Cougar Aircraft

Cougar Aircraft - The Museum's Cougar was built at Grumman's Bethpage, New York factory and delivered to the Navy on January 25, 1955. The plane served with Navy and Marine units at Cherry Point, North Carolina (VMF-114), Norfolk, Virginia (O&R BuAer M&S

), and Chase Field, Texas (VT-24). In 1964, it was loaned to the King County Parks and Recreation Department and put on display at Marymoor Park. The Parks Department transferred the Cougar to the organization that became The Museum of Flight in 1969. Today, it wears the colors of Navy Fighter Squadron VF-81.

Cougar Aircraft

The typical Cougar has a maximum speed of 169 knots, an economic cruise speed of 135 knots, and a stall speed of 46 knots. The travel range is 650 nautical miles. It could fly up to 13,000 feet and could climb at a rate of 1,300 feet per minute.

A Fan Tries To Revive The Cougar

The takeoff distance is 340 meters and the landing distance is 300 meters. Naysayers will point out the potentially dangerous handling of the twin in the event of an engine failure, but in the case of the Cougar, this argument is largely a nonstarter.

Unlike the twin trainers of the 1960s—such as Piper's Twin Comanche and Beechcraft's Travel Air—the Cougar was designed to stall prior to losing directional control. Some flight schools don't like using Cougars for multiengine training because they're so docile that students don't learn adequate respect for engine-out handling in twins.

The GA-7 could become the first and perhaps only light twin manufactured in China. Acquisition of an existing Type Certificate, which is valid forever, can save 10 years and many millions of dollars compared with development of a new, unproven aircraft model.

With both single and twin-engine aircraft models and a 5,000 square meter facility ready to start production immediately, this is a golden opportunity for Chinese participation in aircraft manufacturing at a fraction of the usual cost of entry.

Grumman Ga– Cougar Vref Average Retail Price $

Today, the Cougar is far from an orphaned airplane thanks to two shops in the United States: Air Mods NW in Granite Falls, Washington, and FletchAir in Comfort, Texas. Between the two, almost every Cougar part can be obtained.

It is estimated that there are 60 to 70 Cougars still flying, several in Europe. In addition, for those who think twins are maintenance hogs or expensive to insure, the Cougar has proven otherwise. Christian Smith of Murrysville, Pennsylvania, first considered a complex single before he stumbled upon an article about the Cougar.

"I had not heard of the Cougar before," said Smith. "I loved the idea of ​​a second engine as I wanted to fly at night over the mountains of West Virginia quite often. The more I researched, the more I wanted a Cougar.”

The F9F Cougar is the swept-wing variant of its forerunner, the F9F Panther -- Grumman's first jet fighter plane. As MiG-15s tangled with the slower, less agile Panthers and McDonnell Banshees over Korea, the need for a higher performance fighter became apparent.

Grumman and the Navy considered a swept-wing configuration and included provisions for it from the beginning of the Panther design effort. Grumman thus had a head start on the Cougar. The first Cougars were delivered in November of 1951, but never saw combat in Korea.

However, the Cougar became a mainstay of Navy carrier fighter squadrons for most of the 1950s. Performance Takeoff distance, ground roll | 1,000 ft Takeoff distance over 50-ft obstacle | 1,850 ft Rate of climb, sea level |

1,160 fpm Single-engine ROC, sea level | 200 fpm Cruise speed/endurance w/45-min rsv, std fuel (fuel consumption, ea engine) @ 75% power, best power | 160 kt/5.3 hr 8,500 ft (9 gph) @ 45% power, best economy |

109 kt/10.6 hr 8,500 ft (5 gph) Landing distance over 50-ft obstacle | 1,330 ft Landing distance, ground roll | 710 ft The aviation training market has exploded with airline demand, and it is forecast that training over 800,000 pilots worldwide will generate a need for thousands of new planes.

That adds up to potential sales of over $7 Billion USD. Market demand to produce new training planes has increased so much that one major light plane maker has revealed a 700-plane backorder and $350 million in annual turnover.

The Nesmith Cougar was designed by Robert Nesmith in the mid-1950s as a light aircraft marketed for home building. It featured wide short high-wings and a single piece steel tube undercarriage. The aircraft has a maximum speed of up to 170 knots and a travel range of 650 nautical miles.

"Loving the plane, I continued my research and made contact with Socata in 2009, asking if the assets could be purchased," Murphy said. "During the next few years I was in negotiations to purchase all the assets."

