Grumman F9F-2 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 (BuAer) 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 opposed to the USAAF/USAF which continued to use .50 caliber M2/M3 guns). In addition, the Panther was soon 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.Taylor 1969, p. 506.

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 (RAAF). The other designs considered initially were an Australian design, the CAC CA-23 (an unconventional, twin-jet all-weather fighter) 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. (After its less-than-satisfactory performance against MiGs, the Meteor was replaced from 1954 by the CAC Sabre – an Australian-built, up-engined variant of the F-86.)

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 widest 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 during intense anti-aircraft fire. The pilots also appreciated the air conditioned cockpit, a welcome change from the humid environment of piston-powered aircraft.

On 3 July 1950, Lieutenant, junior grade Leonard H. Plog, of VF-51