Warbird Information Exchange

Picture 2327 -- the easily detachable F9F nose -- reminds me of a childhood anecdote. 1959 or so in Alameda, California, the Navy donates an F9F (later version, I think, maybe -5 or even -6 Cougar) to the city of Alameda and they put it one of the small city parks. My buddy and I (he was also the son of a Naval Aviator) are checking out the F9F along with the little kids and he decides to undo the fasteners on the nose cone and pull it off a bit. Nothing much in there, if memory serves. Anyway, these kids are all over that and before you know it, the nose cone is off and rolling around the park with kids inside. Next week we come back and the quick release is augmented with big bolts or something. At least they did not lose the nose.

Pic 2318 shows a wind tunnel model of the Panther. The chap with the loosened necktie (3rd from the right) is my old boss, Bob Lecat ("Bobcat"). A crazy Frenchman, if ever there was one! Great fellow and a true seat-of-the-pants engineer and aerodynamicist as well as Hellcat pilot in the French Navy. In the early '60s when NASA was studying concepts for the space shuttle, Lecat hand-built a 1/15th scale model of his proposed design and convinced senior management to let it be tested in the wind tunnel. It became a full-blown Grumman project. Of course we all know that NAA won the shuttle contract. But before that happened, Lecat's design for the GRV (Grumman Re-entry Vehicle) was crafted into models for tests at the supersonic w/t and the hypersonic shock tunnel, both under the supervision of this writer. When I last spoke to Bobcat he had just finished co-authoring a paper EXPLORATION OF JOVIAN ATMOSPHERE USING A NUCLEAR RAMJET FLYER. He also consults on the construction of an Me-109Gustav replica. In his eighties, but still truly a man for all seasons!

- H52

Note to AJ: I have pix of the GRV which I can upload if u allow (and explain how to do it)

Hawkeye, look at this I think it will explain how to upload pics, any questions PM me. It takes a few minutes to set up but once you start it will be pretty easy....and everyone feel always feel free to post I love the comments and learning about the photos...AJ

click here http://tinyurl.com/5dgtvd

When Grumman management was cool to his GRV design, he built a model of it himself, adjusted its balance by gliding it in a Long Island park and then cajoled his way into getting it tested in the Grumman Low Speed wind tunnel. The “goop” is an emulsion used to aid in visualizing the airflow. Tests were so successful that management endorsed the program, assigned it a design number (359) and financed further testing.

A small model was designed for testing in the hypersonic shock tunnel. The tunnel generated flows between Mach 6 and 25, depending on the nozzle installed, but most of the GRV-1 testing was at Mach 18. The photo show the GRV-1 shock tunnel model before the first run.

GRV-1 shock tunnel model before the first run. The heat transfer gages are clearly visible. The tiny circular holes are sensing ports for the pressure gages. There were also heat transfer and pressure gages mounted on the underside of the model.

The photo shows the instrumented model after the first run in the shock tunnel. You may be able to see the darkened face of the model, the result of the combustion products inherent in the flow of a shock tunnel.

The photo shows the GRV-1 in hypersonic flow. My good pal Wayne Konopka was the instrumentation engineer assigned to the project. Wayne’s energy and good humor were critical to making the project a success.

By the time the GRV-1 moved into supersonic testing, Bob Lecat had made changes to the design, most notably to the lip leading edge. The change was made in order to move the bow shock further away from the body so as to reduce heating of the crew compartment during re-entry. This change was a direct result of the heat transfer data collected in shock tunnel testing. The vehicle was now officially designated Design 359A. The Schlieren photo shows the 359A in Mach 4 flow at the Freeport wind tunnel.

The photo shows the smaller model which was used in order to see the flow over the entire vehicle.

Hawkeye, Did the posting photos instructions work ok? seems that they did, nice.....

COUGARS

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ArmyJunk....................OUTSTANDING!!!

Regards
Steve

Yes, sir, they worked fine. But I should add that I followed YOUR instructions as presented near the end of the link's thread. You can see in the first pic that I hadn't realized the text (description) could be included with the pic, hence I had to do a separate post. Caught on quickly for the others.
- H52