When my father was in the US Navy, he was stationed at Pax River in Maryland, and the Blue Angels arrived in their Bearcats. As the story was told to me, there were a few P-51 drivers there for some reason that wasn't revealed, but apparently late into the night in the O Club, many adult beverages were consumed, and inter-service rivalry being what it was, these Mustang and Bearcat drivers got into a bit of a conversation about who had the better airplane. A contest was devised for the next morning (after all were sober of course).
4 Mustangs, and 4 Bearcats would line up on the parallel runways and on signal start their takeoff roll. Whomever could get airborne and get into a shooting position first would win. So it goes, the flag drops, power comes up and away they go. The Blue Angels pilots lift off, reverse direction, and laughed their *** off yelling "guns guns guns" over the radio.. BEFORE A SINGLE MUSTANG HAD LIFTED OFF.
In short.. the Grumman Bearcat was a beast. My late friend Tom Freidkin owned a Bearcat and flew it regularly (his son Dan now flies it occasionally when The Horsemen do a USN tribute at airshows), and said it was the easiest taildragger he'd ever flown. He claimed because of the landing gear position, if you smoothly brought power up while holding the tail on the ground, that it took ZERO RUDDER to run straight down the runway to liftoff..
It's EASILY my favorite prop-driven airplane ever.
