Grumman_F4F

Grumman F4F/General Motors FM Wildcat

Although the F4F Wildcat family of aircraft started with a Biplane XF4F-1 prototype that competed with the Brewster F2A-1 for a US Navy fighter contract in the late 1930's, the design was reworked first into a monoplane XF4F-2 prototype design and then a prototype XF4F-3 design, which entered service with the US Navy and US Marine Corps as the F4F-3 in December 1940.

The production Grumman F4F Wildcat was an all-metal monoplane Fighter aircraft with retractable landing gear. It was used operationally by the US Navy, US Marine Corps, the Royal Navy, and the Royal Canadian Navy throughout WWII.

During the early part of the war in the Pacific the F4F was the US Navy's primary carrier based fighter plane, and later in the war it continued to serve on escort carriers of the US and Royal Navies. During the war due to the need for increased production aircraft of this type were also built by the Eastern Aircraft Division of General Moters as the FM series of aircraft. Variants of the F4F family in use during the war include a fixed wing variant fitted with a two-stage, two-speed supercharged engine designated the F4F-3, a similar aircraft fitted with a single-stage, two-speed engine designated the F4F-3A, a folding wing variant designated the F4F-4/FM-1, and a later war modified aircraft with a more powerful engine and reivsed vertical tail fin designated the FM-2. The primary variants analyzed at this website include:

the F4F-3
the F4F-4
the FM-2

As shown in the images below distinguishing features of this aircraft including;

a radial engine
a razorback configuration aft the cockpit
shoulder mounted non-folding wings on the F4F-3 variant
shoulder mounted folding wings on the F4F-4/FM-1 and FM-2 variants
main landing gear that retracted into the fuselage

[Image Sources: Public Domain via Ref [8] - as annotated by this site]

[Source: Ref [14b] - US Government/Public Domain]

[Source: Ref [4] - Public Domain]

In order to try and better develop weight estimating relationships an effort has been made to estimate the length of the fuselage aft of the firewall, and the length of the engine section forward of the firewall based off scaled drawings. Together these two distances add to a term called the "structural length" and do not consider any portion of the engine or propeller shaft the extend foward of the fuselage/cowling, or any empennage that extends aft of the fuselage structure. The drawing below shows the current best estimate of these dimensions obtained from available drawings of the airplane and will be updated with any real world data that becomes available. For any aircraft with an inclined firewall, an attempt has been made to locate an approximate center of this location.

F4F-3-Dims

Source References [1] [4] [8] & [16]

F4F-4 Dims

Source References [1] [2] [4] [8] & [16]

FM2 Dims

Source Reference [1] [5] [8] & [16]
In the above images, dimensions in Blak come from the source material while dimesnions in Red have been approximated from the data available.

The table below summarizes the current data collected on this type aircraft, identifying sources for the data

		F4F-3	F4F-3	F4F-4	F4F-4	F4F-4	FM-2	Secondary Sources	Notes
Primary Source		1	4	1	2	4	1
No of Crew		1	1	1	1	1	1
Engine:
Qty		1	1	1	1	1	1
Model		R-1830-86	R-1830-76	R-1830-86	R-1830-86	R-1830-86	R-1820-56	5, 8
Displacement	(cu in)	1830	1830	1830	1830	1830	1820	5, 8
Power
Military	(HP)
War Emergency	(HP)
Normal	(HP)	1100	1100	1100	1100	1100	1200	5, 8
Take Off	(HP)	1200	1200	1200	1200	1200	1300	5, 8
Eng Dims
Length	(ft)	5.62	5.94	5.62	5.62	5.62	3.96	5, 8
Width/Dia	(ft)	4.02	4.01	4.02	4.02	4.02	4.59	5, 8
Height	(ft)
Base Engine Wt	(lb)	1560	1550	1560	1560	1560	1333	5, 8
Propeller
# Blades		3	3	3	3	3	3
Dia	(ft)	9.75	9.75	9.75	9.75	9.75	10
Manufacturer
Type
Wing
Span	(ft)	38	38	38	38	38
Root Thickness	(%)	15.0%	15.0%	15.0%	15.0%	15.0%
	(in)	14.7	14.7	15.2	15.2	15.2
Total Area	(sq ft)	260	260	260	260	260	260
Wing (less Ailerons & Flaps)	(sq ft)	218.82	218.82	217.04	217.04	217.04
Ailerons	(sq ft)	11.48	11.48	13.26	13.26	13.26
Flaps	(sq ft)	29.7	29.7	29.7	29.7	29.7
Tail Area	(sq ft)	71.63	71.63	71.63	71.63	71.63		3
V Tail Area	(sq ft)	22.58	22.58	22.58	22.58	22.58	22.58	3
Fin	(sq ft)	13.2	13.2	13.2	13.2	13.2
Rudder	(sq ft)	9.38	9.38	9.38	9.38	9.38
H Tail Area	(sq ft)	49.05	49.05	49.05	49.05	49.05	49.05	3
Stabilizer	(sq ft)	30.43	30.43	30.43	30.43	30.43
Elevator	(sq ft)	18.62	18.62	18.62	18.62	18.62
Total Control Surf Area	(sq ft)	69.18	69.18	70.96	70.96	70.96
Length
Overall	(ft)	28.78	28.78	28.89	28.89	28.89
Fuselage	(ft)	26.92	26.92	25.2	25.2	25.2	25.2
Body	(ft)	25.94	25.94	25.94	25.94	25.94	25.935
Body Depth	(ft)	25.94	25.94
Body Width	(ft)
Fuel Tank Volume	(gal)	147	147	144	144	144
Wing Tanks	(gal)
FuselageTanks	(gal)
Oil Tank Volume	(gal)	11	11	11	11	11
Water Injection Fluid Tank Volume	(gal)
Wetted Area (sqf)	(sq ft)
Pwr Ldng	(lb/HP)		5.75		6.57	6.19
Wing Ldng	(lb/sq ft)		26.52		30.30	28.56
Struct. Des. GW	(lb)			6436	6436
Ultimate Load Factor	(G's)			13.5	13.5
Design Speed	(mph)			470	470
Not to Exceed Speed	(mph)

