Museum of Flight Welcomes WWII Wildcat

Tom Cathcart, the Director of Aircraft Collections and Restoration for the Museum of Flight, helped to remove a F2G-1 Super Corsair from the museum in order to accept a restored, but non-flyable, FM-2 Wildcat. The Wildcat was used by the US Navy during combat in the Pacific Theater of the Second World War.

The Wildcat was contracted by General motors for the US Navy and was delivered on December 27, 1944. During its run in WWII, it patrolled in the Pacific and was part of the invasion of Okinawa. After the war, it spent 13 years at the Marine Corps Reserve Center in Tacoma. In 1959, the Seattle Parks Department received it and converted the Wildcat into an attraction at Astroland playground in White Center. There, it spent 10 years before the Museum of Flight had rescued it. Now that the plane had been restored to it’s former glory, it will be displayed.

Inside the Cockpit of the Wildcat The Wildcat is pushed into the Museum of Flight