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If you want someone to be able to copy or distribute portions of the book, place
exceptions here (AIAA, AIA, Boeing)
Table of Contents
AEROSPACE INDUSTRY - A MERICA’S F UTURE? 1
THE FLYING MACHINE THAT CHANGED THE W ORLD 1
Table of Contents 2
List of Illustrations 6
Epigraph Page 9
Introduction 10
The Flying Machine that Changed the World 10
Chapter 1 12
The Beginning & Buildups 12
THE US AEROSPACE INDUSTRY – The Early Days 15
THE ACORN DAYS 16
From a speech given by Mr. Denham S. Scott to the AIA on March 19, 1968 16
from: http://www.navworld.com/navhistory/acorndays.htm Reprinted from NAAR (North
American Aviation Retirees Bulletin) - Summer 2001 20
The Growing Days 1930-1990 20
An International Industry 24
A Post-Cold War World 26
Chapter 1B 28
HELICOPTERS 28
"The Helicopter is the most versatile way of getting in and out anywhere in the world” 28
HISTORY OF HELICOPTERS 28
The Chinese 28
Leonardo Da Vinci 28
Fifteenth through the Twentieth Centuries 29
Early Twentieth Century 29
World War I Advancements 29
Autogyros are invented 30
Sikorsky's Advancements 30
1950 Advancements 31
The Turbine Engine's Impact 31
1960s & 1970s: The Vietnam War and how the helicopter changed 31
1980s and the Helicopter 32
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Early 1990s and the Helicopter 32
Conclusion of Helicopter Evolution 33
Chapter 1C 34
ROCKET SHIPS 34
"The Rocket ship is the way to get into Space because it carries its complete propellant” 34
HISTORY OF ROCKET SHIPS 34
Rocketry Becomes a Science 37
Modern Rocketry Begins 38
Chapter 2 43
Changing Times 43
America's defense companies are turning dual-purpose 43
Jul 18th 2002 | from the print edition 43
Downsizing: Merger & Acquisitions 44
A survey of the defense industry: Getting it together? 44
Two-way traffic 47
The Total Quality Management Farce 49
When Government Gave US Away 51
Sidebar: A License to Steal Jobs 51
Pres. Clinton’s Transferring Technology to China 52
Sanctions and Technology Transfer Policy 52
Change Maybe Coming-but not soon Enough 53
Chapter 3 55
Where We Are Today… 55
We're falling behind. 55
By Norm Augustine (Ret. Chairman & CEO Lockheed Martin)55
America’s Lost Leadership 58
Lockheed Martin 59
General Dynamics-old 62
McDonnell Douglas-now Boeing 64
Boeing Aircraft 65
Northrop Grumman 65
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Chapter 4 67
The Economic Importance 67
Economic Importance 67
World Economy vs. USA 67
Industry Economic Histories 69
America’s Aerospace Economic Case 69
TRADABLE EMPLOYMENT 69
Economic Value – A Comparative Model 75
Aerospace & Defense: Least Understood Industrial Sector 76
By guest author Robert H. Trice 76
Lost: America's Industrial Base 77
Fading Space Industrial Base 80
Chapter 5 82
The Future Forecasts 82
The World’s Growing Competition 82
U.S. faces foreign competition — in space 82
By Peter N. Spotts, The Christian Science Monitor 11/7/2005 6:28 PM 82
Where All the Money Is: 85
Boeing’s Future Forecast 87
The US Commercial Aerospace Industry and Defense 2012-203187
http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/cmo/ 87
Airbus Future Forecast 87
Asia’s Future Forecast 87
Forecast Considerations: 87
Chapter 6 88
Our Future Focus and Plans 88
Where’s our Flying Car? 89
The Super Sonic Cruiser 90
Hypersonic - The Orient Express 91
Space Tourism 92
Space Based Solar Power-Energy 92
Tomorrows new Bomber 95
Educating Tomorrow’s People 96
10 Incredible Airplane Designs of the Future 96
In the middle of this century, telecommunications will be so 104
Boeing’s 797 Concept 104
Conclusion 106
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References & Contributors: 109
Chapter 1: Beginnings & Buildups 110
Higham, Charles. Howard Hughes: the Secret Life. New York: Putnam's, 1993 113
On-Line References: 117
“Early Martin Planes.” http://www.martinstateairport.com/ 118
“F-22 Raptor.” http://www.boeing.com/history/boeing/f22.html118
“McDonnell Douglas History.” http://www.boeing.com/history/boeing/f22.html 119
“Northrop YB-49.” U.S. Air Force Museum. http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/ 120
“The Nurflugel Page.” http://www.nurflugel.com/Nurflugel/nurflugel.html 120
“Project Bumblebee.” http://www.xsouth.freeserve.co.uk/project_bumblebee.htm 120
Industries Economic History: 122
Bibliography 122
The History of the Aerospace Industry 123
Posted Mon, 2010-02-01 18:21 by Anonymous 123
The First Half-Century 124
The Cold War 126
Notes to Add: 128
The King is Rising Again…Part-1 of 3 129
It all starts with a view into outer space… 129
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List of Illustrations
Figure 1. Spirit of Exploration .............................................................................................. 9
Figure 2. George Cayley & described a modern airplane .................................................. 13
Figure 3. Bernoulli’s Principle for Wing Airflow ............................................................... 14
Figure 4. Courtesy of "History of Helicopters ". ................................................................ 28
Figure 5. Built for US Army Air Force by Georgrij Bothezat (USSR). Courtesy of "History
of Helicopters". ................................................................................................................... 30
Figure 6. Modern Autogyro courtesy of "History of Helicopters". ................................... 30
Figure 7. One of Sikorsky's earlier models. Courtesy of "History of Helicopters". .......... 31
Figure 8. Hiller's flying platform courtesy of "History of Helicopters". ........................... 31
Figure 9. Mc Donnell's helicopter courtesy of History of Helicopters. ............................ 31
Figure 10. Bell 209 Cobra "Snake" courtesy of "History of Helicopters". ........................ 32
Figure 11. Bell/Beoing 609 courtesy of "History of Helicopters". .................................... 32
Figure 12. Revolution Helicopter Corp. Mini 500 courtesy of "History of Helicopters". 33
Figure 13. Hero Engine ....................................................................................................... 35
Figure 14. Chinese Fire Arrow ............................................................................................ 35
Figure 15. Chinese Fire Arrow Launch............................................................................... 36
Figure 16. Surface Running Torpedo ................................................................................. 36
Figure 17. Wan-Hu Flying Chair ........................................................................................ 37
Figure 18. Tsiolkovsky Rockets .......................................................................................... 38
Figure 19. Goddard’s 1926 Rocket ..................................................................................... 39
Figure 20. German V2 Rocket ............................................................................................ 41
Figure 21. Aerospace & Defense Sales................................................................................ 44
Figure 22. Defense Industry Consolidation 1993-2007 .................................................... 46
Figure 23. Aerospace & Defance Stock Trends .................................................................. 47
Figure 24. A View of Earth from the Shuttle ..................................................................... 50
Figure 25. Norm Augustine ................................................................................................ 55
Figure 26. F22 (Fwd) & F15 (Aft) ....................................................................................... 60
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Figure 27. F35 JSF in Vertical Flight and Forward Flight ................................................ 61
Figure 28. A12 Avenger Concept ........................................................................................ 62
Figure 29. A12 Avenger Concept ........................................................................................ 63
Figure 30. Atlas2AS ............................................................................................................ 64
Figure 31. F18 E/F Carrier Landing ................................................................................... 66
Figure 32. World GDP (past 50 years) ............................................................................... 68
Figure 33. USA GDP vs. the rest of the World (50 years) ................................................. 68
Figure 34. Tradable Industry Jobs, 1990–2008 (Majors)9 ............................................... 71
Figure 35. Cost Comparison ............................................................................................... 72
Figure 36. Tradable Industry Jobs 1990-2008 ................................................................. 73
Figure 37. Aerospace and other Transport Industries (Tradable) .................................... 74
Figure 38. ............................................................................................................................ 86
Figure 39. SVC’s Vertical Take-off & Landing Aerocraft .................................................. 89
Figure 40. Boeing Sonic Cruise vs. Better ......................................................................... 90
Figure 41. Boeing Sonic Cruiser ......................................................................................... 91
Figure 42. Hypersonic Aircraft .......................................................................................... 92
Figure 43. SBSP Concepts .................................................................................................. 93
Figure 44. Next Generation Bomber .................................................................................. 95
Figure 45. 10) Icon-II Supersonic flight ............................................................................ 96
Figure 46. 9) Green Supersonic Machine .......................................................................... 97
Figure 47. 8) Blended Wing ............................................................................................... 98
Figure 48. 7) X-45A UCAV ................................................................................................. 99
Figure 49. 6) Solar Eagle .................................................................................................... 99
Figure 50. 5) SUGAR ........................................................................................................ 100
Figure 51. 4) Lockheed Martin ......................................................................................... 100
Figure 52. 3) Bigger is Better............................................................................................. 101
Figure 53. Northrop Grumman ......................................................................................... 101
Figure 54. The Puffin ........................................................................................................ 102
Figure 55. Airbus Solar Aircraft ....................................................................................... 104
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Epigraph Page
“Global leadership is not a birthright. Despite what many Americans believe, our nation does
not possess an innate knack for greatness. Greatness must be worked for and won by each new
generation. Right now that is not happening. But we still have time. If we place the emphasis we
should on education, research and innovation we can lead the world in the decades to come. But
the only way to ensure we remain great tomorrow is to increase our investment in science and
engineering today”.
