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[Content_WG]

Become the owner of the American Premium Grumman XF4F-3 fighter!

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[jack_wdw]

Quite a dog of a plane, although i kind of liked it.

When will FM-2 come to WoWP as a premium?

[cundalini_]

[wylleEcoyote]

the XF4F-3 is a much like another experimental airframe; the  XF4U-1, just down tiered and down gunned from its tech tree version.
Just as the Baby Corsair is a ter 6 frame in tier 5; the Baby Wildcat is a tier 5 airframe lurking within tier 4.
Much like a Curtis 81A (a P-40 in tier 4 with 2/3 the guns removed)
And the best way to use them all is in a flight where you cover for each other.

Spoiler

Either you are in tier 3 and you and your wingman just alternate doing a series of high speed gunpasses at whatever you want to kill ...   
Or you are in tier 5 where survival is as much a win as anything else.
Thus; much like the Bombers and Attackers that already know, you stay away from the busy places and try to flip zones on the outskirts. At least your firepower is not too much of a problem here; so in a flight, you can actually make short work of attackers and at least double team any lonely opposition MR/Fighter that guns for one of you. It's almost even at that point. 

The difference? the Curtis81 has the speed, altitude, and agility to hang with the competition when uptiered while being notoriously "Balanced" with its tier 3 guns. (see aircraft like the He 100 D1 with it 3x LMGs in tier 5)
While the Baby Wildcat  has good guns (for american tier 4's) ...

Oddly enough with 2x LMG's to go with the usual 2x HMG's; it has top firepower for american tier 4's. outside the XP-36F Hawk. (another gift plane)
Which really barely counts. THe F variant Hawk is more like a pocket heavy in tier 4 than anything else thanks to those outboard Mardens ...

 And the best pool of hit points. It even has airspeed. Only 30 kph less than the Curtis ... so good job there. 
It is still lacking some critical stuff for surviving tier 5.  

Sure it's top speed is nice, but getting there is tricky with its average engine power

with its climb rate juuuust a bit Under 100 m/sec while the Curtis81 enjoys 113m/sec and the other Curtis Hawk variants have 105~ish M/sec climb   

Which directly leads to 1/3 less altitude band then even tech tree american fighters (and also german ones) in tier 4.
Which makes getting the most out of its Dive speed a difficult task.
 Welcome to the Corsair line. Enjoy!

 

Manuverability is .. pretty good actually .. compared to other american planes.  But dont let that fool you. 
An average turn time of 10.3 seconds at tier 4 is not really competitive for tier 5, let alone tier 3. 
Stick to being very fast (Boom&Zoom) in tier three
Surviving tier 5 will mean being accomplished at vertical turnfights that rely more on energy gain and retention than the raw turning ability of a zero.
Mostly because that speed is not quite enough to get away from a determined spitfire or Bf 109
 
One very odd thing worth mentioning.
That Rudder. It doesnt seem important. But it IS pretty big for a plane of its size.
Much like the XF-15C in tier 8
Which happens to be another really fast experimental US navy premium plane that isnt very manuverable.
Until you learn to take control of where, when, and how you throw around your rudder.  Then its a different beast altogether.
Its like having a drag racer that can pull off bootleg turns that should ordinarily destroy them. 
Against other players that dont do that manual rudder control so good you can really surprise them. Well; at least once.

The same can be done in tier 4(5 and 3) with this XF5F-3 baby Wildcat

 

[Maqor]

I got the XF4F-3 yesterday. To decide if I wanted to get it, I flew the F2A-1 for a battle and then the French C.714 for 5 battles. I run both with fully calibrated ultimate polished skin and ultimate lightweight wing frame. This gets the cruise speed all the way into the yellow. Then they're horizontal boom-n-zoom capable.

 

I think I won all 5 battles in the C.714 and averaged around 9k. It performed well enough in this role that I went for the XF4F-3 (with polish and LWWF). I think it's an even better plane for this playstyle. I won 4 out of 5 battles and average 11k personal points. The XF4F-3 has a bit worse turning and altitude performance than the C.714 but is slightly faster, has a little more damage output, and has 100m more range on its guns. This makes the firepower feel considerably stronger. Worth the $8 for me.

[wylleEcoyote]

A lot of players just failed their way through the wildcat (in a tier with Spitfire mk1 Bf 109E and P-38F everywhere you go) in order to get to the corsair.
So its reputation is mostly, "What little i remember of it, the plane sucked real bad. Too bad there is no Hellcat in-game."
So playing a downtiered version of such a plane may not be on everyone's to do list.