The Grumman F3F had the dubious honor of not only being the last biplane fighter to embark aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, but it was also the last such fighter to enter service with any branch of the U.S. military. With monoplanes on the horizon and the clouds of war gathering, Leroy Grumman’s robust Flying Barrel (as the type was affectionately known) served honorably in the years just prior to America's entry into WWII. History records the F3F as being Leroy Grumman’s third fighter design, but the type could easily have emerged simply as a new variant of his previous effort - the F2F. Indeed, the F3F featured only a few minor modifications to address the F2F-1’s stability problems and excessive proclivity for spinning. Sadly, the prototype XF3F-1 (BuNo.09727) crashed on March 22, 1935, just two days after its first flight; company test pilot, Jimmy Collins, lost his life when the aircraft broke apart during dive tests. A second prototype was built, and oddly - perh
Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar Announces Latest Spitfire Under Restoration
Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar Announces Latest Spitfire Under Restoration
Images copyright Peter Arnold Collection
As we have reported in the past, the Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar and its parent organization, The Spitfire Company (Biggin Hill) Ltd, have made remarkable progress in their work restoring Supermarine Spitfires at their facility on London Biggin Hill Airport, south east of London, England. This site is steeped in Spitfire history, being the former home of what once was RAF Biggin Hill, a major fighter base during the Battle of Britain. The company has worked on a dozen or so Spitfires since their inception, and has several on site at any given time, both airworthy and those under rebuild. Readers might recall the first flight last year of ‘The Greek Spitfire’, Spitfire Mk.IX MJ755, which is the last complete surviving example to have served in the Greek Air Force.