Norm Augustine (retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin)
Figure 1. Spirit of Exploration
“The spirit of exploration is truly part of what it is to be human. Human history has been a
continual struggle from darkness toward light, a search for knowledge and deeper
understanding, a search for truth. Ever since our distant ancestors ventured forth into the world,
there has been an insatiable curiosity to see what lies beyond the next hill, what lies beyond the
horizon. That is the fire of the human spirit that we all carry”.
Steve Robinson (STS-114 Mission Specialist)
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“The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who looked enviously on
the birds soaring freely through space on the infinite highway of the air”
Wilbur Wright
Introduction
The Flying Machine that Changed the World
It’s been over a 110 years since powered controlled flight was proven by the Wright
Brothers from Dayton Ohio, in Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. We had conquered space
flight and put a man on the moon and delivered him home safely over half a century ago.
We have commercial aircraft able to travel halfway around the world without refueling.
The most significant industry change of the last two decade’s is in some materials and
Northrop’s flying wing as the Stealth B2 bomber design. America maybe close to losing
its leadership and become second place in the World for producing Aircraft in the near
future.
This loss in standing in the Aerospace Industry is, unfortunately too similar to the
Automotive Industry. It’s a shame to see the nation's largest Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) export base diminishing and losing its edge.
This book “Aerospace Industry America’s Loss?” is an in depth look at the
Aerospace Industry, a compilation of facts, figures, events, and some personal accounts
in the biggest economic base & technologically influential industry in the world. The
economic advantage this industry brings Nation’s and their work force a better Standard
of Living and higher wages. Those who lead in this key industry will lead in GDP. This
tradable industry which can be exportable is currently valued at $7 ½ Trillion in 20
years or $4 Trillion in commercial aircraft only. The nations that have grown the most
have pursued this from engineering and building automobiles then aerospace and
selling them outside of their nation, this creates a higher standard of living. You will see
the evolution and buildup of the Aerospace Industry to the fall/demise of America’s
Aerospace Industry the largest U.S. GDP creation and the economic impact on this
exportable product of trade. We conclude with valuable Future Focus with realistic
programs and plans that will generate huge growth and prosperity into the next decades
or century to lead the World both in aviation & space markets along with finding a
future energy solution.
We have recently seen the retirement of the U.S. Space Shuttles after its final mission to
the International Space Station. Now, the U.S. is regressing in technology 50+ years
and use rockets with a capsule. Russian expendable Launch Vehicles (ELV) at a higher
price than our Space Shuttle, just to get the U.S. back to the International Space Station.
So we should ask: Where is the Space Shuttles replacement? Or, what about the C-17
replacement? And the (super) Sonic Cruiser? What happened to the National Aerospace
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Plane (NASP) Hypersonic aircraft (mach25) also known as the Orient Express LA to
Tokyo in 2 hours?
Why is it we are still flying slowly commercially? Where is our flying car? What
about that jet pack which looks kind-of unsafe, especially to those grown-ups that ride a
bicycle with a helmet? We technically have overcome the sonic boom with a sonic burp
by intelligent design. So, why does our own NASA have plans only go Mach 5 (like SR-
71 5o years ago) as a prototype out to 2020 because, that’s all we’ve allowed ourselves to
progress in the last 20 plus years? Boeing had great plans to build the Sonic Cruiser
until they changed course and put all their eggs in the basket to produce the 787 (even
slipping delivery date-seven times) almost twenty five years after they helped build the
composite wings of the B2 Bomber. Much of this may have to do with Economics from
the foreign suppliers investing to become a partner in manufacturing prior to its market
existence. With an optimistic belief the next generation can learn from past mistakes
and understand the future doesn’t have to be like the past and demanding to make the
Future better - similar to our Race to Space and the moon. In this pursuit one’s destiny
is limitless.
Shawn Paul Boike
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Chapter 1
The Beginning & Buildups
“It is my belief that flight is possible and, while I am taking up investigation for pleasure rather
than profit, I think there is a slight possibility of achieving fame and fortune from it.”
Wilbur Wright Sept. 3, 1900
What do you think about the beginning of the Aircraft & Aerospace Industry, most
people think about the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina? This is where
Orville Wright made the first flight for 12 seconds and 120 feet at Kill Devil Hills near
Kitty Hawk, NC at 10:35 a.m. on December 17, 1903. In fact over 1000 BC the Chinese
had sent men aloft tethered to kites to provide surveillance at war time.
I was at an American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA) meeting in early
1992 Seattle Washington to Listen to Phil Condit VP of the 777 my new Bosses Boss and
accidently or fortunately sat at a table with him his wife & Alan Mulally. His speech was
terrific it was all about the evolution of flight and even before Wright Brothers. His
speech was very similar to what was written in a book on the Centennial celebration of
the Wright Brothers which I heard the Author speak at the Dearborn Library in
Michigan almost a decade after Phil’s speech.
The history of Aircraft (excluding balloons & rockets) starts with of course Leonardo
Divinci’s sketches and flight studies and plans for a glider, this inspired Heserfin Ahmed
Salevy to build a glider to glide down from a 183 foot tower in Istanbul in 1638. English
baronet named Sir George Cayley whose contribution was the 1799 definition of an
airplane as a machine with fixed wings, a fuselage and a tail which has separate systems
to provide lift, propulsion and control. Cayley had successfully built and flew his
successful model glider in 1804.
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Figure 2. George Cayley & described a modern airplane
He later made two other gliders with a pilot which made brief glides for his efforts he
was often referred to as the “Father of Aerial Navigation”.
