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The Grumman F3F was the last American biplane fighter aircraft delivered to the United States Navy and Marine Corps from 1936 to 1941. The three known versions of this aircraft are F3F-1, F3F-2, and F3F-3.
The Grumman F3F was essentially a continuation of the F2F, a single-seat biplane, which was the first American aircraft to use retractable landing gear. However, the F2F did not suit the military due to the lack of stability and poor landing characteristics. Therefore, when designing a new machine Grumman company engineers tried to eliminate the existing defects, and make the F3F faster and more maneuverable.
The fuselage length of the F3F-1 was increased by 533 mm, and the wingspan was increased by 1120 mm. The diameter of the gear wheel, retractable into the body of the plane, was reduced which made it possible to make the plane less "pot-like" and more rapid.
Tests of the new machine began on 20 March, 1935, but two days later a tragedy shook the testing ground. The fighter overloading reached 9 g at a nosedive exit from, and its construction could not stand it: the engine and wings just came off the plane. Its pieces fell from a height of 2.5 kilometers on a cemetery near the testing ground, and its pilot Jimmy Collins lost his life.
The flights continued on the second prototype. But on 17 May the F3F entered a tailspin, and after unsuccessful attempts to get the plane back under control the pilot had to leave the flying machine. He made 52 rounds and jumped out with a parachute at an altitude of 610 meters, whereas the plane went on a tailspin to the ground.
After this incident, the Grumman company engineers seriously revised the fighter: they mounted on a powerful lightweight engine, a new propeller and added two small wheels under the fuselage rear.
By August 1935, the tests were successfully completed and the U.S. Navy received 54 units of Grumman F3F-1, which was named “the flying barrel” for a peculiar shape of the fuselage.
Generally, by the time it was already clear that the era of biplanes in the Air Force was coming to an end, and the monoplanes Brewster F2A and Grumman F4F were to substitute the F3F. Yet their development was slow, with the designers constantly facing a number of intractable technical problems. And the Grumman engineers continued to improve F3F.
In 1936, a modification of the F3F-2 biplane was produced: it was equipped with a more powerful engine Wright R-1820-22 Cyclone, which accelerated the flying machine up to a top speed of 410 km/h. The enlarged diameter of the engine changed the shape of the plane body, making it look even more like a keg. Besides that, a three-bladed pitch-controlled propeller was mounted on the fighters. Thus, the second modification of the F3F was the most popular and U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps ordered 81 vehicles of this type.
The last Grumman F3F-3 had little difference from the F3F-2: it had a propeller with a larger diameter and a few improved aerodynamic parameters, allowing the fighter to reach the speed of 425 km/h. All in all, 27 units of F3F-3 were produced and taken into service.
All three series-produced modifications embodied two machine guns of 7.62 mm and 12.7 mm, and two 50 kg bombs.
In autumn 1941, just before the U.S. entry into World War II, the Grumman F3F was removed from service and transferred to a training aircraft category. In this way it was in use until December 1943. This fighter was to become an intermediate machine between the reliable but obsolescent biplanes and high-speed but not yet mastered monoplanes, having great potential. Although Grumman F3F avoided participation in hostilities, it gave the outlines and the original airframe to Grumman F4F Wildcat, the famous fighter of WWII, which rubbed through the fierce air battles with the Japanese on Midway Atoll in 1942. Yet that is another story.
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