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Boeing, a company in existence since 1916, had produced a number of fighter aircraft for both the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. Derived from the company's successful PW-9 series for the Army, Boeing developed what can be considered the first truly successful carrier fighter with their FB series. These aircraft were manufactured using state-of-the-art techniques, being constructed with welded tube fuselages and wooden wing structure, with fabric covered surfaces.These standard construction methods were also used in the Boeing Models 83 and 89, which were built on speculation, tested by the Navy in 1928 and subsequently purchased as the XF4B-1. Sufficiently impressed with their performance, the Navy ordered 27 F4B-1s with deliveries commencing in 1929. A second version, the F4B-2 was developed with improvements over the initial model and also put into production with 27 built.As the decade of the 1930s began, the use of traditional construction techniques of welded tube fuselages gave way to airframes manufactured using lightweight aluminum alloys. Use of semi-monocoque, stressed skin aluminum offered lighter airframes and subsequently, higher performance. In the F4B series, this was first seen on the company-funded Model 218 prototype, which bridged the gap between the earlier and later versions of the F4B. The later versions of the F4B, the F4B-3 and F4B-4 were partially constructed of aluminum alloys as first used on the Model 218 in place of steel tubes, offering high strength and light weight. Just 21 F4B-3s were built before Boeing switched production to the F4B-4, of which 92 were built.Boeing's F4B dominated U.S. Navy fighter and some bomber squadrons from 1931 to 1935, with the last squadrons of F4Bs transitioning in 1938. As F4Bs were phased out of front-line service, they were turned over to the training command, and later, as unmanned aerial targets used for training shipboard anti-aircraft gunnery crews as part of Project FOX. The last F4Bs were withdrawn from