Grumman F6F Hellcat floatplane??

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Piper106

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Recall seeing a reference to a proposed float plane conversion of a Grumman F6F Hellcat.

Could someone weigh in with a reference on whether this was ever an actual project, or whether it was just a what if fantasy of some internet hot shot.
 
There was a floatplane 'Wildcatfish' that is fairly well documented, of course.
IIRC, it was fairly disappointing and no further work was performed on it. I have never heard of a 'Hellcat-fish', but who knows?
 
They should have spent the money on this:
index.php
 
Going off topic for a moment, looks like this is the 2000th topic on the Early Aircraft Projects board. Congratulations!
 
Indeed, the Blackburn B.44 that can be found elsewhere on this forum.
 
Hood said:
Indeed, the Blackburn B.44 that can be found elsewhere on this forum.
Click to expand...

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2276.0.html
 
As I understand Grey, he just meant, that the B.44 would have been a much better water based fighter, than a makeshift
floatplane Hellcat. ;)
 
Except the Blackburn B.44 didn't seem to be that great.

According to the figures I have seen, the B.44 would have been slower than what was actually achieved by the Spitfire IX floatplane. Plus tuck some rubber bag aka self-sealing fuel tanks inside the Spitfire floats, and the the biggest rap against the Spitfire, i.e. short legs, would have been a non-issue.
 
possibly this was an offshoot of the Wildcat floatplane prototype mooted during the evaluation ?
one type i have seen reference to is a Curtiss P.40 floatplane but as yet i have not found any drawings of the proposal

cheers, Joe
 
I searched my sources again, without success and folowing this thread I somewhat have the feeling, that the
Hellcat floatplane rather is a subject for the "Theoretical and Speculative Project" section.
 
Indeed ... when the WildCatfish floatplane first flew ,February 1943, there was
no longer an urgent need for a such a fighter monoplane concept.By this time
the U.S. Navy had substantially increased it's carrier force and the "CB's" ability
to lay air strips in a remarcable short time reduced the need for a floatplane fighter.

Besides , the speed of the of the F4F-3S was reduced by more than 60mph
due to the increased drag of the float gear.
 
Sounds pretty conclusive. A F6F float plane exists only in the overheated imagination of those on the Internet.
 
Thanks for that clue ! The topic now is back in the section for "real" projects after about 5 years ! ;)
 
GTX said:
Maybe not so imaginative:

Float20Equipped20F6F_zpsikhl7kfk.jpg
Click to expand...

Hello!

Thanks for sharing. What's the source of this images?

I should note, that model contains extra fins on stabilizer, which not shown on the general arrangement drawing.
Another curious thing - are Edo floats, which haven't been as streamlined, as Curtiss SC-1 float or, say, Japanese Nakajima A6M2-N.
Perhaps, this has been one of causes for so dramatic decrease of flight parformances?
 
I've speculated that the Edo floats would be more like the ones installed on a Bolingbroke, the AUW being very close to each other
 

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Hello, GTX!

GTX said:
The original source is as mentioned in the caption. I found it in my copy of:
Click to expand...

Thank you for revealing the current source.
Another example, that book about one subject could contain "hidden treasure" - in this case, describing the quite rare project.
Perhaps, other interesting aircraft' projects are in this book, too?
 

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