A French electrical engineer named Clement Ader which attempted to fly a light weight
steam powered - bat like craft called the Eole’s. His added value in flight evolution was
the need for propulsion. Ader made a piloted “uncontrolled hop of 165 feet and altitude
of only eight inches with the airplane”. “The Eole was devoid of all the other elements
necessary for a practical flying machine and contributed little to the eventual
achievement of human mechanical flight”.
Another contributor to human controlled flight prior to the Wrights was an American
living in England Sir Hiram Maxim famous for the invention of the machine gun.
Following in a similar path to Ader and noted in 1892 “Without doubt the motor is the
chief thing to be considered”. “Scientists have long said, give us a motor and we will
very soon give you a successful flying machine”. Maxim built a four ton biplane fitted to
a test track & guardrails where in July 31, 1894 his rough aircraft travelled 600 feet at 42
miles per hour and rose over the guard rails and crashed. His contribution much like
Ader was that a powerful light weight engine for propulsion could lift an aircraft.
The most noted contributor prior to the Wright brothers was a German engineer named
Otto Lilienthal with his experimentation with gliders. He began aeronautical research
from the 1860’s to 1896 and produced the most complete, accurate body of
Aerodynamics that showed beyond doubt that a curved wing profile produced optimum
lift. Thus incorporating Bernoulli's principle works on the idea that as a wing passes
through the air, its shape make the air travel more over the top of the wing than beneath
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it-thus creating lift. This creates a higher pressure are beneath the wing than above it.
The pressure difference cause the wing to push upwards and lift is created.
Bernoulli's principle works on the idea that as a wing passes through the air the shape
make the air travel more over the top of the wing than beneath it. This creates a higher
pressure are beneath the wing than above it. The pressure difference cause the wing to
push upwards and lift is created.
Figure 3. Bernoulli’s Principle for Wing Airflow
Otto Lilienthal had produced 16 different glider designs from 1891-1896 with calculated
wing area and controlled them by shifting his body weight right to left (starboard to
port) thus altering his center of gravity. Also moving his body and fore and aft to
maintain equilibrium. Lilienthal’s fame came after he had made the Boston news as
“Here was a flying machine, not constructed by a crank…but by an engineer of ability…A
machine not made to look at, but to fly with. His experiments came to an end in August
9th 1896 where while soaring, a gust of wind put the glider nose up and into wasteland
crashed down 50 feet breaking his spine where he died the next day in a Berlin hospital.
The Wright Brothers first performed a literature search to find out the state of
aeronautical knowledge at their time. They wrote to the Smithsonian and obtained
technical papers regarding aerodynamics. They read about the works of Cayley, and
Langley, and the hang-gliding flights of Otto Lilienthal.
They corresponded with Octave Chanute (a French-born American
railway engineer and aviation pioneer) concerning some of their
ideas. They studied the problems which had been encountered by
previous flyers and they talked about possible solutions to the
problems. They looked for answers to the problems of flight by observing large gliding
birds. They decided that control of the flying aircraft would be the most crucial and
hardest problem to solve and they had some ideas for solving that problem.
The Wright Brothers were kite enthusiasts and they used the kite flights in the same way
that modern engineers use wind tunnels and flight testing to try out their ideas
concerning flight control. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina was chosen for their early flight
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experiments because its consistent high winds off the ocean are perfect for kite flying.
The brothers correctly reasoned that a free flying object had to be controlled about all
three primary axes; roll, pitch, and yaw. Their aircraft were built with movable surfaces
on the wing, elevator, and rudder. Control of the surface shape was in the hands of the
pilot. They extensively tested these ideas by glider flights of the aircraft. (NASA
http://wright.nasa.gov/overview.htm)
The Wright Brothers took all they could learn from those before them and added their
inventiveness to create the fully controllable manned machine powered flight. This
included inventing and designing the propeller system for propulsion, a wind tunnel and
many plans and techniques we take for granted today. That time in history was a battle
for first powered manned controlled flight was in competition with Samuel Pierpont
Langley and Glenn Curtiss. We all know the winners were those Dayton men in 1903
where the US Air Force base and museum now stands.
THE US AEROSPACE INDUSTRY – The Early Days
“Curtiss Aeroplane Company turned out such good planes that the Wright designs could not
compete”
Before there was an aviation industry, there were inventors who built their own airplanes. Wilbur
and Orville Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, made the first successful flights in 1903 and had a well-
controlled aircraft two years later. They set up the Wright Company in 1909, which started by
building airplanes but soon lost out in a bitter rivalry with another plane builder, Glenn Curtiss of
Hammondsport, New York.
The Wrights claimed that Curtiss was stealing their inventions and sued in federal court.
But Curtiss had shrewd lawyers who kept the suits from causing damage, and went on
building airplanes. His own firm of Curtiss Aeroplane Company turned out such good
planes that the Wright designs could not compete. The company eventually changed its
name to Wright Aeronautical Company and turned to building aircraft engines.
The Wright and Curtiss companies both were in business before the outbreak of World
War I, in 1914. A California plane builder, Glenn L. Martin, established a firm called,
logically, the Glenn L. Martin Company. These outfits all did plenty of business during
that war. But after it ended, in 1918, they faced the question of what to do next.
Most of the numerous planes built in the United States during the war were of British
design. Following that conflict, there was little demand for new aircraft, for there was
plenty of war surplus planes and engines. Still, there were opportunities. Curtiss had
built the wartime JN-4 trainer, the famous Jenny. It still was beloved by pilots during
the 1920s. A flight school might charge $500 for lessons, and then throw in a Jenny as a
graduation present. Martin built some of the earliest bombers--one sank a captured
German battleship in a 1921 exercise. This made it clear that bombers had a future.
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Other plane builders also went into business: Donald Douglas, William Boeing, and Alan
Loughead, who pronounced his name "Lockheed." To avoid mispronunciations such as
Loghead or Loafhead, his company used that spelling as well. All three found good
prospects. Donald Douglas got started by working with a wealthy enthusiast who wanted
a plane that could cross the country nonstop. By building it, Douglas gained experience
that allowed him to develop a long-range Army plane, the World Cruiser. Two World
Cruisers flew around the world in 1924 in a succession of short hops.
Airmail held promise for it earned federal subsidies for mail carriers that made it easy to
turn a profit. A few brave travelers also began buying airplane tickets. Boeing gained an
important success in 1926 with a single-engine plane that was well suited for carrying
mail and passengers over the Rocky Mountains. Lockheed won its own advantage
during that same year. The company's engineers included the talented Jack Northrop,
who later founded his own plane-building firm. He crafted the Vega, which set speed
and altitude records and became popular as an airliner.
THE ACORN DAYS
From a speech given by Mr. Denham S. Scott to the AIA on March 19, 1968
“This technological explosion had some very humble and human beginnings. The Acorns took
root in some strange places: a church, a cannery, a barbershop, but from them mighty Oaks
have indeed come to fruition”.
How many of you know that in 1910 the mighty Martin Marietta Company got its start in
an abandoned church in Santa Ana, CA? That's where the late Glenn L. Martin with his
mother Minta Martin and a mechanic named Roy Beal, built a fragile contraption with
which Glenn taught himself to fly.
It has often been told how the Douglas Company started operations in 1920 by renting
the rear of a barbershop on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. The barbershop is still there.
The Lockheed Company built its first Vega in 1927 in what are now the Victory Cleaners
and Dryers at 1040 Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood. Claude Ryan, who at 24 held a
reserve commission as a flyer, had his hair cut in San Diego one day in 1922. The barber
told him how the town aviator was in jail for smuggling Chinese across the border.
