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About your Cougar
The F9F-8 was the last fighter version of the Cougar to
see production. It was an attempt to reduce the stalling
speed, to improve the control at high angles of attack,
and to increase the range of the basic F9F-6. Known as
Design 99 by the company, work on the project began in
April of 1953. It featured an 8-inch extension of the center
fuselage. In order to reduce the stalling speed, Design 99
was fitted with extended and cambered leading edges in
place of the slats outboard of the fences. In addition, the
trailing edges of the wing were extended further aft. This
increased chord resulted in an increase of wing area from
300 to 337 square feet. It produced a wing with a rela-
tively thinner cross section which resulted in an improved
critical Mach number. Internal fuel was increased from
919 to 1063 gallons by adding a fuel tank in the extended
wing leading edge and by enlarging the forward fuselage
tank. The F9F-8 was fitted with a reinforced sliding can-
opy. The engine was the J48-P-8A or P-8C turbojet, rated
at 7250 lb.s.t. dry.
The first F9F-8 flew on January 18, 1954. A total of 601
F9F-8s were delivered to the Navy between April 1954
and March 1957. During the course of production, a fixed
inflight refuelling probe was added to the nose. Most F9F-
8s were fitted with a UHF homing antenna in a fairing un-
derneath the nose. Late production F9F-8s were fitted
with the capability of carrying two Sidewinder infrared-
homing air-to-air missile underneath each wing. This fea-
ture was retrofitted to many earlier F9F-8s. The first
Sidewinder-equipped Cougars were deployed overseas
by VA-48 in July of 1956.
On October 5, 1956, three VF-144 pilots set an unofficial
round trip record by flying their F9F-8s from NAS Mira-
mar, California to Long Island, New York and back with
refuelling stops each way at NAS Olathe, Kansas. The
total time was 10 hours 49 minutes 11 seconds.
The Blue Angels exchanged their F9F-5 Panthers for
F9F-8s in 1954. They flew the Cougars until they transi-
tioned to F11F-1 Tigers in the summer of 1957.
Several F9F-8s were converted into F9F-8B tactical nu-
clear bombers. They were fitted with the Low-Altitude
Bombing System (LABS), additional instruments, as well
as with the control and arming equipment needed for the
nuclear weapon, or "special store" as it was euphemisti-
cally called. However, in service most F9F-8Bs were op-
erated as conventional fighter-bombers and were pro-
vided with six underwing weapons pylons.
The F9F-8 and F9F-8B were withdrawn from fleet squad-
ron service in 1958 and 1959 respectively. They served
with reserve units until the mid-1960s, when they were
retired to the boneyards at Davis-Mothan
The Cougar was extremely popular with its crews, who
admired it for its ease of piloting, its superb carrier han-
dling capabilities, and its robust construction. However,
the F9F-8 Cougar was rapidly made obsolete by newer
supersonic designs that began to enter service in the late
1950s. The service life of the Cougar was consequently
Introduction
DerJet F9F-8 Cougar Page 2
