This 2/5 scale model of the Grumman XF8F-1 Bearcat was used by aeronautical engineers to investigate high-subsonic speed flight in 1945. Dropped from a mother ship, the unpowered model could achieve speeds of 600 mph as it glided through preprogrammed dives and maneuvers. Crews on the ground collected data transmitted by the model's onboard radio telemetry system. The model could be recovered for additional testing thanks to an automatically deployed parachute packed in in the cockpit.
Aeronautical engineers designed this 2/5-scale model of Grumman's F8F-1 Bearcat fighter to investigate the characteristics of flight at high-subsonic speeds. Carried aloft beneath the wing of a B-17 mother ship, the unpiloted model was dropped from altitudes as high as 35,000 feet and then glided through a series of preprogrammed dives using gyro controls driven by compressed nitrogen. An onboard radio telemetry system transmitted instrument readings on airspeed, acceleration, G-force, control surface stress, and buffeting to ground crews below. After pulling out from these high-speed maneuvers, the model blew off its canopy and a mock lead engine before deploying a parachute for recovery.
Test crews first dropped the Bearcat model above the U.S. Navy's target range at Wallops Island, Virginia, in 1945. Although unpowered, the model could achieve a terminal speed of 600 miles per hour in freefall—roughly 80 percent the speed of sound—and provided important data that wasn't yet available from contemporary wind tunnels.
