General History

Last in a line of Grumman biplane fighters the first F3F flew in 1936.  It stayed in fleet service until 1940 - the year before the Pearl Harbor attack.  In 1938, 81 F3F-2’s were ordered and used to equip marine squadrons and U.S.S. Enterprise squadrons.  One other version was built - the F3F-3. It had some minor differences and deliveries continued through mid 1939.  By the end of 1941 when we entered World War II, there were none left in operational use, although many could still be found at shore stations and in training roles.

Personal History

In the 1970’s, there was only one flyable F3F left in the world.  Unfortunately, because of a loose fuel cap, the pilot and passenger were forced to bail out when it caught fire during a roll.  It was a two-seat trainer version and was owned by Doug Champlin, of the Champlin Fighter Museum in Mesa, Arizona.   Doug longed for the day that he could find someone to rebuild the pieces back to a flying aircraft.  In the late eighties, he approached Herb Tischler in Ft. Worth, Texas about doing the job.  Herb indicated that it would be more cost effective to build up 4 or 5 because of the tooling costs involved.  Doug did some research and recovered 3 F3F-2 crashed wrecks from the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands.  All of the original pieces were gathered up, drawings were procured and tooling was built in Texas.  Using some of the components from the wrecks, Herb and his crew built up the 4 aircraft over a period of 4 years. 

Having just missed out on the original deal, Kermit always hoped that one day he would be able to acquire one.  In 1990, Tom Friedkin, who ended up with 3 of the F3-F’s, contacted Kermit and asked if he wanted to sell one of his Grumman Ducks.  Kermit did not, but he just happened to know that the San Diego Air and Space Museum indicated that they might want to sell theirs.  Kermit quickly purchased it and a trade was made.  Kermit flew the aircraft back from Chino, California in February of 2001.

Kermit Comment

Raising and lowering the landing gear on this aircraft is a manual operation and a little awkward.  Normally the pilot flies with his left hand on the throttle and his right hand on the stick.  To raise the landing gear on take-off, the pilot must take his left hand off the throttle, grab the control stick and begin flying with it.  At that point, his right hand is free to switch a gear lever located on the right side of the cockpit to the 'up' position.  The pilot then grabs the gear crank handle with his right hand and cranks the gear to the 'up' position after 26 turns!  To get the gear down, the process is reversed but there is more time and the process is not as hectic.