Grumman Aerospace Corporation produced some of the most iconic military and civilian planes in history, right here on Long Island. Below we present some crazy and historical facts about Grumman
Leroy Grumman, Co-Founder
- The company was founded on December 6, 1929 by Leroy Grumman and Jake Swirbul
- Grumman was born on January 4, 1895 in Huntington
- He died on October 4, 1982 at 87-years-old on Long Island
- Grumman had the nickname “Red Mike” because of his red-blond hair
- He was to be very shy
- During WWI Grumman joined the Naval Reserves
- The planes he designed were said to have shot down more than 60% of the enemy aircraft destroyed in the Pacific, according to the New York Times
- He is in the National Inventors Hall of Fame
Jake Swirlbul, Co-Founder
- Jake Swirlbul lived in Sag Harbor
- He graduated from Pierson High School
- Swirlbul’s nickname was “The Bullfrog”
- During WWI he joined the Marines
- He was said to have been the one who helped make the Grumman company efficient and profitable because of his great organizing skills
- He had innovative and successful ways to inspiring employees
- Swirlbul died in 1960 before Grumman began its space program
The Company
- Grumman and Swirbul met at Loening Aeronautical Engineering Co. in New York City in 1924
- The company was officially founded on January 2, 1930
- The partners raised $64,325 in capital from a number of investors, the largest of which were Grumman and Swirbul
- Because Grumman held more shares than any other investor, the company was named after him
- They began by making aluminum body parts for trucks to keep the lights on
- The company also repaired small propeller planes
- Their first contract was to build prototype fighter planes for the Navy
- The first one they built was the XFF-I two-seater biplane
- It had a retractable landing gear, the first in military aviation.
- They expanded quickly from the first factory in Baldwin then to Valley Stream (1931), Farmingdale (1932) and Bethpage (1937)
- Grumman and Swirbul shared an office by choice
- They also frequently would go down to the factory floor to help workers build planes
- The company was initially called Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation then became Grumman Aerospace Corporation
- For much of its history, Grumman was the largest employer on Long Island
- After the start of WWII, Grumman took off
- In 1939 they had 700 employees, by 1943 they had over 25,000
- Sales went from $4 million in 1940 to 100 times that by 1943
- The company had to find inventive ways to train all their new employees, sometimes at Long Island high schools
- An incentive program promised employees the company would share half any savings from increased production
- By the end of WWII the program gave out $38 million in bonuses
- The company is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the world's biggest company picnic
- Annual sales at Grumman peaked in 1990 at $4 billion
- The end of the Cold War meant a demise of Grumman’s once prospering ad legendary aerospace manufacturing business on Long Island
- In 1994 Grumman merged with Northrop Corporation to form Northrop Grumman
- Grumman shipped its last plane from Bethpage in 1995
Taking to the Sky in WWII
Photo: USN;, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Grumman was responsible for developing some of the most important military aircraft used in World War II, including the F4F Wildcat and the F6F Hellcat
- A huge innovation developed by Grumman was the folding wing to help put more planes on a carrier
- The innovative wing folding mechanism (STO-Wing) was first applied to the Wildcat
- Leroy Grumman first demonstrated his idea for the design solution with an eraser and paper clips
- The F6F Hellcat was instrumental in the Pacific Theater during World War II
- Grumman Hellcats were the only fighter planes made by the United States during WWII
- Grumman could turn out up to 27 Hellcats a day
- Hellcats destroyed 5,223 enemy aircraft while in service, more than any other Allied naval aircraft
- Grumman’s TBF Avenger was a torpedo bomber that played a key role in the Battle of Midway during World War II
XF5F Skyrocket
Photo: National Archives and Records Administration, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
- The Grumman XF5F Skyrocket was known for its unique design, with the fuselage or nose of the aircraft sitting behind the wing
- This plane was used in comics as the main aircraft for DC Comics’ Blackhawk Squadron, a team of ace pilots fighting in WWII
A Tiger Shoots Itself
- Grumman produced the F-11 Tiger in 1955, a supersonic fighter jet used by the US Navy
- Remarkably, the F-11 Tiger became the first fighter to shoot itself down
- In 1956 a test pilot shot himself down by running into his own gunfire in the F-11 Tiger - he survived
Gulfstream
- In the 1950s the company developed the Gulfstream jet for executive business travel
- It first flew on August 14, 1958 from Bethpage
First Jet Flown by the Blue Angels
Photo: U.S. Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Grumman was responsible for building one of the first jet aircrafts to land on an aircraft carrier, the Grumman F9F Panther
- The F9F Panther was also the first jet aircraft used by the Blue Angels stunt team
- Grumman also produced amphibious aircraft, such as the G-21 Goose commuter plane and the HU-16 Albatross, which could take off and land on both water and land
- The Grumman E-2 Hawkeye was an early warning and control aircraft used by the United States Navy
- Grumman also designed the OV-1 Mohawk, a twin-engine reconnaissance aircraft used by the US Army during the Vietnam War
- Grumman produced the A-6 Intruder in the 1960s, a twin-engine, all-weather attack aircraft that was used extensively in the Vietnam War and Gulf War
F-14
Photo: U.S. Navy photo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- Grumman developed the F-14 to replace the F-4 Phantom fighter in the 1960s
- The F-14 first flew on December 21, 1970 in Grumman’s facility in Calverton
- It has become one of the most iconic fighter jets in the world
- Read more fact about the F-14 Tomcat here
- The Grumman X-29 was an experimental aircraft with forward-swept wings, which made it highly maneuverable but difficult to control
To the Moon!
Photo: NASA.
- Grumman created the Lunar Module that landed the first men on the moon
- In 1962, NASA invited 11 companies to submit proposals for a lunar excursion module
- Grumman was awarded the contract on November 7, 1962
- A crude early model of the lunar module was made out of wood and paper clips
- All Lunar Modules were built on Long Island by Long Islanders
- The vehicle is now officially known as the Lunar Module
- It is affectionately known as the “Lem”
- The LM landed the first men on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969
- Grumman engineers on the ground helped in the rescue of the Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970
- Read more crazy facts about the Grumman Apollo Lunar Module here
What Else?
Photo: User Coolcaesar on en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
- In addition to aircraft, Grumman also produced boats, such as the Grumman Canoe, which is still popular among outdoor enthusiasts today
- As WWII was ending, Grumman executive William Hoffman used aircraft aluminum to replace the wooden canoe design
- Under the Grumman-owned Flxible Corporation, the company manufactured the Grumman 870, a flexible bus design
- The bus had a number of defects that resulted in lawsuits by purchasers
- The Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV) was a light transport truck designed for the United States Postal Service
- It is the classic mail truck in use since 1987
Toxic Waste
- Grumman was found responsible for a toxic plume under its Bethpage plant that contaminated the drinking water
- A Newsday investigation showed that Grumman knew about the dangers as far back as the 1970s but did not say anything
- In 2022, Northrop Grumman and New York State finalized a $104 million deal to clean up the toxic plume
- The plume is 4.3 miles long, 2.1 miles wide and about 900 feet deep, according to Newsday
- The most significant pollutant is trichloroethylene, or TCE, which was used to clean aircraft parts
- It is Long Island’s largest groundwater contamination site
