Word: grummans
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Carriage Trade. But Grumman could not live on Navy orders alone. He began to build de luxe amphibians for sportsmen and corporations to hustle bigwigs around the country.* By 1937, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. had so much business on the books it almost went broke. The company had run out of working capital, and owed the banks $450,000 (mainly because it had lost $100,000 on an amphibian-plane contract). To raise cash, Grumman got ready to float his first public stock issue. Then the market crashed. Wall Street's famed Bernard E. ("Sell 'em Ben") Smith...
...Grumman had 700 employes, did a business of $4,400,000. When the war came, Grumman, like most other plane companies, exploded rather than expanded...
That explosion virtually swept all possible Grumman competitors into the background. The reasons were simple. While other planemakers argued with the Navy over design changes, Grumman went to Big Bill Knudsen, then froze Grumman designs. Instead of waiting for new plants to be ready, Grumman spread-eagled work in garages, a shooting gallery, almost any available space around Bethpage, even assembled planes under tents. As a result, Grumman proved he could get out planes when the Navy had to have them...
Hellcat Birth. Shortly after World War II began, Grumman heard that the Wildcats, which were in production, were having trouble with Jap Zeros. So Swirbul hopped to Pearl Harbor, buttonholed Navy flyers ("just calling on the trade," says Grumman), listed their complaints. Back at Bethpage, he cocked his feet on the desk, read them to Grumman...
...first Hellcat was built in August 1942. Five months later, the production line began to tick them off. This was unheard-of speed in an industry which used to need years to translate blueprints into planes. When a Navy brass hat dropped in to tell Grumman that he should expand to take care of Hellcat production, Swirbul pulled a mess of blue prints from his desk, said: "We are." When the officer said he would rush priorities for steel, Swirbul said: "I've got steel." And he had it, from Manhattan's razed Second Avenue elevated railway...