By Randy Malmstrom
Since his childhood, Randy Malmstrom has had a passion for aviation history and historic military aircraft in particular. He has a particular penchant for documenting specific airframes with a highly detailed series of walk-around images and an in-depth exploration of their history, which have proved to be popular with many of those who have seen them, and we thought our readers would be equally fascinated too. This installment of Randy’s Warbird Profiles takes a look at the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum‘s Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat.
Grumman F6F-5 Hellcat, Bu.No. 79863, N79863. This particular aircraft was built as an F6F-5N night-fighter in Bethpage, New York and was delivered to the U.S. Navy on May 17, 1945. It then served as part of Carrier Aircraft Service Unit 1 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; then Naval Air Station Alameda, California; and flew as a trainer and a drone. It was recovered from Naval Ordinance Test Station, China Lake, California.
It was restored to its present condition between 2011-13. Steve Hinton first flew it as it appears now on March 27, 2013 was flying out of Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum (FHCAM) on Paine Field, Everett, Washington. As is now known, FHCAM was acquired by Walmart heir Steuart Walton’s Wartime History Museum, a newly created nonprofit, to operate from the same location.
It is painted as #32 of Lt. Reuben H. Denoff, who flew in North Africa and then with VF-9 and then with VF-12 aboard USS Randolph (CV-15) with the distinctive white-striped tailfin “G-Symbols” (geometric shapes) such as were used by the U.S. Navy to distinguish aircraft on each carrier.
Hellcats appeared in October 1942 and were nicknamed the “Aluminum Tank”. The U.S. Navy had specified a survivability of a carrier landing of 19 feet per second. Powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp 18-cylinder radial engine. You can see the propeller governor with its speeder spring atop the engine case which is pilot-controlled with the propeller control lever (as with the P-47, it controls the blade pitch to maintain a constant rpm speed).
Armed with three Browning .50 cal. machine guns in each wing (each weighing about 83 lbs.) and can carry six 5-inch HVAR rockets and up to 4,000 lbs. of bombs on wing hardpoints. Leroy Grumman pondered how to make more room on the hangar decks with folding wings and took an eraser and two paper clips and showed the engineers what he had in mind in what became the “Sto-Wing” design for the Wildcat, Avenger and Hellcat.
About the author
Randy Malmstrom grew up in a family steeped in aviation culture. His father, Bob, was still a cadet in training with the USAAF at the end of WWII, but did serve in Germany during the U.S. occupation in the immediate post-war period, where he had the opportunity to fly in a wide variety of types which flew in WWII. After returning to the States, Bob became a multi-engine aircraft sales manager and as such flew a wide variety of aircraft; Randy frequently accompanied him on these flights. Furthermore, Randy’s cousin, Einar Axel Malmstrom flew P-47 Thunderbolts with the 356th FG from RAF Martlesham Heath. He was commanding this unit at the time he was shot down over France on April 24th, 1944, spending the rest of the war as a prisoner of war. Following his repatriation at war’s end, Einar continued his military service, attaining the rank of Colonel. He was serving as Deputy Wing Commander of the 407th Strategic Fighter Wing at Great Falls AFB, MT at the time of his death in a T-33 training accident on August 21, 1954. The base was renamed in his honor in October 1955 and continues to serve in the present USAF as home to the 341st Missile Wing. Randy’s innate interest in history in general, and aviation history in particular, plus his educational background and passion for WWII warbirds, led him down his current path of capturing detailed aircraft walk-around photos and in-depth airframe histories, recording a precise description of a particular aircraft in all aspects.
