F6F Hellcat vs F8F Bearcat: The Fighter That Won the War vs the One That Missed It

Hellcat vs Bearcat at a glance

The spec widget above compares size, weight and performance. This table covers what it does not: when each aircraft flew, what it carried and what it did.

The F6F Hellcat: the fighter that won the Pacific air war

The F6F Hellcat replaced the F4F Wildcat and was designed to beat the Japanese A6M Zero. Grumman shaped it with the help of Navy pilots who had flown the Wildcat against the Zero.

The decisive change was the engine. In April 1942 the Navy told Grumman to fit the 18-cylinder Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp, and the airframe was redesigned and strengthened around it.

The Hellcat was built to take punishment. It had a bullet-resistant windshield, cockpit armor, armor around the oil tank and oil cooler, and a self-sealing fuel tank.

Trials against a captured Zero showed the Hellcat was faster at every altitude. The Zero could still out-turn it at low speed, so the Hellcat won by speed, power and ruggedness rather than agility.

The numbers back it up. Navy and Marine Hellcat pilots flew 66,530 combat sorties and claimed 5,163 kills, 56% of all Navy and Marine air victories of the war, at a recorded cost of 270 Hellcats in aerial combat. That is a claimed kill-to-loss ratio of 19:1.

The Hellcat also made aces. It produced 305 of them, including Captain David McCampbell, the Navy’s top ace, who scored all 34 of his victories in the type.

Its biggest day was the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, where so many Japanese aircraft fell that aircrews called it the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.” Read more about the aircraft that fought alongside it in our guide to the most famous aircraft of WWII.

The F8F Bearcat: smaller, lighter and built to climb

The F8F Bearcat started with a June 1942 meeting at Pearl Harbor. Battle of Midway veterans told Grumman that the most important quality in a fighter was climb rate.

Climb comes from power-to-weight, so Grumman wrapped the smallest, lightest airframe it could around the same R-2800 engine. The Bearcat’s fuselage was about 5 feet shorter than the Hellcat’s, and its wingspan was 7 feet less.

Cutting the fuselage down behind the cockpit allowed a bubble canopy, the first on a U.S. Navy fighter. Long landing gear kept the four-bladed propeller clear of the deck, which gave the Bearcat its nose-up stance on the ground.

The weight saving had a cost. Internal fuel was limited and the fixed armament was held to four guns, so Grumman expected the Hellcat to keep flying the longer patrols.

Even so, the Bearcat was 20% lighter than the Hellcat and had a 30% better rate of climb. An unmodified F8F-1 set a time-to-climb record in 1946 that stood for 10 years, until a jet fighter broke it.

Power, speed and climb: the Bearcat wins on paper

Both fighters used a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp, but the Bearcat’s version made more power. The Hellcat produced 2,000 hp (1,491 kW), and the Bearcat produced 2,250 hp (1,678 kW).

The Bearcat also had less to carry. Its empty weight is 7,650 pounds (3,470 kg) against 9,238 pounds (4,190 kg) for the Hellcat.

That shows up in the numbers that matter in a dogfight. The Hellcat tops out at 391 mph (630 km/h) and climbs at 2,600 feet per minute. The Bearcat reaches 455 mph (732 km/h) and climbs at 4,465 feet per minute.

The Bearcat’s performance was good enough to outperform some early jets, and the type became a favorite of air racers. The record-breaking racer Rare Bear, a heavily modified F8F, set a world speed record for piston-driven aircraft in 1989.

Edge: Bearcat. More power, less weight, more speed and a much faster climb.

Combat record: the Hellcat wins by default

Hellcats first shot down a Japanese aircraft on September 1, 1943, a Kawanishi H8K flying boat, a day after the type’s combat debut. Hellcats then dominated the second half of the Pacific war.

The Bearcat never got that chance. The first squadron was operational on May 21, 1945, but World War II ended before the aircraft saw combat.

Its first combat came in the French Indochina War. Nearly 200 Bearcats were delivered to French forces in 1951, and because the Viet Minh had no air force, the French used them for ground support. After 1954, 28 survivors went to South Vietnam and were retired from 1960 onward, replaced by Skyraiders and Trojans.

Edge: Hellcat. A war-winning record against a type that missed the war.

Carrier operations: the Navy chose the Hellcat, then the Bearcat followed

The Navy greatly preferred the Hellcat’s docile flying characteristics to the Vought F4U Corsair’s, especially in carrier landings, even though the Corsair was faster. The Corsair went to the Marine Corps instead. For a longer look at that rivalry, see our Corsair vs Hellcat comparison.

The Bearcat had a different goal. Grumman wanted a fighter small enough to operate from escort carriers, which were limited to the aging Wildcat because the Hellcat was too large and heavy.

After the war the Bearcat became a major Navy and Marine fighter, equipping 24 Navy fighter squadrons. The Grumman F9F Panther and McDonnell F2H Banshee then replaced it, and the last Bearcats were withdrawn in 1952. See how it measured up against the Corsair in our Corsair vs Bearcat comparison.

Edge: Hellcat for wartime service, Bearcat for the design that followed.

Blue Angels: both flew the team’s early shows

The Hellcat was the first aircraft the Navy’s Blue Angels flew when the team formed in 1946. The Bearcat replaced it as the second demonstration aircraft, and on August 25, 1946, the team converted to the F8F-1 and introduced the famous diamond formation.

The Blue Angels flew the Bearcat until the team was temporarily disbanded in 1950 during the Korean War.

Which was better, the Hellcat or the Bearcat?

The Bearcat was the better-performing aircraft, with more power, less weight, a higher top speed and a far faster climb. The Hellcat was the more important one, because it was in the fight and the Bearcat was not.

Pick the Hellcat if the question is who won the Pacific. Pick the Bearcat if the question is which piston fighter pushed performance the furthest before jets took over.