Grumman F6F Hellcat: Naval Fighters #92 softcover
The book covers the F6Fs development, testing, and production written by Grumman's test pilot "Corky" Meyer. This is followed by technical details and a running combat narrative. The Marines, British, French, and European action is all covered as well as training command during and after WWII and sections on post war, reserve, drones, and Hellcat prey.
The Grumman F6F Hellcat was the most important Naval aircraft in WWII. Without it the Pacific war would have had a very protracted conclusion. The F6F was built to Roy Grumman's simple design philosophy "Grumman will only build an easily-produced, maintained and reliable combat aircraft that can be readily mastered by a 200-hour, war-time pilot trained to fly from a carrier, engage in successful combat, sustain combat damage, return to the carrier, and land his aircraft after dark so that he can be available for combat again the next day." Because the F6F was all that, it earned Grumman the nick name "The Ironworks."
Grumman built 12,275 Hellcats during WWII in its successful effort of clearing the skys of the Japanese. The XF6F was first flown on August 8, 1942 and the production version, the F6F-3 flew on October 3, 1942. The F6F-3 first entered squadron service with VF-9 on January 16, 1943 and drew its first blood over Marcus Island on August 31, 1943. The Hellcat shot down 5,156 enemy aircraft, for a kill-to-loss ratio of 19-to-1, while producing 307 aces. This was the aircraft of the largest one-day air battle of all time, the "Marianas Turkey Shoot" where more than 540 Hellcats fought 440 Japanese naval aircraft backed by up to 600 Japanese Army aircraft. Result was 354 enemy aircraft kills were claimed by the Hellcats while only 16 F6Fs were lost to Japanese aircraft. The Hellcat would see combat as photo birds (F6F-3P/5Ps) and night fighters (F6F-3E/3N/5E/5Ns) too as well as the improved F6F-5 fighter.
Published 2012, 224 pages, 742 black & white photographs, softcover, 8 1/2" x 11"
Naval Fighters Series
The Naval Fighters series are dedicated to preserving America's aviation history. Each monograph's size is dictated by the individual aircraft's own history, and in some cases can encompass several volumes. In addition to the aircraft's development and testing, each book covers squadron histories, insignias, flight and maintenance manual excerpts, sea stories, if applicable, and model reviews. Take a look inside the aircraft to see how they were put together. See the prototypes of the aircraft, some of which never made it off the drawing boards.
Ginter Books are for both the aviation enthusiast and the aviation modeler. Each publication seeks to present full information about the history of the aircraft, drawings and photographs of the interiors as well as exteriors, and many of the many color schemes used by the squadrons. This offers both the modeler and the historical customer a general reference guide to each aircraft. The collection of books includes many prototype models that never reached actual production, but were valuable stepping stones in advancing the technology necessary to achieve the modern naval fighters we have today.
These books are a "must" for any serious model builder as they give panel lines, wing-folds, bomb loads, cockpit detail and much more information via line drawings and photographs. They are also a "must" for the aviation history buff, as they detail the conception of these aircraft.
Photos used have come from a great variety of sources that are credited in their captions. Many photos have not been used in any other publications before.
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