F9F-8T Cougar / VT-21Grumman F9F 8T Cougar airplane model. The F9F Cougar is the swept wing version of its forerunner, the F9F Panther Grumman's first jet fighter plane. As MiG 15s tangled with the slower, less agile Panthers and McDonnell Banshees over Korea, the U. S. Navy requested a swept wing F9F design from Grumman. The first Cougars were delivered in November of 1951, a year after the debut of the MiG 15 and too late to see combat in Korea. But the Cougar, built as