Operating the FM-2 Wildcat's Hand-cranked Landing Gear

The Air Zoo is a world-class, Smithsonian-affiliated aerospace and science museum, in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

[mohammedcohen]

...read about this when I was a kid, building 1/48 & 1/32 models - first time actually seeing it...I'm 74 now...

[clydehdoctor]

The FM2 nee F4F was derived from the F3F, a biplane. It's impractical to fold gear into the lower wing of a biplane. So when Grumman got the word that the F4F had to be a monoplane it went to a single wing design but retained the out-of-date gear system.

[neilrobinson]

When I got to fly an FM-2 many years ago, I was warned to never let the gear free-fall since you could have a chain come off a sprocket and jam the gear halfway.

[flyingfortressrc]

Wow I would've thought the hand crank would've been a back up system, not the primary.
I got tired just watching him. Lol
Great video Guys

[bradwilkinson]

Hey guys, my family flew the Grumman goose sea planes to Catalina island early 1960’s and they had the same system, I was just a kid and asked my Dad what the pilots was doing, he said “ raising the landing gear !

[xraydelta]

I saw a wildcat fighter in the 90s at the Oklahoma City airshow, before Tom Jones tragically died, and the show stopped. It was with the "commemorative air force", down in Texas.

[billbright]

They had windows in floor as well to see ships etc. below aircraft.

[moss]

read once where early on in the war they'd take off then the hand crank was being worked and how they always wobbled as they flew away....now we know why. nice post.

[basiltaylor]

That is maybe so, as the FAA acquired ex Aeronavale F4F, s after Frances Capitulation in June 1940, and a god send to the Atlantic Convoys when the FAA desperately needed decent carrier fighters. In the 21st century, peaceful activity of display flying, the tedious act of winding up the F4F, s undercarriage is exhausting. For example the Shuttleworth Trust, s Jewel in the crown the DH 88 Comet Racer G-ACSS Grosvenor House had its undercarriage converted to electric actuation using a canopy motor off a Blackburn Buccaneer Attack Bomber.

[MOMO]

Did he have to turn his own propeller? Just wonderin'...😂

[tstahler]

Pick Pickering had a much faster and simpler way of lowering the gear. 😂

[ryanwiler]

I doubt those airplanes had too many landing gear system failures! Good and reliable, as long as your not being shot at whilst trying to take off, then this probably beats the added weight and complexity of an electric or hydraulic gear!

[chonkboi]

sure does takes a while! I wouldn't want to be in trouble, fighting for flight only then have to crank for a minute lol

[iandibley]

Why wouldn't the manufacturer have fitted servo motor/ gearbox, seems crazy flying a plane a plane trying to wind the gear up, I can understand for an emergency lowering the gear manually.

[buzzz]

Would the Wildcat have competed successfully against the ME-109 if they ever encountered each other?

[stevefambro]

We just gonna act like there's not an F-104 starfighter parked in the background?

[HaerulRizal-xm]

Funny how the plane equipped with electrical panel but can't afford a small electric motor to crank the gear mechanism 😅

[paoloviti]

It was possibly the main criticism of the Wildcats when taking off and landing but it was a good and a very sturdy airplane

[looneytunes]

I will never understand why they just didnt install an electric motor where the crank handle is and be done with that nonesense???

[tchemmer]

Would it work better to roll the aircraft inverted and then raise the gear, or are there technical reasons not to?