Recovered Wildcat a time capsule with an amazing story to tell

Perky paint, porky profile: At the risk of losing my alliteration license, those four words offer a tortured description of the bright and barrel-shaped Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat flown to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2021.

There on the Warbirds in Review ramp was a rescued relic from World War II with an amazing story to tell.

Now a part of Rod Lewis’ impressive Air Legends collection in Texas, the Wildcat is a time capsule. Flying from the training aircraft carrier USS Wolverine in Lake Michigan, this F4F-3 went in the water when it was only 13 months old.

Dunking an airplane for any length of time is sometimes seen as the kiss of death for its airworthiness. 

But several factors favored this Wildcat. The cold freshwater of Lake Michigan was less aggressive than saltwater. The depth at which this fighter settled — 210 feet below the surface of the lake — further inhibited deterioration.

And, importantly, Grumman Aircraft embraced the specialized needs of seagoing warplanes for U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, and the company imbued the Wildcat with rugged corrosion preventive measures that protected its aluminum structure.

This Wildcat was located and surveyed by A and T Recovery, a company that was able to receive some of its Lake Michigan finds as payment for work done for the U.S. Navy.

Aircraft recovery specialists say the window for retrieving restorable Navy warplanes from Lake Michigan is closing as invasive species of mussels damage the airframes. The mussels probably arrived on a foreign ship more than three decades ago, and their explosive growth in Lake Michigan has drastically altered the lake’s ecosystem in many ways.

Back in 1991, cameras revealed the F4F-3 to be remarkably clean and intact. Efforts to open an access panel to make lifting the fighter possible were tried unsuccessfully by remote control, explained Taras Lyssenko of A and T Recovery, who participated in the Wildcat panel discussion at Oshkosh.

Diving below 200 feet is perilous, but ultimately Taras and another diver braved the 38° water to reach the Wildcat and begin its recovery.

This F4F-3 and a second Wildcat were raised around November 1991, and made available for sale and subsequent restoration. In 1995, both of the Lake Michigan Wildcat rescues flew at AirVenture, a remarkable testament to the efforts of Taras and the subsequent refurbishers who endeavored to save as much of the original structure and parts as possible.

The two airframes initially were stored in an old red brick warehouse in Chicago. You know, the kind of place where you might expect to see bullet scars from the Untouchables era. Prospective buyers looked beyond their noses and overcame the reported stench like “a used aquarium” that emanated from the raised Wildcats.

Restorers found pilot oxygen bottles still held pressure, some leather and Plexiglas parts remained usable, and a half-century old battery in the other airframe could be made to work with the addition of new electrolyte solution.

Much of the original fuselage structure on the two Wildcats could be restored for use. The wings, which had been manufactured by a different contractor, did not hold up as well to the water treatment and needed more reconstruction.

In the intervening quarter-century since the Lake Michigan Wildcats first flew, one has become a display at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum at Ford Island on Oahu, where it ably tells the story of embattled Marine Corps aviators on Guadalcanal.

The one at AirVenture 2021 is now the only flying Grumman-built Wildcat. Later FM-2 Wildcat models built by General Motors may be seen aloft, but the older genuine Grumman articles are fewer in number, both static and flying. 

Rod Lewis has consistently sent pristine warbirds from his Texas collection to public aviation events like AirVenture, where the public can appreciate these mechanical wonders from a previous century. For AirVenture 2021, he asked Wildcat expert Conrad Huffstutler to prepare the Grumman F4F-3 for flight to Oshkosh. Conrad flew the Wildcat up from Texas.

Conrad may have an understandable bias favoring the Wildcat and its iterations.

“I don’t think the Wildcat gets enough attention,” he told the crowd at AirVenture.

Maybe the presence of a genuine Grumman F4F-3 at air shows will generate more of that attention.

A quick study of World War II history shows how valuable Wildcats were in the Pacific war until the advent of more powerful and faster Navy and Marine fighters like the Hellcat and Corsair.

Lieutenant Edward “Butch” O’Hare earned the Medal of Honor in February 1942 when he used a Wildcat in solo attacks to down several of nine Mitsubishi G4M bombers as they approached the aircraft carrier USS Lexington. His actions effectively disrupted the Japanese formation and their bombing was unsuccessful. 

If Japanese Zero fighters were more maneuverable, Wildcats could absorb more hits while protecting the pilot and vital systems with armor plate. Given an altitude advantage, a Wildcat was a formidable adversary for its lightweight Japanese antagonists.

Visitors to EAA AirVenture 2021 could walk around a Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat and stand in the presence of history as they inspected this rugged artifact that, like other cats, has enjoyed several iterations of its purported nine lives.