Today we’re taking a look at the Grumman FF, often known as the “FiFi”. It was the first
complete aircraft designed and built by the company, featuring several novel features for
the time, and it helped to establish a fruitful relationship between Grumman and the US Navy
that would last for decades to come. Development of this historical aircraft began
almost by accident. As mentioned in a previous video on the Grumman JF Duck,
one of the company’s first contracts was to supply the US Navy with the Model A amphibian floats
-the design of which had been given to Leroy Grumman by his friend and former colleague
Grover Loening. During discussions of said floats, personnel from the Bureau of Aeronautics
asked Grumman if they thought their retractable undercarriage design – of which was used on
the Model A floats – could be adapted to work on existing carrier fighters
such as the Boeing F4B-1, which had entered service in the summer of 1929,
or the Curtiss F8C-4 – which was about to do so. Unsurprisingly, Roy Grumman and his colleagues
were not keen on the idea of letting other manufacturers benefit from their design,
especially as practical, reliable undercarriages of this nature were still cutting edge designs
for this time period. Instead of giving the Navy a direct answer, Grumman and his chief designer,
Bill Schwendler, set out to design a two seat fighter that made use of their technology.
On the 10th of March 1930, barely three months after the company had officially been organised,
and less than a month after their discussion with the Bureau of Aeronautics,
Grumman submitted preliminary data on a so-called High Performance Two-Seat Fighter. This submission
was well received, the Bureau saw the merit of Grumman’s design, and on the 29th of March
they formally registered their interest in a project with them.
After this rapid start, and in typical bureaucratic fashion of course,
things immediately slowed down. On the one hand, the US Navy opened its budget file in 1930
and were greeted with the metaphorical equivalent of a moth flying out of a poor man’s wallet,
and on the other they had to proceed cautiously before awarding a contract to a completely new
and untried manufacturer, Roy Grumman’s personal reputation in the field notwithstanding.
This delay, however, did have it merits: it allowed Grumman time to work on their design,
and it allowed the Navy to time communicate additional requirements for said design.
The aircraft that began to take clearer shape on the drawing board was a small, single-bay biplane,
with fabric-covered, two-spar wings. Its fuselage was a semi-monocoque made from aluminium alloy – a
first for US Carrier aircraft- and it became characterised by a deep forward section in which
the mainwheels were retracted vertically. The pilot and rear gunner were seated in
tandem under an enclosed canopy – still a relatively novel feature at the time-, and
the armament was to consist of the then standard pair of fixed forward firing machine guns and
one rear-firing machine gun on a flexible mount. All of these guns were 30 calibre Browning M-2s,
but there was also provision for the two forward firing guns to be replaced by a
single 50 calibre Browning M-3 if called for. As adopting Grumman’s design into service would
introduce several features hitherto unseen on carrier aircraft,
notably the retractable undercarriage and the use of aluminium alloys in the frame work,
and after some prodding by conservative members of the Bureau of Aeronautics who didn’t wholly
believe Grumman’s optimistic performance estimates, the Bureau insisted that Grumman
first provide drawings for a 12:1 scale model that the Navy could build and wind tunnel test.
Much to Grumman’s satisfaction, and probably some internal grumbling at the Bureau,
the wind tunnel tests completely validated their supposedly optimistic performance estimates,
and when the Navy had finally resolved their budgetary matter,
they requested Grumman to submit a quotation for the design, construction,
and testing of a prototype. On the 6th of March 1931, Grumman submitted a quote for $73,975,
and it was accepted on the 28th when the Navy formally ordered one XFF-1, along with reserving
an option for a second prototype – which they would indeed order as the XSF-1 in June.
The Naval contract stipulated that the XFF-1 must have a top speed of 190mph at sea level,
a service ceiling of 22,000 feet, and it had to be delivered within 200 days.
The delivery date was a cause for some concern at Grumman, as they had a workforce of less than 30,
and they also had to waste some of those precious days relocating from their current facility – an
oversized rented garage – to something more spacious. Their concerns turned out
to be unnecessary, for although their prototype was delivered 76 days behind schedule in 1931,
their only competitor for a two-seat carrier fighter – the open cockpit, fixed landing gear
Berliner-Joyce XF2J-1, wasn’t delivered until 1933 and its performance could not match Grumman’s.
The prototype XFF-1 flew for the first time on the 29th of December 1931. In this first iteration
it was powered by a Wright R-1820-E Cyclone which gave 575 hp, driving a two-blade variable
propeller. During the initial Navy trials, the XFF-1 met all of the performance requirements,
and its top speed of 195 mph at sea level exceeded both the contractual guarantee and the 188mph top
speed of the Boeing F4B-4. However, the Boeing could significantly outclimb the XFF-1, and this
– along with additional Navy testing on stability – revealed the need for some modifications.
These modifications included a minor redesign of the canopy, the fitting of horn-balances to
the ailerons, the relocation of the arrestor hook further aft, and a strengthening of the
undercarriage mechanism to prevent accidental retraction during heaving landings or while
taxiing on rough ground – something that had happened once to some general embarrassment.
With these modifications, and following a reengining to a 750hp version of the cyclone,
the XFF-1 now matched the climb performance of the Boeing along with having a new top speed of
201mph, and the Navy placed an initial production order for 27 FF-1s not long after this.