Total Struct Weight		2207	2200	2532	2484	2561	2469
Total Wing		893	882	1181	1119	1181	1154
Wing			805			1030
Ailerons			38			38
Flaps			39			43
Fuselage Carry-Through						70
Tail		144	147	148	147	148	150
H Tail			106		112	112
Stabilizer			64			65
Elevator			42			47
V Tail			41		35	36
Fin			18			13
Rudder			23			23
Body + Eng Section + LG
Body + LG		1170	1144	1203	1195	1203	1165
Body		819	793	852	842	852	723
Fuselage		525	495	517		517	470
Engine Section		294	298	335		335	253
Landing Gear		351	351	351	353	351	442
Mn Landing Gr			319		322	319
Tail/Nose Aux LG			32		31	32
Tail Hook			27		23	29
Booms
Nacelles
Total Propulsion Weight		2450	2432	2493	2553	2493	2176
Engine w/ Accessories		1807	1782	1810	1789	1810	1401
Engine(s) as Installed		1565	1540	1568	1568	1568
Accessories		242	242	242	221	242
Turbocharger(s)
Controls		22.5	23	25	27	25	20
Propeller(s)		314	312	315.5	321	315.5	394
2-Blade
3-Blade		314	312	315.5	321	315.5	394
4-Blade
Starting System		43	43	43	45	43	30
Water Injection System
Tanks
Piping Etc
Cooling System
Lube System		30	30	35	94	35	99
Tanks			10			10
Piping Etc			20			25
Fuel System		233.5	242	264.5	277	264.5	232
Tanks			164			200
Piping Etc			78			64.5
Total Sys. & Eqpmt.		769	661	753.9	761	724.9	693
Instruments		58	58	61	50	61	52
Surface Controls		113	113	161.5	130	161.5	126
Hydraulics		-		-		195.9	-
Electrical Equip		140	140	143	168	143	162
Electronics (Purple means incl in Furn/Gray in Useful Ld)					113
Arm Prov/Equipment & Armor		155	155	162.5	237	162.5	223
Furnishings		183	172	195.9	63		80
Anti-Ice (If not in Furn)
Other /Misc		30	23	30		1	50
Hoisting Gear			1			1
Floatation Gear		90	22
Armor Plate

Empty Wt		5426	5293	5778.9	5798	5778.9	5338
Basic Mission Useful Load			1602		2081	1647.1
Crew			200		200	200
Equipment
Oil			68		83	68
Fuel			660		864	660
Fuel & Oil Trapped in Systems
Water Solution for Engine Injection
Bombs/Torp Etc			0			0
Radio (if Not Included in Empty Wt)			62.3			113.2
Nav Equipment			3.5			4.5
Oxygen System
Armament			546.1		882	554.2
Guns & Ammo			524.5		882	528.7
Guns					450
Ammo					432
Pyrotechnics			7.9			11.8
Camera			13.7			13.7
Other
Other Useful Load			62.1		52	47.2
Basic Mission GW			6895		7879	7426

Notes: This website has been developed with a number of low cost or free programs including Hot Metal Pro, KompoZer, MicroSoft Designer and Da Button Factory.com

Rev 4-12-26

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