His goal was simple; with new factory twins running from $600,000 to $1.2 million, producing a kit for an Experimental Cougar could bring down the cost of multiengine training. When he was looking for a light twin, Wisconsin pilot Roger Murphy landed on the Cougar.

He bought serial number GA70030, flew the airplane, "and loved every minute," he said. He learned that Gulfstream American sold the type certificate to Socata, which in 1995 announced it would use the Cougar as the basis for the TB320 Tangara—and, replacing the two Lycoming O-320s with 180-horsepower O-360s, an upgraded TB360.

Later Socata announced that the program was indefinitely delayed. Limiting and recommended airspeed VMC (min control w/critical engine inoperative) | 61 KIAS VX (best angle of climb) | 81 KIAS VY (best rate of climb) |

95 KIAS VXSE (best single-engine angle of climb) | 85 KIAS VYSE (best single-engine rate of climb) | 85 KIAS VA (design maneuvering) | 120 KIAS VFE (max flap extended) | 145 KIAS VLO (max gear operating)

Extend | 145 KIAS Retract | 115 KIAS VNO (max structural cruising) | 160 KIAS VNE (never exceed) | 188 KIAS VS1 (stall, clean) | 71 KIAS VSO (stall, in landing configuration) | 63 KIAS Cougars sit tall on the ramp, like a Cessna 310. The Cougar's engine nacelles are long and streamlined, similar to the more compact but faster Piper Twin Comanche.

There are no wing lockers, however. The wing is a constant-chord slab. The lack of rivets somewhat offsets the wing's simple, Hershey-bar look. Like most light twins, the Cougar is a dog on one engine. Single-engine rate of climb at gross weight is a paltry 200 feet per minute and single-engine service ceiling is 4,250 feet.

That doesn't bring much comfort to those flying in the Rockies, but the Cougar should provide safe clearance of nearly all terrain in the East. Fuel management is a simple On/Off/Crossfeed arrangement, which is mostly pilot proof.

Older twins such as the Travel Air and Twin Comanche have more complicated setups. One nit to pick is inadequate exterior lighting. There's only one landing light and it's on the nose gear, which spends most of the time retracted.

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After eight years of discussions, in 2017 he reached an agreement with Socata successor Daher to purchase the type certificate, engineering and manufacturing documentation, manufacturing fixtures and tooling, and one remaining prototype (a modified Gulfstream American Cougar).

This would cost Murphy his Cougar, his half of a 50-by-60-foot hangar, five acres of riverfront land, and a chunk of his savings. He planned to start making parts, produce and build a kit Cougar, and launch the kitplane twin at Oshkosh.

The first Cougar was initially marketed by Nesmith as a low-cost aircraft intended for homebuilders. In 1963, the Cougar was modified by Leonard Eaves and won a competition in the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). The organization then purchased rights on the aircraft, and in due course was acquired by Acro Sport.

An air-to-air photo shoot with a Beechcraft Bonanza A36 clearly exposed how well the Cougar's designers met the design goal of competing with the complex singles. The airplanes' performance numbers are nearly identical in all phases of flight, enough so that a formation takeoff and landing were performed, something usually unheard of with radically different airplane types.

For a slight penalty in speed and fuel burn, the Cougar offers almost the exact same performance with complete system redundancy, affordable maintenance, and a roomy, comfortable cabin. If you're the type of pilot who's worried about an engine failure (and who's not?), the Cougar provides nearly worry-free flight at night, over long stretches of water, forests, and mountainous terrain.

Throw in a roomy cabin, large bins for luggage, and voluminous fuel tanks, and the Cougar bests the complex singles in range, loading flexibility, and comfort. Originally, the Cougar's designers were planning to install 250-horsepower engines to create a six-seat Cessna 310/Beechcraft Baron 55/Piper Aztec-caliber airplane that owners could step up to.

With the slippery bonded wings, the Cougar probably would have made a worthy challenger. They considered seeking a supplemental type certificate for the O-360 engine upgrade installed on the remaining Tangara prototype, but the engine logs had been lost when the project was abandoned, requiring that both be overhauled.

Fuel tanks were leaking and had to be resealed. A bent rudder bell crank had to be replaced or repaired. "Although these don't sound bad, driving these from 4,000 miles away would be a major undertaking," Murphy said.

Ultimately, he decided he had no choice but to walk away from the deal. "Everything was abandoned there," Murphy said. There will be no Cougar production, kit or otherwise. —Mike Collins N780GA has undergone extensive restoration since Smith bought the airplane in 2014. Florida Aero Paint in Lantana, Florida, applied the paint using a design by Plane Schemers.

