PRESENT AT PEARL HARBOR AND THE INVASION OF THE PHILIPPINES.

PRESENT AT PEARL HARBOR AND THE INVASION OF THE PHILIPPINES,

THE GRUMMAN dive SERVED VALIANTLY THROUGHOUT WORLD WAR sum of two units

The Grumman Duck participated in World War sum of two units from America's entry until the happy conclusion with the atomic bombings of Japan. However, from WWII standards, the Duck was actually a fairly limited production aircraft and, when compared to combat planes of that kind as the Corsair and Helldiver, it be seened to be almost a sling back to WWI. Yet in its intended mission, the immerse was a supremely successful aircraft.

Way back in 1931 the US Navy decided to take the literal sense J which had formerly been assigned to transport aircraft (such as the Ford XJR-1 and Atlantic XJA-1) and apply it to a of the present day generation of aircraft that was to operate with equally of the present day Utility Squadrons (VJ). Since this was in the measures of the Great Depression, aircraft companies were more than eager to create modern designs to fulfill the Navy's utility requirement.

Grumman created Design 7 which was a single-engine biplane amphibian with landing gear that retracted into its large central float. In many ways, the aircraft appeared to owe a great deal to the earlier amphibians produc by dint of Loening and that was for a profitable reason, Grumman's main founders had been intrust with an agencyed by the Loening Aeronautical Engineering Corporation in this way Design 7 could be viewed as a logical and more recent progression of the basic Loening universal

Drawing immediately after their earlier XFF-1, Grumman engineers created an all-- metal semi-monocoque fuselage mated to single-bay equal span wings with ailerons onward all four wing panels. Design 7 could also be built as a land plane, with its gear retracting into the fuselage just like the XFF-1

Funding for strange military aircraft was extremely tight and it would be almost 16 month from when Grumman and the Navy discussed Design 7 to an actual order. Design 7 obviously had great potential and a prototype, with the military designation XJF-1 was ordered by the agency of Contract 26467. Grumman was undergoing a impel to new facilities at Farmingdale further work started on the aircraft unruffled before the factory was to the full operational.

During the waiting period, the Navy had made several changes to Design 7 - the same of them being the elimination of stressing the airframe in the way that that it could be catapult-launched from cruisers and battleships. As typical with aircraft of the era, final design and construction followed extremely rapidly and the prototype, piloted from Paul Hovgard, took to the air onward 24 April 1933. The craft was powered on a Pratt & Whitney R-1830-62 twin-row radial engine that produc 700-hp A horde of two was enclosed subordinate to a sliding canopy but at the rear of the float/fuselage junction, there was chamber for two additional passengers. plane though it was a utility design, the aircraft was armed with a 30-- caliber Browning machine fire-arm in the rear cockpit where it was fitted to a flexible be built up and a rack under each lower wing panel which could accommodate a 100-lb bomb

The large central float flatteringly merged into the fuselage and an arrestor trap was fitted under the lower portion of the rear fuselage. The aircraft underwent flight touchstones for about ten days before being delivered to NAS Anacostia with equal reason that Navy pilots could check on the outside the new craft. The Navy pilots were not pleased with the vertical tail which they felt caused longitudinal instability and several different tails were experimented but, in the end, Grumman had to completely redesign the unit.

Once modified, the aircraft was reverted to the Navy who approved of the craft's flying characteristics. one time testing was completed, the XJF-1 was assigned to NAS Norfolk where it operated until being ravage with fire and sworded in a March 1934 crash.

The succes of the prototype l to a contract for 27 production JF-1 which were basically identical to the prototype with modified vertical tail. The aircraft were delivered to USN and USMC units starting in May 1934 Although the aircraft had provision for armament, it appears they did not carry any and all were in service on early 1935. The Navy aircraft went to VJ-1 and units were assigned to the USS Ranger, Lexington, and Saratoga. Other aircraft were assigned to utility units at various Naval Air Stations across the native land while some went to the Canal surface bounded by parallel circles the Philippines, and Pearl Harbor.

The nearest Duck order was for the JF-2 (Design 9) and these aircraft were built in couple batches exclusively for the United States Coast Guard for use at coastal bases and aboard USCG cutter These aircraft were delivered unarmed and differed in the fact they were fitted with single-row Wright R-1820-102 radials of 700-hp Fitted with a three-blade screw the engine was enclosed in a narrow ring hood Also, the JF,2s had revised radio equipment and the tail hasp was deleted. As with principally other aviation manufacturers, Grumman was always in search for lucrative foreign orders and registered a succes when they sold eight G-20 (similar to the JF-2) to Argentina. These aircraft were shipped to Argentina in early 1937