Claude investigated and stayed on in San Diego to rent the old airfield from the city at
fifty dollars a month and replace the guy in the pokey. He agreed to fly North instead of
South.
In 1928, the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, Transcontinental Air Transport
(now TWA) and the Douglas Company chipped in enough money to start North
American Aviation, a holding company. The present company bearing the Northrop
name came into being in a small hotel in Hawthorne. The hotel was conveniently vacant
and available because the police had raided it and found that steady residents were a
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passel of money-minded gals who entertained transitory male guests.
After Glenn Martin built his airplane in the church, he moved to a vacant apricot
cannery in Santa Ana and built two more. In 1912 he moved to 9th and Los Angeles
Streets in downtown Los Angeles. Glenn Martin was then running a three-ring-circus.
Foremost, he was a showman who traveled the circuit of county fairs and air meets as an
exhibitionist aviator; secondly, he was an airplane manufacturer. He met his payroll and
bought his lumber, linen and bailing wire from the proceeds of his precision exhibition
flying. His mother, Minta and two men ran the factory when Glenn was risking his neck
and gadding about the country. One of these was 22-year old Donald Douglas who was
the whole of his engineering department and the other was a Santa Monica boy named
Larry Bell who ran the shop.
The third circus ring was a flying school. It had a land plane operation in Griffith Park
and later at Bennett’s Farm in Inglewood, and a hydroplane operation at a place that's
now part of the Watts District. A stunt flyer named Floyd Smith ran it. One of his first
pupils was Eric Springer, who later became an instructor and then Martin's test pilot,
still later the test pilot for the early Douglas Company, and then a Division Manager.
Between Eric and Floyd, they taught a rich young man named Bill Boeing to fly. Having
mastered the art; Boeing bought a Martin biplane, hired Ross Stem, Glenn's personal
mechanic, and shipped the airplane to Seattle. Later, when it crashed into the lake and
Boeing set about to repair it, he ordered some spare parts from Martin in Los Angeles.
Martin, remembering the proselytizing incident with Ross Stem, decided to take his
sweet time and let Boeing stew. Bill Boeing said, To Hell with him, and told Ross Stern
to get busy and build one of their own. Boeing had a friend named Westerfelt and they
decided to form a company and build two airplanes. These two BW airplanes bore a
remarkable resemblance to the Martin airplane which, in turn, had been copied from
Glenn Curtiss. There seems to be a moral about customer relations and product support
mixed up in this episode.
During WWI, a bunch of sharpies from Wall Street in New York got control of the
Wright Company in Dayton and the Martin Company in Los Angeles. They merged the
two companies into the Wright-Martin Company. They sent a young man named Chance
Vought to be their Chief Engineer. Donald Douglas lost no time in quitting and went to
work for the U.S. Signal Corp.
The Wright-Martin Company started building obsolete Standard biplanes and Hispano-
Suiza engines, with the latter under a license agreement with the French Government.
Martin told them what they could do with them, and took off for Cleveland, taking Larry
Bell and Eric Springer with him. Having the backing of a baseball mogul to build a new
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factory, he was soon joined by Donald Douglas who went to work and came up with the
design of the Martin Bomber. It came out too late to see service in WWI, but showed its
superiority when General Billy Mitchell made everyone mad at him by sinking the
captured German battle fleet. The deathblow to the allegedly Dreadnaught Osfriesland
was delivered by the Douglas designed Martin Bomber.
At Cleveland, a young fellow called Dutch Kindelberger joined the Martin Company as
an engineer. Also a veteran Army pilot from WWI named Carl Squier became Sales
Manager. His name was to become one of the most venerable names in Lockheed
history. Back in 1920, Donald Douglas had saved $60,000 and struck out on his own.
He returned to Los Angeles, found a backer, David Davis, rented the rear of a
barbershop and some space in the loft of a carpenter's shop where they built a passenger
airplane called The Cloudster.
Claude Ryan bought this a couple year’s later, and made daily flights between San Diego
and Los Angeles with it. This gives Ryan the distinction of being the owner and operator
of the first Douglas Commercial Transport, and certainly a claim to be among the
original airline passenger operators.
In 1922, Donald Douglas was awarded a contract to build three torpedo planes for the
U.S. Navy; Douglas lived in Santa Monica, but worked in Los Angeles. Way out in the
wilderness at what is now 25th Street and Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, there
was an abandoned barn-like movie studio. One day Douglas stopped his roadster and
prowled around to investigate. The studio became the first real home of the Douglas
Aircraft Company.
With the $120,000 Navy contract, Donald Douglas needed and could afford one or two
engineers. He hired my brother Gordon Scott newly over from serving an apprenticeship
to the Martinside and the Fairey Aviation Companies in England. Gordon was well
schooled in the little known science of Aviation by 1923.
My first association with some of the early pioneers occurred when I visited my brother
Gordon at the barn at 25th Street. I found him outside on a ladder washing windows.
They were dirty and he was the youngest engineer. There were no janitorial services at
the Douglas Company in those days.
Gordon introduced me to Art Mankey, his boss and Chief Draftsman, and four of his
fellow engineers. There was a towhead guy called Jack Northrop, a chap named Jerry
Vultee, and a fellow named Dick Von Hake who was a reserve Army flyer. Jack Northrop
came from Santa Barbara where he had worked during WWI for the Lockheed Aircraft
Manufacturing Company. The fourth member of the Engineering Group was Ed
Heinemann*. They were all working on the design of the Douglas World Cruisers.
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Shortly afterwards, Jack Northrop left the Douglas Company in 1926. Working at home,
he designed a wonderfully advanced streamlined airplane. He tied back with Allan
Loughead who found a rich man, F.E. Keeler, willing to finance a new Lockheed Aircraft
Company. They rented a small shop in Hollywood and built the Northrop designed
Lockheed Vega. It was sensational with its clean lines and high performance.
In May 1927, Lindberg flew to Paris and triggered a bedlam where everyone was trying
to fly everywhere. Before the first Vega was built, William Randolph Hearst, publisher of
the Hearst newspaper chain, bought it and entered it in the Dole Race from the
Mainland to Honolulu, which was scheduled for 12 August 1927.
In June 1927, my brother Gordon left the Douglas Company to become Jack Northrop's
assistant at Lockheed. He also managed to get himself hired as the navigator on the
Golden Eagle, the name chosen by Mr. Hearst for the Vega which hopefully would be the
first airplane to span the Pacific. The race was a disaster! Ten lives were lost. The Golden
Eagle and its crew, including my brother, vanished off the face of the earth.
With its only airplane lost under mysterious circumstances, a black cloud hung heavily
over the little shop in Hollywood. However, Captain George H. Wilkins, later to become
Sir Hubert Wilkins, took the Number Two airplane and made a successful polar flight
from Nome, Alaska to Spitsbergen, Norway. After that a string of successful flights were
to put the name of Lockheed very much in the forefront of aviation.
At Lockheed, Jack Northrop replaced the lost Gordon Scott with Jerry Vultee.
In 1928, Jack quit the Lockheed Company to start a new company in Glendale called
Avion. Jerry Vultee then moved up to become Chief Engineer at Lock heed. He hired
Dick van Hake from the Douglas Company to be his assistant. A young man named Cliff
Garrett joined the Lockheed Company as the driver of their pick-up truck.
I went to work at Lockheed shortly after the Golden Eagle was lost. I became the 26th
Lockheed employee. The Vegas were made almost entirely of wood and I became a half-
assed carpenter, generally known as a wood butcher.
