So the Royal Navy "Rejected" the Grumman F7F Tigercat?!! ...

[Mark Allen M]

What a pity. Or was it?

In 1945, two Tigercats, serial numbers TT346 and TT349, were evaluated, but rejected by the British Royal Navy, who preferred a naval version of the de Havilland Hornet. Alleged what killed the Tigercat in the eyes of the RN was its single-engine handling in landing configuration, it was seen as unacceptable for carrier ops, at least early on. The USN apparently agreed.

Only two Tigercats were assessed by the Royal Navy and none saw service with the Fleet Air Arm. The single aircraft, TT349(Bu Aer No 80293) was received at the naval unit at A&AEE Boscombe Down in December 1944 and another, TT346 was sent for trials with 787 squadron in February, 1945.

Assessment by the naval test pilots at Boscombe Down indicated that the cockpit featrures were regarded as poor, due to a lack of rear view. The aircraft was regarded as suitable for deck operations which was aided by good view, absence of take off swing, low power- on stall and good lateral stability. However, the type was rendered unacceptable to the FAA as tested due to poor elavator response at approach speeds.

Manufacturer: Grumman

Primary function: Fighter

Powerplant: Two Pratt&Whitney R-2800-22W engines

Thrust: Two 2072 hp, Two 1545 kW

Crew: One

Wingspan: 51.5 ft, 15.7 m

Length: 45.4 ft, 13.85 m

Height: 16.6 ft, 5.06 m

Wing area: 455 sq ft, 42.27 sq m

Weight empty: 15957 lbs, 7238 kg

Weight max: 23656 lbs, 1030 kg

Max speed: 427 mph, 687 kph

Ceiling: 36090 ft, 11000 m

Max range: 1790 miles, 2880 km

Armament: Four 20 mm cannon, Four 12.7 mm machine gun 300 rounds each), Two 454 kg bombs or six rockets; alternative under fuselage one 21inch torpedo

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Royal-Navy Grumman F7F-2N Tigercat Parked, As Flown by Test-Pilot Captain Eric Melrose 'Winkle' Brown, Cbe, Dsc, Afc, Fraes, Rn

[Kyleb]

Let's be honest. The Brits rejected it because they had the Sea Hornet, which was at basically the same point in development. With the war over, they needed domestic jobs, and it made a lot of sense to buy the Sea Hornet.

Now, which one was a better machine of war, I dunno. But the Sea Hornet checked most of the same boxes and was built in blighty.

[JohnB]

Have to agree with KyleB.
The Brits were broke and unless the Tigercats were free under lend lease, they didn't want them.
Their aviation industry was a source of jobs and export sales, so they had to keep it going even if some of the gear was inferior to American types (not that I'm saying that was the case here).

And then there is ego/pride...in a recent issue of FlyPast, an author wrote, with presumably straight face, that the Seafire was the best carrier based fighter of the war!
No mention of Hellcats, Corsairs, or even "Zeros".

[C VEICH]

I wonder if any thought was ever given to putting counter rotating engines on the Tigercat and how much of a difference it would have made.

[k5083]

It would have been ludicrous for Britain to consider buying the F7F. The Hornet and Sea Hornet were better for their needs and more suited to their style, and the F7F did not offer any performance or capability advantage. Plus, Sea Hornets actually could be operated from carriers. Talk about ego/pride -- if anything, the US should have considered buying some Hornets, if it really needed a twin prop carrier fighter, since the F7F was an abject failure in that role.

August

[Lon Moer]

I was hoping for some photos of Tigercats in FAA camo pattern.....

[Lon Moer]

I was hoping for some photos of Tigercats in FAA camo pattern.....

Ok.. Further searching has turned up that the second Cat (TT346) assigned to FAA Sqn 787 Sqn in Feb 45 was kept in it's then-current gloss Dark Sea Blue livery but had full FAA markings (all six roundels with yellow outlines) and the No.787 Sqn letter codes Y0-S (that's a "zero"), with the individual aircraft code of "S" on both the fuselage and vertical stab..

All I have found so far is a SIM skin.

ScreenShot_20211206101252.jpeg (39.7 KiB) Viewed 973 times

[bdk]

I wonder if any thought was ever given to putting counter rotating engines on the Tigercat and how much of a difference it would have made.

What difference do you think it would have made?