WORKS OF IRON

They forged planes at Calverton NY not "fags"

The sad reminder of what was. The so called "Grumman Park"

where great planes were once built.

      Grumman Aircraft Company at Calverton, New York and Bethpage, New Jersey wasn't called the "Iron Works" for nothing; at least not to the Sailors and combat pilots who flew Grumman planes into war from the Pacific in World War II to Afghanistan in 2001. They didn't "build" planes at the Iron Works...they forged them. In its hay day, Grumman was the top designer and builder of the US Navy's long serving combat jets. The A-6 Intruders for example shared between them and average service use life of 20 plus years aboard the Navy's aircraft carriers. Compare that with the average life span of even the latest F-18 Hornet, a seriously squalid 5 to 6 years worth of continuous carrier operation. Grumman planes were iron brutes both in combat and in everyday operation; they were designed to be unglamorous at times yet tough and reliable. In my time with the A-6 and later the EA-6B communities, I saw Grumman planes take some serious abuses and still be capable of being put back into flying condition. A tribute to the men who designed and built these great machines.

The A-6 line at Bethpage

I've seen Intruders make some seriously hard landings on flight decks or mishaps that resulted in busted wing tips, torqued landing gear and blown tires. In one mishap in Japan, an Intruder "two wheel'd" on the entire length of runway, ran off the end, crashed through a stone wall and came to a sliding stop on a local roadway. A month later the same plane was taking off on a post over-haul check flight. Think the composite designed F-18 Hornet can do that? As a Navy Non Destructive Inspector, I saw first hand the problems that plagued the Hornets and contributed to their abysmal shipboard life span. If there ever was a lemon the Navy should never have spent money on? it was the Hornet. One of the worst examples of damage I ever saw an A-6 suffer was in 1998 when a Marine Corps EA-6B prowler sliced through a set of steel gondola cables over Cavalese, Italy and killed 24 people. The aircraft suffered a near catastrophic severing of it's right wing and took damage that should have caused it to crash and yet it got back to Aviano Air Base. I don't think an F-18 would be that lucky.

      Of course age and fatigue life is an eventuality of longevity. The Intruders started suffering serious wing cracks in the mid-1980's which eventually led to their retirement from combat service and yet the Hornets are suffering short life because of their design. Composites are not designed for the rigors of carrier life and if you compare the life cost of the Intruders to the life cost of the Hornets its easy to see which aircraft sucks money like a hungry shop vac. The F-18 was and remains a poor substitute for the Intruder in terms of durability, range, armament and staying power. The A-6 had versatility drafted into the design while the F-18 was an "adapt as you go" or a "Jack of all trades and master of none of them." The Navy realized too late that "Fighter Attack" or "F/A" or "faggot birds" was a poor decision it couldn't reverse.

     The loss of Grumman Aircraft Company in 1994 and the closing of the Iron Works didn't just end a chapter in Naval Aviation history as much as it crippled Naval Aviation from then into the future. With Grumman's end went the cream of a talented generation of engineers, planners, designers and builders who didn't make planes because they had "style" they built them because they were forged to be tough and return to the Navy and the United State a plus on their investments. Since 1994, Naval Aviation has suffered in debt and the so called F-35 Lightening will only worsen the condition.

Grumman however has not gone completely into history. Melding with Northrop Aviation, Grumman designers have again caught the future of naval aviation and that future lies with the UCAV Unmanned Combat Aviation Vehicle. The XB-87-C will render manned combat flight as extinct as the dinosaur in about 30 years and Grumman expects to be the leader in this new age as it was before World War II, perhaps revenge is a sweet dish after all?