Cats (the flesh-and-blood variety, that is) are natural predators of birds (again, the flesh-and-blood variety). The Battle of the Philippines Sea was nicknamed "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot." The primary turkey hunter was the F6F Hellcat.
.Yet the time-honored Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation/Grumman Aerospace Corporation had a long-standing of naming its mechanical warbirds -- all built for the US Navy -- after types of cats. Simple Flying now takes a brief look at the history of Grumman's ferocious furry feline fighters.
(Hey, ya like that alliteration?) In 1994, Grumman merged with Northrop Corporation to form Northrop Grumman. F4F Wildcat As noted by Brian Nicklas of the Smithsonian's Air & Space Magazine in a September 2006 article: "GRUMMAN'S FIRST FIGHTERS FOR THE U.S.
NAVY WERE BARREL-CHESTED BIPLANES, known only as the F2F and F3F; they had no nicknames, much less the feline names that became near-synonymous with Grumman’s Navy fighters. " Thus it was that the F4F Wildcat would be the warbird to get the ball rolling on Grumman's feline fighter nomenclature tradition..
.and the first to draw blood with its proverbial fangs and claws in combat. The F4F made its maiden flight on September 2, 1937, and entered operational service with the USN in December 1940, about a year before America's entry into the Second World War via the Pearl Harbor raid.
Learn more about the role of the Zero at Pearl Harbor . Though the F4F was technically inferior to the Imperial .