In 1929, Jerry Vultee quit the Lockheed Company to start the Airplane Development
Company, which became the Vultee Aircraft Company, a division of E.L. Cord, the
automobile manufacturer. He later merged with Reuben Fleets Consolidated Aircraft
Company to become Convair. When Vultee left Lockheed, Dick van Hake became the
Chief Engineer.
In the meantime, Glenn Martin closed his Cleveland plant and moved to Baltimore. His
production man, Larry Bell, moved to Buffalo to found the Bell Aircraft Company. Carl
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Squier left Martin to tie in with the Detroit Aircraft Company which had acquired the
Lockheed Aircraft Company and seven others. They hoped to become the General
Motors of the aircraft business! They appointed Carl Squier as General Manager of the
Lockheed plant, which moved to Burbank in 1928. (A lot of P-38s were made at that
Burbank plant - added by L. Cruse Nov. 2007)
At this time, General Motors had acquired North American Aviation, which consisted of
several aircraft companies in the East. Ernie Breech, formerly with Bendix but now with
General Motors, hired Dutch Kindelberger away from Douglas to head up the aircraft
manufacturing units. Dutch took Lee Atwood and Stan Smithson with him. The
companies involved were Fokker Aircraft, Pitcairn Aviation (later Eastern Airlines),
Sperry Gyroscope and Berliner-Joyce. Kindelberger merged Fokker and Berliner-Joyce
into a single company and moved the entire operation to Inglewood, California.
(Kindelberger and others at the North American Los Angeles plant designed the P-51
Mustang that helped win WWII - added by L. Cruse Nov. 2007)
Thus, a handful of young men played roles which profoundly affected all of our lives and
the lives of millions of other Americans. They changed Southern California from a
wasteland with a few orange groves, apricot and avocado orchards and the celluloid
industry of Hollywood to a highly sophisticated industrial complex with millions of
prosperous inhabitants. This technological explosion had some very humble and human
beginnings. The Acorns took root in some strange places: a church, a cannery, a
barbershop, but from them mighty Oaks have indeed come to fruition.
(Essentially all of those Aircraft Plants are now GONE from Southern California - added
by L. Cruse Nov. 2007)
from: http://www.navworld.com/navhistory/acorndays.htm
Reprinted from NAAR (North American Aviation Retirees Bulletin) - Summer 2001
The Growing Days 1930-1990
Airliners, indeed, became mainstays of the industry during the 1930s. The Army and
Navy bought few airplanes during that decade, but people were beginning to fly. Boeing
brought out the 247, a fine twin-engine job that carried ten passengers where the Vega
had room for only six. But it wasn't fine enough; it lost out in competition with the
Douglas DC-2, which carried fourteen. An enlarged version, the DC-3, had twenty-one
seats. Entering service in 1936, it had the range to fly nonstop from New York to
Chicago. Within a few years, it swept most of its rivals from the skies.
There were some military orders, even if they were not large. Martin built a good twin-
engine bomber, the B-10. Boeing, licking its wounds after losing with its 247, found new
business by crafting a much better bomber: the B-17. It had four engines, which gave it
greater speed and allowed it to carry more gasoline for longer range. It first flew during
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1935 in tests for the Army. The first of the B-17s crashed, and the company might have
crashed with it. But Army officials liked it, and ordered a few. This gave Boeing a leg up
on building bombers for use in World War II.
That war brought an enormous surge of business to the aircraft industry. Several
companies built the important warplanes of the era:
Boeing: B-17, B-29 bombers
Convair: B-24 bomber
Lockheed: P-38 fighter
Curtiss: P-40 fighter, C-46 transport
Douglas: C-47, C-54 transports
North American: P-51 fighter
Republic: P-47 fighter
Fleets of B-17s and B-24s, escorted by P-47, and P-51 fighters, destroyed many of Nazi
Germany's factories and railroads. B-29s carried firebombs that burned Japan's cities to
the ground. The C-46 carried supplies to China, helping that nation fight Japan and
tying down a million Japanese soldiers who were fighting the Chinese. The C-47, a
military version of the DC-3, carried troops as well as cargo. Over ten thousand of them
entered service. General Dwight Eisenhower, the top U.S. commander, counted it as one
of the items that did the most to win the war.
The end of the war brought a swift collapse of the aviation industry. According to Boeing
historian Harold Mansfield, company officials learned of a sudden cancellation of army
orders and rushed to shut down the plant before the next shift of workers came in at
four p.m. At North American, employment dropped from 100,000 to 6,500 in only two
months. As had been true after World War I, following World War II the nation again
was awash in used aircraft that were available cheaply. A C-47 could be had for $25,000,
payable at $4,000 per year, and could easily convert into a DC-3.
For airlines, the DC-3 remained popular. Most air routes were short and carried
relatively few passengers on each flight, and the DC-3 served such connections quite
effectively. However, after the war there also were coast-to-coast routes along with
connections that crossed the Atlantic. For these, only new four-engine aircraft would do.
Two became popular: the Lockheed Constellation and the Douglas DC-6 (along with a
later and faster version, the DC-7). Their builders competed for advantage by offering
improvements. The rivalry between Lockheed and Douglas defined progress in
commercial aviation until the coming of the jets.
The first jets were military. Lockheed, Republic, and North American built the first jet
fighters: the P-80, F-84, and F-86. The F-86 was the best of them, shooting down
Russian-built fighters and ruling the skies during the Korean War of 1950-1953.
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Missiles and jet bombers also drew attention. North American made a strong and early
commitment to develop a missile of intercontinental range, the Navaho. This project
needed rocket engines, guidance systems, and advanced designs that called for close
understanding of supersonic flight. At the outset, in 1945, the pertinent fields of
engineering simply did not exist. No matter, North American brought in good scientists
and developed the necessary know-how on its own.
Boeing showed similar leadership with jet bombers. The company used scientific data
from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, supplementing it with data from
its own wind tunnel, a research facility that helped to determine the best shapes for
aircraft flying close to the speed of sound. This allowed the company to develop the
earliest important jet bomber, the B-47. It first flew in 1947, with the Air Force
purchasing over two thousand of them as it remained in production from 1948 to 1956.
The B-47 introduced the shape of things to come, for it had swept wings, jet engines
mounted in pods below the wings, a swept tail, and a slender fuselage. During the 1950s,
these design features also appeared in the first successful jet airliners: the Boeing 707
and Douglas DC-8.
Boeing and Douglas competed vigorously to sell these planes. The way to win an order
was by offering a custom version of a basic design, a modification that would serve an
airline's specific needs. These could include a shorter fuselage, a larger wing for long
range, or more powerful engines. Such modifications were costly, and Boeing proved to
have the deeper pockets, for it was selling planes to the Air Force in large numbers.
Boeing paid for and built new airliner versions that Douglas could not afford, thus
winning an important advantage.
The 707 entered service in 1958, the DC-8 in 1959. Both aircraft had four engines and
could fly nonstop across the Atlantic as well as from coast to coast. In addition, there
also was great interest in a jetliner of shorter range, which could serve more routes.
Boeing brought out its 727and went on to sell more than 1,800 of them. But Douglas
stayed in the game as well, with its twinjet DC-9 that served routes that were shorter
still. Many of these connections were only a few hundred miles in length, but they were
highly popular because they spared the need to drive a car over that distance.
The Navy and Air Force had their own requirements. Convair built the B-36, which had
six and later ten engines. Boeing countered with the B-52, which mounted eight jet
engines. It became the main bomber of the Air Force's Strategic Air Command. In
addition, the decade of the 1950s brought a host of fighter aircraft. Almost every
company in the industry built some, including Douglas, Grumman, Lockheed,
McDonnell, North American, Northrop, Republic, and Vought.
