Additional design study work was requested by the BuAer for the F7U development program. The V-366A/B/C had listed "undesirable catapult take-off characteristics, unprotected fuel tanks, insufficient vision over the nose and insufficient strength to meet current Bureau strength requirements." The V-366, (improved F7U-1) with Westinghouse 24C jet engines (J46) and improved radar, armament combination.
The BuAer requested the contractor to study landing gear arrangements other than the conventional tricycle gear for application in the design. It was an attempt at solutions to the "problems associated with operating a swept wing airplane off an aircraft carrier."
The conventional tail wheel was "not satisfactory due to high bearing loads in the strut and the adverse effect on airplane balance."
Tricycle gear with addition of a small tail wheel was evaluated next. This arrangement allowed the airplane to rock back on the tail wheel as the bridle and holdback are tensioned. The catapult bridle was planned to maintain the airplane on the main and tail wheel after the catapult was fired. This study with others led to a better solution of an extensible nose wheel strut removing dependency on the catapult bridle maintaining take-off attitude.
The third arrangement was a bicycle arrangement which was more difficult to implement due to fuselage space arrangements and weight. The fuselage would need reinforcement for the landing gear loads, the out riggers had to be heavy due to barrier crash loads.
In the end it was concluded that none of the configurations considered offered improvement over the conventional tricycle landing gear of the V-366 proposal
