Grumman SkyRocket

About

The Grumman XF5F Skyrocket is one of the great "what-if" stories of pre-war American naval aviation. The U.S. Navy ordered a single prototype, model G-34, from Grumman on June 30, 1938, designated XF5F-1. Grumman's design was a lightweight twin-engine carrier interceptor — under 10,000 pounds maximum takeoff weight, powered by twin 1,200-hp Wright R-1820 radials with counter-rotating propellers to cancel torque effects. The aircraft made its first flight on April 1, 1940, with Grumman test pilots taking the unusual prototype aloft for performance evaluation.

The XF5F's appearance was unforgettable. The fuselage did not extend forward of the wing — instead, the leading edge of the wing carried two engine nacelles flush against the truncated nose, with the cockpit perched behind. Twin tails sat on the rear fuselage, with horizontal stabilizers cranked upward in a distinctive arrangement. After early engine cooling problems were resolved with revised oil ducting, the aircraft achieved 358 mph in level flight, climbed to 10,000 feet in four minutes, and recorded 505 mph in a vertical dive. The Spitfire, in comparable analysis, came in a distant second.

Despite the promising performance, twin-engine logistics — securing spare parts and supporting two engines per fighter — ruled out the Skyrocket. The Bureau of Aeronautics chose the simpler, more easily mass-produced Grumman F4F Wildcat for production. Two landing gear failures in 1942 contributed to the prototype's eventual retirement, and the XF5F was finally stricken from the rolls in December 1944. The Skyrocket's twin-engine carrier-fighter concept lived on in Grumman's later XF7F Tigercat. Today the XF5F survives mostly in pop-culture memory through the Blackhawk comic books, where the prototype was a recurring fictional aircraft.

The unmistakable XF5F silhouette — twin engines on a stub nose, cockpit pushed back, twin tails — is a rare and unusual scale subject in modern RC modeling.

In the simulator

A demanding twin-engine warbird with the kind of unusual silhouette that demands attention to keep oriented at altitude. The XF5F in our sim has the inertia of a prewar twin-engine carrier fighter — coordinated throttle management on takeoff and landing, asymmetric thrust handling, and the kind of pattern flying suited to a heavy interceptor. Use it for sport-scale flying with a "what if" character. Pairs well with grass-strip and golden-age field landscapes. A unique offering in this pack — a prewar twin-engine prototype rarely seen anywhere.