Missiles and space flight brought new opportunities. In 1954, the Air Force launched a
major push toward rockets of intercontinental range, able to carry a hydrogen bomb to
Moscow. These included the Atlas from Convair and the Titan, built by Martin. Douglas
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helped as well with the Thor, based in England, which had less range but was available
sooner. These missiles evolved into launch vehicles for the space program.
Within that program, the civilian National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) came to the forefront. During the 1960s it sponsored the Apollo program, which
landed astronauts on the moon. Again there were a number of participants, including
Douglas, Grumman, McDonnell, and Boeing. North American did the most, drawing on
its experience with the Navaho. This company built rocket engines, a major rocket stage,
as well as the spacecraft that carried Apollo's astronauts. It went on to build the Space
Shuttle, including its main engines.
During the drawdown at the conclusion of the Vietnam war, in the early 1970s, Boeing,
Lockheed, and Douglas (which had merged with McDonnell) all fell into serious
economic trouble.
For Boeing, the source of difficulty was the enormous new 747 airliner. The company
went deeply into debt to fund its development and initial production. But it couldn't
deliver the early models, because their engines were not ready. Then the nation went
into a recession, and orders dried up. Boeing came close to going bankrupt, but survived
by selling improved versions of earlier jets, including the 707 and 727.
The 747 was too large for most routes, which opened up an opportunity for an airliner of
slightly smaller size. Lockheed came in with its L-1011, while McDonnell Douglas offered
its DC-10. This was a mistake; there was room for one such airliner, but not both.
However, neither company would back down, and both lost a great deal of money
because they could not sell enough planes. Lockheed stopped building airliners
altogether and became purely a military plane builder. McDonnell Douglas stayed in the
commercial world. But it now was financially weak, and lacked the funds to develop
anything more than variations of its DC-9 and DC-10.
This raised the prospect that Boeing would reign over the airlines, holding a near
monopoly. Airline executives chaffed at this possibility, for they enjoyed the competition
and the lower prices by multiple plane-building companies bid against each other. But
during the late 1970s, European plane builders came to their rescue. France and Great
Britain had a strong aviation industry; they had built the Concorde, the world's only
supersonic airliner. Now these countries combined with West Germany to create Airbus
Industrie. During the 1980s, it competed vigorously with Boeing, winning a large
number of orders.
While airliner sales remained very strong, military demand fell off sharply with the end
of the Cold War, in 1991. During earlier periods of demobilization, the Pentagon had
helped keep its planebuilders in business with a number of small orders spread out over
the range of major manufacturers. However, fighters and bombers now were quite
costly, and the Pentagon could afford only a limited number of such programs.
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Officials of the Defense Department responded by facilitating a series of mergers, to
consolidate the industry within a small number of companies that would have enough
business to remain strong. Boeing, holding great power due to its success in selling
airliners, bought out McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell International. Lockheed merged
with Convair and with Martin Marietta, forming the firm of Lockheed Martin. A similar
merger created the firm of Northrop Grumman. Today, these three U.S. companies
dominate the American market for commercial airliners, military aircraft, and launch
vehicles for space flight.
During the 1980s, it competed vigorously with Boeing, winning a large number of
orders.
While airliner sales remained very strong, military demand fell off sharply with the end
of the Cold War, in 1991. During earlier periods of demobilization, the Pentagon had
helped keep its planebuilders in business with a number of small orders spread out over
the range of major manufacturers. However, fighters and bombers now were quite
costly, and the Pentagon could afford only a limited number of such programs.
Officials of the Defense Department responded by facilitating a series of mergers, to
consolidate the industry within a small number of companies that would have enough
business to remain strong. Boeing, holding great power due to its success in selling
airliners, bought out McDonnell Douglas and Rockwell International. Lockheed merged
with Convair and with Martin Marietta, forming the firm of Lockheed Martin. A similar
merger created the firm of Northrop Grumman. Today, these three U.S. companies
dominate the American market for commercial airliners, military aircraft, and launch
vehicles for space flight.
An International Industry
International politics has always played a role in aviation. Aircraft in flight easily
transcended national borders, so governments jointly developed navigation systems and
airspace protocols. Spacecraft overflew national borders within seconds so nations set
up international bodies to allocate portions of near-earth space. INTELSAT, an
international consortium modeled on COMSAT (the American consortium that
governed operations of commercial satellites) standardized the operation of
geosynchronous satellites to start the commercialization of space. Those who dreamed
of space colonization also dreamed it might be free of earthly politics.
Internationalization more clearly reshaped aerospace by helping firms from other
countries find the economies of scale they needed to forge a place in an industry so
clearly dominated by American firms.
Only the Soviet Union challenged the American aerospace industry. In some areas, like
heavy lifting rockets and space medicine, the Soviets outpaced the Americans. But the
Soviets and Americans fought solely in the realm of perceptions of military might, not
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on any military or economic battleground. The Soviets also sold military aircraft and
civil transports but, with few exceptions, an airline bought either Soviet or American
aircraft because of alliance politics rather than efficiencies in the marketplace. Even in
civil aircraft, the Soviet Union invested far more than their returns. In 1991, when the
Soviet Union fractured into smaller states and the subsidies disappeared, the once
mighty Soviet aerospace firms were reduced to paupers. European firms then stood as
more serious competitors, largely because they had developed a global understanding of
the industry.
Following World War II, the European aircraft industry was in shards. Germany, Italy,
and Japan were prohibited from making any aircraft of significance. French and British
firms remained strong and innovative, though these firms sold mostly to their nation's
militaries and airlines. Neither could buy as many aircraft as their American
counterparts, and European firms could not sufficiently amortize their engineering
costs. During the 1960s, European governments allowed aircraft and missile firms to fail
or consolidate into clear "national champions:" British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker
Siddely Aviation, and Rolls-Royce in Britain; Aerospatiale, Dassault, SNECMA and
Matra in France; Messerschmit-Bölkow-Blohm and VFW in Germany; and CASA in
Spain. Then governments asked their national champions to join transnational
consortia intent on building specific types of aircraft -- like the PANAVIA Tornado
fighter, the launch vehicles and satellites of the European Space Agency or, most
successfully, the Airbus airliners. The matrix of many national firms participating
variously in many transnational projects meant that the European industry operated
neither as monopoly nor monopsony.
Meanwhile international travel grew rapidly, and airlines became some of the world's
largest employers. By the late 1950s, the major airlines had transitioned to Boeing or
Douglas-built jet airliners -- which carried twice as many passengers at twice the speed
in greater comfort. Between 1960 and 1974 passenger volume on international flights
grew six fold. The Boeing 747, a jumbo jet with 360 seats, took international air travel to
a new level of excitement when introduced in January 1970. Each nation had at least
one airline, and each airline had slightly different requirements for the aircraft they
used. Boeing and McDonnell Douglas pioneered new methods of mass customization to
build aircraft to these specifications. The Airbus A300 first flew in September 1972, and
European governments continued to subsidize the Airbus Industrie consortium as it
struggled for customers. In the 1980s, air travel again enjoyed a growth spurt that
Boeing and Douglas could not immediately satisfy, and Airbus found its market. By the
1990s, the Airbus consortium had built a contractor network with tentacles around the
world, had developed a family of successful airliners, and split the market with
American producers.
