The Grumman Skyrocket was developed just before WW2 and was the first twin engine Navy fighter. It had awesome performance for its day, it was fast (exceeded 450mph in a dive) and could outclimb a Corsair. Carrier pilots loved it because the contra- rotating props eliminated torque effects on takeoffs and landings. Unfortunately, the Navy thought it was too heavy for carrier ops and opted to mass produce the single engine F4F. The Skyrocket was also the plane of choice for Captain Blackhawk and his comic book gang of those days.
I had designed a Skyrocket for FS2000 a couple of years ago and decided to update it with FSDSv2. As usual I wound up throwing out just about everything and starting over. This is the early shortnosed version, basically as it first came out of the factory. I compiled the airplane into CFS2 and then copied it into FS2002. It doesn't work the other way because of differences in the .mdl structure. I gave the silver parts a bit of a shine with specular colors in the base material since reflective textures don't work in CFS2. Use the appropriate "Exit" cotrols to open and close the canopy and the tail hook is actuated with the spoiler key "/". The Nav lights work with the "L" key in FS2002 but are inoperative in CFS2. I modified the default .dp file to include 4 forward firing machine guns located in the nose. It was originally supposed to have 2 machine guns and a Madsen cannon. When the cannon didn't materialize it was to be fitted with 4 machine guns. The prototype which was the only one produced had no armorment.
INSTALLATION: Unzip XF5F1.zip into a temporary folder. Choose which sim you are going to use. Copy the folder Grumman XF5F-1 into the Aircraft folder of the chosen sim. Copy the contents of the gauges folder into the Gauges folder of the chosen sim. This model will show under Grumman as the XF5F-1 in the selection list of FS2002 and will show as XF5F-1 in the selection list of CFS2.
PANEL: I am indepted to Roger Gilmore for creating a custom panel for this project. It is patterned after a photo of the original panel as first delivered. The panel shape was slimmed down somewhat later. He has added some modern instrumentation through pop-up windows. These are all supported in FS2002 but most are not in CFS2. Questions regarding the panel should be directed to Roger at: railartist@cox.net Thanka again Roger!
SOUND: I have aliased the Corsair sound file since it exists in both sims with the same file path.
LEGAL: This project is released as freeware. You may modify it, repaint it, etc., upload to another website as long as it is not for profit. You need my written permission to use any of these files for commercial purposes; otherwise just give me credit for the original design. This airplane should not hurt your computer but I am not responsible if it causes problems.
Enjoy! Paul Clawson