Interior and avionics were done a little closer to Smith's home at the Donegal Springs Airpark in Marietta, Pennsylvania, by Advantage Interiors and Smart Avionics. Lycoming's 160-horsepower O-320 is mounted on each wing of the Cougar.

Both propellers turn the same way, unlike the Piper Seminole and Beechcraft Duchess competitors, which both have counter-rotating props to eliminate the "critical" engine. All three twin trainers were designed and launched around the same time, but the Piper and Beech models roundly outsold the Grumman.

Cougar Aircraft Corp is now inviting investors and suppliers to participate in their exclusive FAA and CAAC world-wide rights to bring these aircraft to a global market that is clearly in need of many more airplanes.

The GA-7 is a proven and respected aircraft that offers a safe and profitable training platform; what's more, modified GA-7s have already flown with alternative powerplants. The GA-7 uses advanced fighter jet construction derived from its Grumman heritage, combined with simple modular assembly, allowing for low cost, high volume production of new aircraft.

As an added bonus, the GA-7 offers an exceptionally long service life of its main wing components at 42,000 hours – compared to a typical 12,000-hour service life. This means many more profitable flight hours and less frequent aircraft fleet replacements.

Only 115 Cougars were built over two model years, 1978 and 1979. Grumman American was sold to American Jet Industries in 1978 and became Gulfstream American. Not only was Gulfstream's timing awful in terms of the looming general aviation downturn of the 1980s, but the company had never dabbled in the production of light airplanes.

Finally, it didn't take Gulfstream long to realize there was also a lot more money to be made in jets than in light airplanes, and the little Grummans were swept aside. The F9F Cougar is the swept-wing variant of its forerunner, the F9F Panther -- Grumman's first jet fighter plane.

As MiG-15s tangled with the slower, less agile Panthers and McDonnell Banshees over Korea, the need for a higher performance fighter became apparent. Grumman and the Navy considered a swept-wing configuration and included provisions for it from the beginning of the Panther design effort.

Grumman thus had a head start on the Cougar. The first Cougars were delivered in November of 1951, but never saw combat in Korea. However, the Cougar became a mainstay of Navy carrier fighter squadrons for most of the 1950s.

The Nesmith M1 Cougar is the initial design powered by 108 horsepower Lycoming engine intended for home building. The Cougar Comet is a modified version with a single Lycoming O-290D engine rated at 125 horsepower. The Chigger and Landoll's Skydoll had been built with two designs.

The first was fitted with folding wings and Culver Cadet undercarriage, known as the Chigger while the second was fitted with folding wings that featured automatic control latching. A total of 1,988 Cougars were built during 1951-60, but the type was superseded in the late-1950s by the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, Vought F-8 Crusader, and other advanced types.

The Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration team flew the Cougar during 1954-57, and one trainer airframe was retained until 1969. The last Navy Cougar, an advanced trainer version, was phased out in 1974. He, his wife, and their son—a composites design engineer—went to France, prepared to ship four 40-foot shipping containers of fixtures and metal stamping dies back to the United States.

"We found the major fixtures to be contaminated far worse than I ever imagined could happen," Murphy explained. "The aluminum was flaking and algae was into the minute cracks." They estimated that replacing the fixtures would cost $3 million to $7 million—and add three to seven years to the project.

The Cougar featured a conventional wooden high wing with struts and has a wingspan of 6.25 meters and a wing area of ​​7.66 square meters. The fixed tailwheel type undercarriage has a wheelbase of 4.6 meters.

The aircraft has an external length of 5.77 meters, an eternal height of 1.47 meters, a tail height of 1.68 meters, and a fuselage diameter of 0.6 meters. The tail assembly as well as the fuselage is built of steel-tube construction.

The entire aircraft was covered with fabric and was equipped with a tandem configuration for a pilot and a passenger. Specifications Power plants | (2) 160-hp Lycoming O-320-D1D Propellers | 73-in. Hartzell, constant speed, full feathering

Length | 29 ft. 8 in Height | 10 ft. 4 in Wingspan | 36 ft. 10 in Seats | 4 Empty weight, as tested 2,599 lbs Max takeoff weight | 3,800 lbs Payload w/full fuel, as tested |

517 lbs Fuel capacity, std 118 gal (114 gal usable)/708 lb (684 lb usable) Baggage capacity | 175 lbs Nose baggage | 75 lbs Toll Free: 877-477-7823 Customer Service: 800-861-3192 Fax: 800-329-3020

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