The first FF-1 was delivered to NAS Anacostia in April, 1933, and was initially retained there
for service testing. The next 25 went on to the carrier USS Lexington at the end of the year,
where they replaced the Boeing’s of VF-5B, one of the carriers two fighter squadrons. The final
aircraft went to VF-1B to be flown alongside Curtiss models operated by this squadrons from
both North Island and aboard the USS Saratoga. Not long after this, the US Navy also took
delivery of a second variant of the aircraft known as the SF-1. This was an evolution of
the second prototype, the XSF-1, that had been ordered back in June of 1931.
Known as a so-called scout prototype, it differed from the XFF-1 in a number of ways.
The two forward guns were removed to increase the fuel capacity from 120 to 165 US gallons,
with the offensive armament now consisting of a 30 calibre machine gun mounted in the upper right
wing, the provision for two 100lb bombs to be carried beneath the lower wings, the replacement
of the exhaust pipes and townend ring cowling with a NACA cowling and an exhaust collector ring,
and the replacement of the engine with a 750hp R-1820-84.
In 1934, some SF-1s were used to test different payload configurations to see if heavier ordnance
could be carrier by carrier-born fighters. This included an experiment in which a 1,000 pound bomb
was carried on a sway brace below and behind the port wing, the bomb was so large that a skid had
to be installed on the brace, lest it strike the ground. Thankfully, this rather hazardous exercise
was only carried out a few times before saner minds intervened… on the grounds that carrying a
1,000 pound bomb with a ground clearance measured in inches – not feet- was probably a bad idea.
The FF-1s, which by now had been given the nickname of FiFi, and the SF-1s were
generally well liked by their pilots and service crews. They were praised for their
high speed, exceptional maneovrability, good handling characteristics, and sturdiness.
There were some criticisms as well, though. Due to the placement of the upper wing their forward
vision was somewhat restricted, and the narrow track of the landing gear made them difficult
to land smoothly. Many pilots also struggled to get used to flying with the canopy closed,
though this was a problem common to almost all early enclosed cockpits
due to the greenhouse-style arrangement of struts that made up most canopies at the time.
The service life of the FF-1 and SF-1 was quite short. They appeared in that period of
rapid transition that not only saw biplanes give way to monoplanes, but also saw rapid advances
in technology across every field in aviation and aircraft design. Furthermore, unlike the British
Fleet Air Arm, the US Navy had lost interest in two-seat carrier fighters and scout fighters, and
by 1935 – after less than three years of service – the aircraft were taken from frontline duties.
After this, 22 FF-1s were fitted with dual controls and redesignated as the FF-2 trainier.
These were distributed to various Naval Reserve air bases, or assigned to Marine
Reserve squadrons, before ending their days as ground instructional airframes
when they were too worn out to be airworthy. Though it was outclassed in a short span of time,
Grumman’s first fighter found some use with foreign nations
in one form or another. After completing their delivery orders for the Navy, they had a fair
amount of components left over and so the GG-1, an unarmed demonstrator, was built in 1934.
When the Canadian Car & Foundry Company agreed to built the FF-1 under licence in 1936,
Grumman sold them the GG-1 to use as a demonstrator for the Canadian Grumman Fighter.
This licence-built model was known as the G-23. Some of these were kept in Canada,
with the hopes of selling them to the RCAF, but Car & Foundry had also found overseas customers.
Their biggest export order was for fifty planes, and this was supposedly placed by Turkey,
but it was eventually revealed that it was agents of the Spanish Republican Government who had
placed the order with forged Turkish papers. This export was then declared illegal by the Canadian
government, but some 34 units had already reached Spain before the embargo kicked in,
and it was here that the Grumman would see its first and only taste of combat.
Known as the Delfin in Span, it was primarily intended for use in the ground attack role, and
it made its combat debut in July of 1938. One of these Delfins gained the distinction of claiming
the only victory credited to Grumman biplanes when its crew shot down a Heinkel He59B flown
by the Condor legion. But overall, however, the Delfins did not perform well. 3 were shot down,
6 were captured, and 20 were lost in combat and operational accidents.
The Canadians would also use the aircraft, albeit reluctantly,
when they realised they could not rely on Britain to supply them with fighters in 1940 – Britain
being otherwise occupied with the Lufwaffe funnily enough. 27 G-23s were eventually pressed into
service and given the designation of Goblin. Though they apparently saw no combat service,
they were for a short time the only fighters available to defend the east coast of Canada
in a time of Spitfires and Messershmitt, which was hardly reassuring; thankfully this now
totally obsolete fighter was never needed to defend Canadian airspace.
Aside from Canada and Spain, single examples of the Grumman FF would appear in Mexico, Nicuagura,
and Japan. The model that went to Nicuagura saw little service before being consigned to
the scrap heap in 1942. There it lay until it was rescued, brought up to flying condition,
and flown back to the United States. Restored, it is now – I believe – the only surviving Grumman
FF to be found today, and its on display at the National Naval Air Museum in Pensacola.
Though their time was brief, being superseded by more modern designs, Grumman’s first fighters
proved to the Navy that this new company could be a competent manufacture of Naval aircraft. This
they were, and they would soon demonstrate this with such aircraft as the F4F Wildcat and the F6F
Hellcat, but those are stories for another day. As always thank you all very much for watching,
and a special thank you of course to the patreons, with a special shoutout to Kevin, Delliardo, Bane,
FB, Christopher R, Tronathon, Erik Hindman, and John Austin Jr for their support as wing
commander tier patrons. Thank you all so much, and I’ll catch you all next time.