I love the Corsair and the Thunderbolt. I have never seen a Bearcat in person but they did have a record attempt in one during the 1950's where it almost broke the sound barrier in a dive.
The Bearcat may be my most favorite WWII era plane. Standing start to 10,000 Ft in 90 sec. Most definitely designed as an interceptor.
We recently lost another flying example along with a very good long time pilot, Howard Pardue, and his Bearcat (was) the only flying F8F-1, the rest being -2s with the taller rudder.
One that I have seen in person that sounds totally different than anything else is the Hawker Sea Fury they have two double wasp radial engines for a total of 32 cylinders.
The Hawker Sea Fury is a very nice airplane but had the Bristol Centarus 18 cylinder sleeve valve engine, in original form.
There are a few Sea Furies modified for racing that have the Pratt & Whitney R 4360 four row 28 Cyl engine. Dreadnaught was one of them.
The F2G Corsair also had the P&W 4360 in it. They called it the corncob Corsair
http://corsairs.4t.com/custom3.html
