Grumman F7F “Tigercat” - the American deck fighter

At the start of World War II, the U.S. Navy offered firms to participate in a design competition for a two-engine deck destroyer. “Grumman” has offered an aircraft design, marked XF5F “Skyrocket” and its land-based version XP-50. As the work was constantly halted due to problems, the prototype was redesigned, in 1942 the firm proposed a new project, that was already well advanced and the XF5F was abandoned in favor of the XF7F-1. This is how the F7F “Tigercat” deck fighter was born. In 1943, 500 of them were ordered. And they wanted to arm the land-based Marine Corps. The first serial fighters appeared in April 1944, but the first version produced only 34 aircraft. The aircraft has been upgraded and a total of 364 “Tigercat” fighters have been produced. They had a high speed of up to 740 km / h, but were difficult to control with one engine inoperative and were difficult to get out of the winch. Due to their large size, these planes have never been accepted into the armament of aircraft carriers and have flown only from land aerodromes.

A beautiful, well-designed, well-detailed model only for moderately experienced and experienced modelers.