Aerospace extends beyond the most industrialized nations. Walt Rostow in his widely
read book on economic development used aviation imagery to suggest a trajectory of
industrial growth. The imagery was not lost on newly industrializing countries like
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Brazil, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore or Indonesia. They too entered the
industry, opportunistically, by setting up depots to maintain the aircraft they bought
abroad. Then, they took subcontracts from American and European firms to learn how
to manage their own projects to high standards. Nations at war -- in the Middle East,
Africa, and Asia -- proved ready customers for these simple and inexpensive aircraft.
Missiles, likewise, if derived from proven designs, were generally easy and cheap to
produce. By 1971, fourteen nations could build short-range and air-defense missiles. By
the 1990s more than thirty nations had some capacity to manufacture complete aircraft.
Some made only small, general-purpose aircraft -- which represent a tiny fraction of the
total dollar value of the industry but proved immensely important to a military and
communication needs of developing states. The leaders of almost every nation have seen
aircraft as a leading sector -- one that creates spin offs and sets the pace of technological
advance in an entire economy.
A Post-Cold War World
When the Cold War ended, the aerospace industry changed dramatically. After the
record run up in the federal deficit during the 1980s, by 1992 the United States Congress
demanded a peace dividend and slashed funding for defense procurement. By 1994, the
demand for civil airliners also underwent a cyclical downturn. Aerospace-dependent
regions -- notably Los Angeles and Seattle -- suffered recession then rebuilt their
economies around different industries. Aerospace employed 1.3 million Americans in
1989 or 8.8 percent of everyone working in manufacturing; by 1995 aerospace employed
only 796,000 people or 4.3 percent of everyone working in a manufacturing industry. As
it had for decades, in 1985 aerospace employed about one-fifth of all American scientists
and engineers engaged in research and development; by 1999 it employed only seven
percent.
Rather than diversify or shed capacity haphazardly, aerospace firms focused. They
divested or merged feverishly in 1995 and 1996, hoping to find the best consolidation
partners before the federal government feared that competition would suffer. GE sold its
aerospace division to Martin Marietta, which then sold itself to Lockheed. Boeing
bought the aerospace units of Rockwell International, and then acquired McDonnell
Douglas. Northrop bought Grumman. Lockheed Martin and Boeing both ended up with
about ten percent of all government aerospace contracts, though joint ventures and
teaming remained significant. The concentration in the American industry made it look
like European industry, except that in the margins new venture-backed firms sprang up
to develop new hybrid aircraft. Funding for space vehicles held fairly steady as new
firms found new uses for satellites in communications, defense, and remote sensing of
the earth. NASA reconfigured its relations with industry around the mantra of "faster,
better, and cheaper," especially in the creation of reusable launch vehicles.
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Throughout the Cold War, total sales by aerospace firms has divided one-half aircraft,
with that amount split fairly evenly between military and civil, one quarter space
vehicles, one-tenth missiles, and the rest ground support equipment. When spending for
aerospace recovered in the late 1990s, there was the first significant shift toward sales of
civil aircraft. After a century of development, there are strong signs that the aircraft and
space industries are finally breaking free of their military vassalage. There are also
strong signs that the industry is becoming global -- trans-Atlantic mergers, increasing
standardization of parts and operations, aerospace imports and exports rising in
lockstep. More likely, as it has been for a century, aerospace will remain intimately tied
to the nation state.
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Chapter 1B
HELICOPTERS
"The Helicopter is the most versatile way of getting in and out anywhere in the world”
HISTORY OF HELICOPTERS
By: Katie Kimmet and Amanda Nash
“The vertical flight of the helicopter is an advantage to the world” “because, it allows
flight and landings without runways almost anywhere in the world”
Introduction to Helicopters
The development of the helicopter, perhaps one of man's most complex flying machines,
is an example of the effects of technological evolution (Sadler 1). The helicopter began as
a basic principle of rotary-wing aviation and evolved into something much greater as
human ingenuity and technology in America and elsewhere contributed to its
development. The precision of parts due to the Industrial Revolution enabled the
helicopter to evolve into the modern machines we see flying today. The need of accurate
machinery and fixtures was evident when the earliest helicopter models lacked the
efficiency and flying capability of modern helicopters.
Early Concepts of the Helicopter
The Chinese
The first concept of rotary-wing aviation came from the Chinese in the Fourth Century
A.D. (Fay 125-126). A book called "Pao Phu Tau" tells of the "Master" describing flying
cars (fei chhe) with wood from the inner part of the jujube tree with ox-leather straps
fastened to returning blades as to set the machine in motion (huan chien i yih chhi chi)
(Fay 125-126). "Joseph Needham, the author of Science and Cilivization, also suggests
that although this was no more than a design for a toy, it is indeed the first recorded
pattern of what we might understand as a helicopter" (Sadler 1). The concept of rotary-
wing aviation had unquestionably been found, but the technology needed to create a
helicopter had not been produced.
Figure 4.
Courtesy of "History of Helicopters ".
Leonardo Da Vinci
Da Vinci's vaunted spiral design created in 1490, called the Helical Air Screw, has often
been cited as the first serious attempt to produce a working helicopter (Sadler 1). Da
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Vinci himself quoted on the device: "...I have discovered that a screw-shaped device such
as this, if it is well made from starched linen, will rise in the air if turned quickly..."
(History of Helicopters 1). However, this was only an experimental design and was never
put into practical use. "Da Vinci was in this instance no more than an experimental
engineer, putting onto paper age-old principles" (Sadler 1). Without adequate
technology the ability to create such machines was virtually impossible during this time.
Fifteenth through the Twentieth Centuries
A wide amount of minor inventions contributed to the advancement of the helicopter.
Between the Fifteenth and Twentieth Centuries, adequate machinery needed to produce
helicopters, like turbine engines and rotors, was not yet made possible by assembly
lines, but as the Industrial Revolution prompted factories and technology accelerated,
the helicopter evolved. One of the first breakthroughs in helicopter advancement was by
George Cayley who produced a converti-plane in 1843 (Sadler 1). A man named Bourne
flew the helicopter-like aircraft a year later. This model was apparently powered by
spring-like contraptions inside (Fay 127). All helicopter models at this time lacked
suitable power to achieve flight and were both bulky and heavy.
Early Twentieth Century
The early Twentieth Century produced many historic moments in rotary-wing aviation.
Brothers Louis and Jacques Breget rose some two inches off the ground in their
helicopter model on August 24, 1907 (Sadler 2). A Frenchman named Paul Cornu also
achieved free flight in his model in 1907 (Fay 132). The flight lasted only twenty seconds
and acquired an altitude of thirty centimeters but was still a landmark development in
helicopter evolution. The start of the Industrial Revolution had created a way for
technology to advance.
World War I Advancements
Military Interest in the helicopter during World War I contributed to its advancement
also. The first recorded example of this involved the Germans Von Karman and
Petrosczy and the Hungarian Asboth. These men produced a lifting device intended to
replace kite balloons for observation. "It consisted of two superimposed lifting
propellers" (Fay 133). This autogyro model, called the PKZ-2, failed because of various
difficulties. It was not until the late period of World War I that major helicopter
advances were made. The quality and quantity of production materials increased, and
great improvements were made in the field of engine technology in many parts of the
world including Europe and the United States. An aircraft model for military
advancement was needed for more versatile and precise war tactics. With better
technology and more need, the next step in helicopter advancement would soon come.
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Figure 5. Built for US Army Air Force by Georgrij Bothezat (USSR). Courtesy of "History
of Helicopters".
