AVIATION

The Killer Plane

On the apron of its Bethpage, L.I. flying field, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. last week showed off its newest Navy plane, the 52F-I, a submarine killer. The 52F-I, powered by two Wright 1,450-h.p. piston engines, looks like a lumpy cigar and is built for range, not speed. But it is probably crammed with more electronic gear than any other U.S. warplane; its search equipment can locate a completely submerged submarine by picking up the sub's magnetic field. And when it finds a sub, it has a type of guided missile to blast it.

The new plane does the work of two old ones. Until now, Navy carrier-based planes have hunted subs in teams; one radar plane hunted the sub while the other carried the weapons to kill it. The new hunter-killer plane will not only save valuable carrier space but its range is so great that it can patrol a much wider area than the old teams. By next fall, Grumman will hit peak production, and manufacture of the old teams will be stopped.

Like Sterling. In developing a new weapon tailored for an exacting Navy job, Grumman once more carried out its 23-year-old mission as the chief supplier of Navy planes. During World War II it turned out 17,000 planes, including Hellcat and Wildcat fighters, the backbone of the Navy's carrier squadrons. To the Navy, said the late Vice Admiral John C. McCain, the name Grumman was like "sterling" on silver.

In the postwar collapse of the aircraft business, Grumman's reputation was enhanced in another way. As most planemakers dived into the red, it kept flying in the black. When the war ended, it had little else on its books except an order for 1,200 Navy F8F Bearcats which was cut back drastically. President Leon A. Swir-bul, then executive vice president, gave every one of his 25,500 workers a friendly farewell and a diploma-like dismissal notice. Then he rehired the 3,500 men he wanted to keep permanently.

Like many another airframe maker, Grumman diversified into such strange lines as aluminum canoes and dinghies. To help pay the overhead, "Jake" Swirbul snared contracts to overhaul Navy planes and to service foreign airlines planes. For the civilian airplane market, Grumman's Widgeon amphibians were refitted for executive use, and Grumman began making its fast, versatile Mallards and the Albatross, an air-sea rescue plane. Swirbul's tactics succeeded in keeping the company narrowly in the black. By 1948 Chairman

Leroy R. Grumman had a new Panther jet ready for the Navy. The company began to get new orders for it, as well as older planes, and Grumman made a comfortable $2,393,311.

Like an Accordion. When the Korean war broke, the company was ready to step up production of Panthers (the first Navy jets to go into combat in Korea) by means of its "accordion plan." To keep capacity flexible without big capital outlays, this plan called for subcontracting wing panels, tail surfaces and other smaller parts to outsiders, not only for Panthers but also for the Cougar, a swept-wing Panther. Thus, Swirbul has kept his work force down to 11,800--less than half Grumman's wartime peak, although his order backlog has soared to roughly $900 million. (In 1952's first six months Grumman made $2.2 million).

Nevertheless, the company was cramped for space to build longer runways for jets at the Bethpage plant. Owners of new houses, who had crowded as close as 50 ft. to Grumman's runways, began objecting to the roar of jets. Navy brass was all for moving Grumman to a less crowded and less vulnerable inland site. But Swirbul persuaded the Navy to build Grumman a $22 million plant and test field on 4,500 acres 50 miles farther out on Long Island. There Grumman may build a successor to its Cougar, a new FioF jet fighter, now being tested at Edwards Air Force Base (Muroc), Calif. Says Swirbul: "It may revolutionize fighter design."

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