Grumman FF
1931 fighter aircraft family by Grumman
The Grumman FF "Fifi" (company designation G-5) is an American biplane fighter aircraft operated by the United States Navy during the 1930s. It was the first carrier aircraft with retractable landing gear. It was produced under license in Canada and known as the Goblin in Canadian service and Delfín (English: "Dolphin") in Spanish service.
Design and development
The FF-1 was Grumman’s first complete aircraft design for the US Navy. The Navy had asked Grumman if their retractable landing gear made for the O2U-1 Scout planes could be retrofitted to the Navy's Boeing F4B-1 fighters; instead Grumman proposed a new fighter design. The prototype XFF-1 (serial number A8878) was built at Curtiss Field (later named Columbia Field), New York to a contract placed on 22 April 1931, first flying on 29 December of that year. The airplane was of two-seat design, with an enclosed cockpit, fuselage of all-metal construction, and wings covered largely with fabric. The XFF-1 was powered initially by a 616 hp (459 kW) Wright R-1820-E Cyclone radial engine, it achieved 195 mph (314 km/h) during service trials. Later the original engine was exchanged for a 750 hp (560 kW) Wright R-1820-F Cyclone and the XFF-1 reached a top speed of 201 mph (323 km/h), faster than any US Navy fighter in service at the time.
A production order was placed for 27 two-seat FF-1 (G-5) on 19 December 1932.
The public source identifies “Grumman FF” as 1931 fighter aircraft family by Grumman. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Grumman, fighter and aircraft.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q769121. The Library of Congress control number is sh2009009647. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1931, 1820 and 1932.
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This entry incorporates text from “Grumman FF” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.