Grumman

Grumman Corporation

Industry	Aircraft; aircraft parts and equipment; data processing and preparation; search and navigation equipment; truck and bus bodies; electrical equipment and supplies
Founded	December 6, 1929; 94 years ago (1929-12-06)
Founders	Leroy Grumman Edmund Ward Poor William T. Schwendler Jake Swirbul
Defunct	April 4, 1994 (1994-04-04)
Fate	Merged with Northrop
Successor	Northrop Grumman
Headquarters	Bethpage, New York , U.S.
Key people	Thomas J. Kelly Corwin H. Meyer[1] David Thurston George F. Titterton
Products	Grumman F4F Wildcat Grumman F6F Hellcat Grumman TBF Avenger Grumman A-6 Intruder Grumman F-14 Tomcat Apollo Lunar Module Grumman LLV
Number of employees	23,000 (1986)
Subsidiaries	Grumman Aerospace Corp. Grumman Allied Industries, Inc. Grumman Data Systems Corp.

The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a 20th century American producer of military and civilian aircraft.^[2] Founded on December 6, 1929, by Leroy Grumman and his business partners, it merged in 1994 with Northrop Corporation to form Northrop Grumman.

History

During

Grumman was the chief contractor on the Apollo Lunar Module, the first spacecraft to land humans on the Moon.^[11] The firm received the contract on November 7, 1962, and built 13 lunar modules. Six of them successfully landed on the Moon, with one serving as a lifeboat on Apollo 13, after an explosion crippled the main Apollo spacecraft. LM-2, a test article which never flew in space, is displayed permanently in the Smithsonian Institution.^[12] As the Apollo program neared its end, Grumman was one of the main competitors for the contract to design and build the Space Shuttle, but lost to Rockwell International.^[13]

In 1969, the company changed its name to Grumman Aerospace Corporation,^[14] and in 1978 it sold the Grumman-American Division to Gulfstream Aerospace.^[15] That same year, it acquired the bus manufacturer Flxible. The company built the Grumman LLV (Long Life Vehicle), a light transport mail truck designed for and used by the United States Postal Service. The LLV was produced from 1987 until 1994. Its intended service life was 24 years, but some of them were still in service in 2020.^[16] In 1983, Grumman sold Flxible for $40 million to General Automotive Corporation of Ann Arbor.^[17]

In the 1950s, Grumman began production of

In the early 1970s, Grumman acquired majority interest in the American Aviation line of very light aircraft -- relabeling its planes as "Grumman-American" or "Grumman American" -- eventually joining it with their Gulfstream division before selling off that combined enterprise in 1978.

In 1978, Grumman sold Gulfstream to

For much of the Cold War period, Grumman was the largest corporate employer on Long Island.^[19] Grumman's products were considered so reliable and ruggedly built that the company was often referred to as the "Grumman Iron Works".^[20]

As the company grew, it moved to Valley Stream, New York, then Farmingdale, New York, finally to Bethpage, New York, with the testing and final assembly at the 6,000-acre (24 km²) Naval Weapons Station in Calverton, New York, all located on Long Island. At its peak in 1986 it employed 23,000 people on Long Island^[21] and occupied 6,000,000 square feet (560,000 m²) in structures on 105 acres (0.42 km²) it leased from the U.S. Navy in Bethpage.^[22]

The end of the Cold War at the beginning of the 1990s reduced defense spending and led to a wave of mergers as aerospace companies shrank in number; in 1994 Northrop bought Grumman for $2.1 billion to form Northrop Grumman,^[22] after Northrop topped a $1.9 billion offer from Martin Marietta.^[23]

The new company closed almost all of its facilities on Long Island and converted the Bethpage plant to a residential and office complex, with its headquarters becoming the corporate headquarters for Cablevision and the Calverton plant being turned into a business/industrial complex. Former aircraft hangars have become Grumman Studios, a film and television production center. A portion of the airport property has been used for the Grumman Memorial Park.^[9]

Products

Aircraft

Projects

Spacecraft

• Space
  • Apollo Lunar Module
  • Grumman 619 Space Shuttle

Other products

• Grumman manufactured fire engines under the name Firecat (not to be confused with the firefighting variant of the Grumman S-2 Tracker, which is sold under the same name) and aerial tower trucks under the Aerialcat name. The company entered the fire apparatus business in 1976 with its purchase of Howe Fire Apparatus.^[25]
• Grumman canoes were developed in 1944 as World War II was winding down. Company executive William Hoffman used the company's aircraft aluminum to replace the traditional wood design. The
  Marathon, New York
  in 1952.

Outboard Marine Corp. bought the division in 1990 and produced the last Grumman-brand canoe in 1996. Shortly thereafter former Grumman executives formed the Marathon Boat Group to produce the canoes. In 2000 the Group worked out an agreement with Northrop Grumman to sell the canoes using Grumman name and logo.^[26][27]

• Grumman sport boat^[28]
• Grumman-Flxible 870 transit buses (1978–1982)^[29]
• Ben Franklin (PX-15), a science submarine^[30]
• Grumman LLV postal vehicle widely used by the United States Postal Service^[9] and Canada Post^[31]
• In honor of Grumman's aviation and aerospace inventions, a Grumman Memorial Park was established in Calverton, New York.^[9]

Santiago de Chile FD, 2004

Grumman Olson UPS truck

Grumman Kurbmaster Hostess

Delivery truck

Notes

Bibliography

• Ferguson, Robert G. "One Thousand Planes a Day: Ford, Grumman, General Motors and the Arsenal of Democracy." History and Technology, Volume 21, Issue 2, 2005.
• Fetherston, Drew. "Pioneers on the Runway: Raising Grumman." LI History.com, Grumman Park. Retrieved: March 18, 2009.
• Kessler, Pamela. "Leroy Grumman, Sky King." The Washington Post (Weekend), October 11, 1985.
• O'Leary, Michael, ed. "Leroy Grumman." Air Classics, Volume 19, no. 2, February 1983, pp. 27–29.
• Skurla, George M. and William H. Gregory. Inside the Iron Works: How Grumman's Glory Days Faded. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2004.
  ISBN 978-1-55750-329-9
  .
• Tillman, Barrett. Hellcat: The F6F in World War II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001.
  ISBN 0-87021-265-6
  .
• Thruelsen, Richard. The Grumman Story. New York: Praeger Publishers, Inc., 1976.
  ISBN 0-275-54260-2
  .
• Treadwell, Terry. Ironworks: Grumman's Fighting Aeroplanes. Shrewsbury, UK: Airlife Publishers, 1990.
  ISBN 1-85310-070-6
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Grumman Aerospace Corporation.

• International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 11. St. James Press, 1995 (via fundinguniverse.com)
• Grumman profile on Aerofiles.com
• Grumman Memorial Park History Center
• WW2DB: Grumman aircraft of WW2
• 1994 Aerial photograph of Bethpage Headquarters, including intact runways
• Grumman Firecat on multimedia gallery
• Archived 2007 Newsday article on decline of Grumman