F9F Panther

Above, you see a jet heading for the heavens, where it wound up. It is a Grumman F9F, one of the first operational combat jets to fly off US Navy carriers. Built in two versions, the straight-wing jet that flew in Korea was called the Panther, and the swept-wing version, which arrived too late for the Korean conflict, was called the Cougar. As a kid, I thought the F9F was one of the best-looking aircraft in the sky. I remember both versions flying out of Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. It was always a treat to go to the beach when a pair of these jets streaked low over the water just beyond the breaking surf. Sometimes the jets would fly over my house, and I’d run outside and lie on my back in our backyard, hoping they’d circle so I could get a second look. 

Well, back to the picture. I think it’s pretty dramatic, but in some ways it's fake! It’s a model made of balsa and tissue paper, and it isn’t even a jet, since it has a clear plastic propeller on the nose powered by a rubber-band motor. If you look closely, you can see the prop flash in the model's upper right. I didn’t expect much from this model, but it outperformed all expectations. As a member of the Flying Aces Club, I fly stick and tissue models competitively, where a flight of two minutes for a rubber-powered model is considered an excellent flight. I wound up the rubber model for a test flight, and a friend snapped a picture shortly after launch. The F9F demonstrated excellent flight characteristics and gained altitude even after the motor ran out. I couldn’t help noticing that it looked exactly like those F9Fs I watched long ago. I waited for it to come down, but it circled in a warm column of air called a thermal. My friend with a camera decided to time the flight, and twenty-four minutes later, it was still circling the field. Finally, it was snatched by a crosswind and flew out of sight. The loss of a model that flies out of sight is always bittersweet. On one hand, one can’t suppress the feeling of the model flying so well that it can be mistaken for the aircraft it represents. On the other hand, there is always the sense of loss that such a flight entails. 

I set to work that evening building another F9F, and as it frequently happens when building models, the second one flew well but didn’t seem to have the perfect moments of its older brother.