Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation
5 types · 0 airframes
Pre-1950 Narrative
Narrative coming soon.
Aircraft Types
Grumman Ag Cat
Single-seat biplane crop duster designed by Grumman in the 1950s, the first purpose-built agricultural aircraft from a major manufacturer, and built in quantity not by Grumman but by Schweizer Aircraft of Elmira, New York: on the Smithsonian's accounting Schweizer built 2,646, most of them for Grumman. Later models added larger hoppers and PT6 turboprops, the design passed through several owners after Schweizer, and radial and turbine Ag Cats remain at work in agricultural aviation.
Grumman E-1 Tracer
The Grumman E-1 Tracer was the United States Navy's first purpose-built carrierborne airborne early warning aircraft. Developed through the C-1 Trader from the S-2 Tracker line, it carried a Hazeltine AN/APS-82 radar in a large fixed radome above its twin-tailed fuselage and flew with a crew of four. Its prototype flew in December 1956, and eighty-eight production aircraft, designated WF-2 and renamed E-1B in 1962, entered fleet service from 1960. Ordered as an interim type, the Tracer, known colloquially as the "Willy Fudd" and the "Stoof with a Roof", directed carrier fighters during the Vietnam War before the E-2 Hawkeye replaced it; the last examples left Navy service in 1977.
Grumman F4F Wildcat
Carrier fighter of the United States Navy and Marine Corps at the start of the Pacific war: outmaneuvered by the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, the F4F Wildcat relied on heavy armament, armor and rugged construction, and on tactics such as the Thach Weave, to hold the line until stronger fighters arrived. Britain's Fleet Air Arm flew it as the Martlet. In 1943 production passed to General Motors' Eastern Aircraft Division, whose FM-1 and FM-2 served from escort carriers to the war's end; on Smithsonian Magazine's accounting, 7,860 Wildcats were built in total, 5,280 of them by General Motors.
Grumman F8F Bearcat
The Grumman F8F Bearcat was an American single-engine carrier fighter, Grumman's last piston-engined fighter, built as the successor to the F6F Hellcat. Grumman designed it around climb: a smaller, lighter airframe than the Hellcat's, wrapped around a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp, so it could rise quickly to meet attackers. It first flew in August 1944 and its first squadron was operational in May 1945, but the Second World War ended before it saw combat in American service. Grumman built 1,265 before production ended in 1949. The Bearcat fought later with France in Indochina and served with Thailand and South Vietnam, then found lasting fame as an air racer: modified Bearcats broke the piston-engine speed record and dominated racing at Reno.
Grumman F9F Panther
The Grumman F9F Panther was an American single-seat, straight-wing carrier jet fighter — Grumman's first jet fighter. First flown in November 1947, it entered service in May 1949 and became the US Navy and Marine Corps' main jet of the Korean War, flying some 78,000 combat sorties, mostly on ground attack; its pilots claimed the Navy's first jet air-to-air victories. Grumman built 1,385 Panthers before the swept-wing Cougar succeeded the type, and Argentina flew ex-US aircraft until 1969.