F8F Bearcat: -1 vs -2

The most obvious external differences between the Grumman F8F -2 Bearcat in the lead picture above and the F8F-1 were the 12" taller vertical fin and rudder and the 20mm cannon armament (the latter was also a feature of the F8F-1B, the B suffix indicating a change in armament) indicated by the longer barrels and the bumps on the upper surface of the wing.

Note that the vertical fin change was accomplished by adding the 12-inch increase at the bottom and keeping the trailing edge on the same line.*

What I hadn't appreciated until Snake45 showed me the way was that there were also subtle changes to the engine installation. The -2 had a slightly different exhaust stack installation and an oil cooler vent was added to the lower aft end of the cowl. The -1 shown here had what appears to be a larger exhaust trough with five pipes in it. (It doesn't look larger in this picture because there was a cover over the bottom of the trough, probably to keep the hot exhaust off the upper inboard part of the wing.)

This is a closeup of the F8F-1 exhaust trough with the cover removed:

The -2 had a smaller trough with only three exhaust pipes.

More subtle was the addition of a vent across the bottom of the aft end of the -2 cowl for dumping the air that passed through the oil cooler (Mark Hayward picture from the Prime Portal F8F Walkaround.):

I don't know where this air exhausted on the -1.

Mike West of Lone Star Models sells resin 1/48 F8F-1 and -2 cowls as well as other F8F improvements. Chris Bucholtz of Obscurco also offers a replacement F8F-2 cowl for the 1/48 Hobbycraft kit.

For much more detail on the F8F Bearcat and operational usage, see Steve Ginter's excellent monograph written with Grumman's Corky Meyer. It's also available from Sprue Brothers.

*The vertical fin of the old Monogram 1/72 F8F kit is exactly halfway between the -1 and -2 in height, so it needs to be cut down by six scale inches for a -1 and increased in height by the same amount for a -2.