After someone recently posted a 25 part Grumman F4F, a 39 part and a 27 part Grumman F6F and finally a 25 part Grumman F8F, I felt challenged to do likewise and build myself a 25 part Grumman F5F Skyrocket.

According to my aviation books, the F5F was Grumman's attempt to build a successor to its F4F Wildcat with twice the F4F's power. However their way of doing this was to take not one but two of the F4F's 1000 hp engines and build the smallest possible airframe around it. The result was a rather endearingly strange aircraft, which flew rather well and combined easy handling -especially for a twin engine design- with a top speed of 380mph. However it's purpose became moot when Pratt & Whitney announced that at the same time Grumman was playing around with two 1000 HP engines, they developed a new 2000 HP one. So Grumman and the US Navy agreed to shelve the project in favor of the new 2000 hp F6F Hellcat.

But enough with the history. Let's look at the plane. Like the original it has two engines and a top speed of 350-380 mph, although I had to bump up the engine's SimplePlanes HP value to 2000 for that. It has the original flaps although I added an air break function to it to quickly bleed off speed when landing. To keep the parts limited to 25, I deliberately choose NOT to include any guns, and rather used my last free piece to add a tail hook. If you disagree, just add all the guns and bombs you want, and while you're add it, add come insignias as well. That's the one part I really wished I had pieces left for.