. After losing contact with his wingman, Williams found himself alone in a dogfight with six MiG-15s; when he was able to land on Oriskany, his Panther was found to have sustained 263 hits by cannon shells or fragments, and to be beyond repair. Williams' victories were even more notable in that all four MiGs were flown by Soviet Naval Aviation pilots: Russian sources confirmed Williams' claims, 40 years later, stating that the pilots lost were Captains Belyakov and Vandalov, and Lieutenants Pakhomkin and Tarshinov.
Future astronaut Neil Armstrong flew the F9F extensively during the war, even ejecting from one of the aircraft when it was brought down by a wire strung across a valley, in 1951. Future astronaut John Glenn and Boston Red Sox all-star baseball player Ted Williams also flew the F9F as Marine Corps pilots.
Panthers were withdrawn from front-line service in 1956, but remained in training roles and with U.S. Naval Air Reserve and U.S. Marine Air Reserve units until 1958. The Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration team used the Panther for four years, beginning in 1951. The Panther was the Blue Angels' first jet. Some Panthers continued to serve in small numbers into the 1960s. From September 1962 surviving operational Panthers were redesignated F-9 within the new combined US tri-service designation system.

Argentine Navy

The only foreign buyer of the Panther was the Argentine Naval Aviation, which bought 28 ex-USN F9F-2B aircraft in 1957; the first 10 arrived in 1958. Only 24 aircraft were put in service, the rest were used as spares. The first flight of an Argentine Panther was in December 1958, and the last aircraft was put in service in January 1961.
The catapults on the then only Argentine carrier, ARA Independencia, were considered not powerful enough to launch the F9F, so the aircraft were land-based. However, in July 1963 a Panther landed on Independencia as part of trials; becoming the first jet to land on an Argentine aircraft carrier.
Argentine Navy F9F-2 Panthers saw combat in the 1963 Argentine Navy Revolt, bombing and strafing a column of the Army 8th Tank Regiment which was advancing on the rebelling Punta Indio Naval Air Base. The attack destroyed several M4 Sherman tanks, at the cost of one F9F Panther shot down.
The Argentine Panthers were involved in the general mobilization during the 1965 border clash between Argentina and Chile but no combat occurred. They were taken out of service in 1969 due to the lack of spare parts and replaced with Douglas A-4Q Skyhawks.
The Argentine Navy also operated the F-9 Cougar.

Variants

;XF9F-2
;F9F-2
;F9F-2B
;F9F-2P
;XF9F-3
;F9F-3
;XF9F-4
;F9F-4
;F9F-5:
;F9F-5P
;F9F-5K
;F9F-5KD

Operators

Argentina

;On display
;;F9F-2B
;Airworthy
;;F9F-2B
;On display
;;F9F-2
;;F9F-2B
;;F9F-4
;;F9F-5
;;F9F-5P
;Under restoration or in storage
;;F9F-2
;;F9F-5

Notable appearances in media

The F9F Panther was featured in the 1954 Korean War film The Bridges at Toko-Ri starring William Holden, Grace Kelly, Mickey Rooney and Fredric March.

Online sources

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