AP 118 · No. 11 Section II · Aircraft Plate 104 / 370

Plate 104 of 370 · Second World War · Utility amphibian

Grumman J2F-6 Duck

J2F-6 BuNo 33549 ‘Candy Clipper’, painted as Grumman J2F-6 Duck BuNo 33549, civil registration N1214N, ‘Candy Clipper’, built by Columbia Aircraft and flown by Kermit Weeks’ Fantasy of Flight at Polk City, Florida: a single-engined amphibious biplane with its float faired into the fuselage to form a hull, a Wright R-1820 Cyclone nine-cylinder radial in a long-chord cowling driving a three-bladed propeller, a long glazed canopy over the pilot and observer, staggered wings of 39 ft span with wing-tip floats, main wheels retracting into the hull sides and a tail wheel in the stern, shown nose up on its wheels: light grey overall, chrome-yellow upper-wing tops, a gloss dark blue cowling with ‘CANDY CLIPPER’ in white, 1942-style national insignia on the fuselage, upper wings and under the lower wings, black ‘1-J-7’ and ‘U.S. NAVY’ on the fuselage, ‘N1214N’ on the fin, a blue, white and red striped rudder with ‘J2F-6’, a thin blue stripe along the hull and a black propeller with yellow tips, as photographed in 2009–2011 (shape from a J2F three-view scaled to the published span, checked against photographs of N1214N; the cowl lettering is plain, where the aircraft has a script with a candy cane).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Grumman J2F-6 Duck BuNo 33549, civil registration N1214N, ‘Candy Clipper’, built by Columbia Aircraft and flown by Kermit Weeks’ Fantasy of Flight at Polk City, Florida: a single-engined amphibious biplane with its float faired into the fuselage to form a hull, a Wright R-1820 Cyclone nine-cylinder radial in a long-chord cowling driving a three-bladed propeller, a long glazed canopy over the pilot and observer, staggered wings of 39 ft span with wing-tip floats, main wheels retracting into the hull sides and a tail wheel in the stern, shown nose up on its wheels: light grey overall, chrome-yellow upper-wing tops, a gloss dark blue cowling with ‘CANDY CLIPPER’ in white, 1942-style national insignia on the fuselage, upper wings and under the lower wings, black ‘1-J-7’ and ‘U.S. NAVY’ on the fuselage, ‘N1214N’ on the fin, a blue, white and red striped rudder with ‘J2F-6’, a thin blue stripe along the hull and a black propeller with yellow tips, as photographed in 2009–2011 (shape from a J2F three-view scaled to the published span, checked against photographs of N1214N; the cowl lettering is plain, where the aircraft has a script with a candy cane). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.0 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (J2F-5 & J2F-6); engine, crew and dimensions are for the J2F-6 BuNo 33549 ‘Candy Clipper’ modelled here.

History

The J2F-6 Duck

Grumman’s first aircraft for the US Navy had been fighters, but in 1933 it also flew the JF Duck, a utility amphibian built round the retractable undercarriage it had designed for its fighters. Instead of hanging a float under a landplane, Grumman faired a large central float into the bottom of the fuselage to make a hull, with the main wheels folding up into its sides, so the same aircraft could fly from a carrier deck, a battleship’s catapult, a runway or open water. Two seats sat in tandem under a long canopy, and a small cabin in the hull below could take two passengers or a stretcher.

The improved J2F, with a longer float and a more powerful Wright Cyclone radial, first flew on 2 April 1936 and became the Navy’s standard utility amphibian. Successive J2F-1 to J2F-5 batches served with carrier and battleship flights, utility squadrons, the Marines and the Coast Guard, towing targets, carrying people and mail, photographing, patrolling and above all rescuing aircrew from the sea. When Grumman’s factory turned to fighters and torpedo bombers in 1942, Columbia Aircraft of Valley Stream, New York, took over the type and built 330 J2F-6s with a 1,050 hp Cyclone in a long-chord cowling, the last of 584 Ducks.

Ducks served in every theatre. In the Philippines they flew supplies and people out of Bataan until it fell in April 1942; at Guadalcanal they searched for and picked up downed airmen; in Greenland a Coast Guard J2F-4 was lost in a snowstorm in November 1942 while flying out the crew of a crashed B-17. Some went to the Army Air Forces, which called them OA-12s, and after the war Ducks flew with Argentina, Colombia and Mexico and with civil operators. A handful survive, most of them in the United States, and none is in a UK museum.

This airframe

J2F-6 BuNo 33549 ‘Candy Clipper’, N1214N

33549The airframe modelled

BuNo 33549 is a J2F-6 built by Columbia Aircraft at Valley Stream, New York, for the US Navy. After the war it passed to civil owners as N1214N, was restored to Navy markings by John Seidel of Sugar Grove, Illinois, in the 1970s and was bought in the early 1980s by Kermit Weeks, who has flown it ever since and keeps it at Fantasy of Flight, his collection at Polk City, Florida. Its name, ‘Candy Clipper’, recalls a J2F-4 that served on Bataan in 1942. It is modelled because no Duck is in a UK museum, and 33549 is the best-photographed survivor, standing on its own wheels and flying, from both sides, head-on, behind and above; the Navy’s J2F-6 at Pensacola hangs from the ceiling with its wheels up. The model shows it as photographed in 2009–2011, standing nose up on its wheels: light grey overall with chrome-yellow upper-wing tops, a gloss dark blue cowling with ‘CANDY CLIPPER’ in white, 1942-style insignia of a white star with a red centre on a blue disc on the fuselage, the upper wings and under the lower wings, black ‘1-J-7’ and ‘U.S. NAVY’ on the fuselage, ‘N1214N’ on the fin, a rudder striped blue, white and red with ‘J2F-6’ on the white, a thin blue line along the hull, a red propeller warning band round the bow and a black propeller with yellow tips. Its shape comes from a J2F three-view scaled to the published span, checked against photographs of N1214N. The cowl lettering is plain, where the aircraft has a script with a candy cane.

Where to see one

Not on charge

A few survive in the United States, among them one at the National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola. None is in a UK museum.

All 370 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.