Autogyros are invented
The autogyro evolved from earlier models during this time. A Spaniard named Juana de
la Cierva experimented with autogyros for the allies in Great Britain until his death in
1936 (Sadler 2). Two Cierva C.40 autogyros were used for Air Observation Post during
World War I. They did have some setbacks, however. Autogyros could neither hover nor
descend vertically like the modern helicopter. Relying on forward motion, the
autogyros's primitive engine lacked the power to run as efficiently as the helicopters.
The helicopter's superiority was made readily apparent by the planned replacement of
the RAF's No. 529 Squadron's autogyros with the Sikorsky aircraft in 1944 (Sadler 2).
Figure 6. Modern Autogyro courtesy of "History of Helicopters".
Sikorsky's Advancements
The success in the field of rotary-wing aviation was due almost entirely to a man living
in America named Igor Sikorsky. Sikorsky was a Russian who had fled from the
Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 to France (Sadler 2). After years of private development,
he encouraged the United States Government to agree to a considerable budget of two
million dollars for rotary-wing research in 1938 (Sadler 2). The government ended up
choosing a joint Sikorsky-Vought effort to be funded, and the project evolved into the
VS-300 model helicopter. It formed the most tangible link between the early design
concept of rotary-wing aviation and the practical aircraft that is capable of military
operation (Sadler 2). The machine was indeed quite different from earlier models. It was
an incredible advancement in helicopters, but others soon followed.
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Figure 7.
One of Sikorsky's earlier models. Courtesy of "History of Helicopters".
1950 Advancements
During the 1950s many new advancements in helicopters were made. Sikorsky crafted
the world's first certified commercial transport helicopter, the S-55 Chickasaw (H-19).
Another man named Hiller created the flying platform called the Hiller XROE-1
Rotorcycle.
Figure 8.
Hiller's flying platform courtesy of "History of Helicopters".
The Turbine Engine's Impact
The creation of the turbine engine advanced the helicopter's capabilities even further.
With assembly lines brought about by the Industrial Revolution, these engines could be
produced with high efficiency and increased precision. The world's first turbine gas-
powered engine was the Kaman K-225 (History of Helicopters 3). Mc Donnell made the
first successful helicopter with horizontal winged flight from a vertical rotor powered by
the turbine engine (History of Helicopers 3). He continued to create newer models in
the proceeding decades.
Figure 9.
Mc Donnell's helicopter courtesy of History of Helicopters.
1960s & 1970s: The Vietnam War and how the helicopter changed
The 1960s and the 1970s marked a widespread advancement in helicopters because of
the Vietnam War. Beginning in 1964 this war lasted for almost a decade (Garraty 1078).
The military's need for advanced helicopters can be seen in historical pictures of the
machines flying through the jungles of Vietnam to retrieve wounded troops. Helicopters
were also used as weapons during this time. Many new helicopters appeared with
missile capabilities. The Bell 209 Cobra "Snake" is one such helicopter. Large missiles
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protruded from the sides of the machine on metal bases above. Another example is the
Gyrodyne QH-50 (History of Helicopters 4). This helicopter used infrared cameras to
observe at night for better protection (History of Helicopters 4). This helicopter is still
being utilized today.
Figure 10. Bell 209 Cobra "Snake" courtesy of "History of Helicopters".
1980s and the Helicopter
During the 1980s helicopter advancement was evidently seen as the machinery was
refined. Mc Donnell continued to produce helicopters like the Tiltrotor Unmanned Air
Vehicle and the Bell/Boeing 609, the world's first commercial tiltrotor (History of
Helicopters 1). Smaller helicopters were produced to fulfill the public's needs. The
Ultrasport Helicopters and the Air Command International Commander 14/A are
appreciable examples. Many helicopters used jet thrust rather than blades to give the
directional stability, which made them extremely quiet (History of Helicopters 5).
Figure 11. Bell/Beoing 609 courtesy of "History of Helicopters".
Early 1990s and the Helicopter
During the early 1990s helicopters were produced by large corporations like the
Eurocopter Industry (Sparaco 57) and the Civil Helicopter Industry (Proctor 88). The
Revolution Helicopter Corporation created a single-seat helicopter that can be built by a
person at home in forty to sixty hours (History of Helicopters 4). The machines were
used in all areas of the public including the police force and hospitals. Helicopters are
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still used in this way in the late 1990s. They are evolving to become more efficient and
capable of reaching their goals.
Figure 12. Revolution Helicopter Corp. Mini 500 courtesy of "History of
Helicopters".
Conclusion of Helicopter Evolution
The vertical flight of the helicopter is an advantage to the world. Because of advanced
machinery such as turbine engines and pistons contributed by technology, the
helicopter can be seen flying today. Since history the idea of rotary-wing flight has been
accounted by curious individuals recognizing its potential. These ideas have evolved
from a dream to a reality because of technology and will continue to evolve through time
with the advancement of it.
Add the Helicopter existence:
o Igor Sikorsky vs. years to develop controlled Vertical Lift.
o Vertical Lift blade, Counter Rotating as start
o Then Counter separated Main Rotor split to the side which worked and
evolved into the Chinook Heavy Lifting Aircraft.
o Factor of three:
Vertical Lift blade
Engine(s)
Tail Rotor (McDonnell Douglas Notar
o V-22 our Nation bet the 50 year future on this technology, it didn’t succeed as
well as expected because: Noise and transitioning wasn’t always simple.
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Chapter 1C
ROCKET SHIPS
"The Rocket ship is the way to get into Space because it carries its complete propellant”
HISTORY OF ROCKET SHIPS
“This technological explosion had some very humble and human beginnings. The
Acorns took root in some strange places: a church, a cannery, a barbershop, but from
them mighty Oaks have indeed come to fruition”. Whoever wrote it
Today's rockets are remarkable collections of human ingenuity. NASA's Space Shuttle,
for example, is one of the most complex flying machines ever invented. It stands upright
on a launch pad, lifts off as a rocket, orbits Earth as a spacecraft, and returns to Earth as
a gliding airplane. The Space Shuttle is a true spaceship. In a few years it will be joined
by other spaceships. The European Space Agency is building the Hermes and Japan is
building the HOPE. Still later may come aerospace planes that will take off from
runways as airplanes, fly into space, and return as airplanes.
The rockets and spaceships of today and the spaceships of the future have their roots in
the science and technology of the past. They are natural outgrowths of literally
thousands of years of experimentation and research on rockets and rocket propulsion.
One of the first devices to successfully employ the principles essential to rocket flight
was a wooden bird. In the writings of Aulus Gellius, a Roman, there is a story of a Greek
named Archytas who lived in the city of Tarentum, now a part of southern Italy.
Somewhere around the year 400 B.C., Archytas mystified and amused the citizens of
Tarentum by flying a pigeon made of wood. It appears that the bird was suspended on
wires and propelled along by escaping steam. The pigeon used the action-reaction
principle that was not to be stated as a scientific law until the 17th century.
About three hundred years after the pigeon, another Greek, Hero of Alexandria,
invented a similar rocket-like device called an aeolipile. It, too, used steam as a
propulsive gas. Hero mounted a sphere on top of a water kettle. A fire below the kettle
turned the water into steam, and the gas traveled through pipes to the sphere. Two L-
shaped tubes on opposite sides of the sphere allowed the gas to escape, and in doing so
gave a thrust to the sphere that caused it to rotate.
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Figure 13. Hero Engine
Just when the first true rockets appeared is unclear. Stories of early rocket like devices
appear sporadically through the historical records of various cultures. Perhaps the first
true rockets were accidents. In the first century A.D., the Chinese were reported to have
had a simple form of gunpowder made from saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal dust. It was
used mostly for fireworks in religious and other festive celebrations. Bamboo tubes were
filled with the mixture and tossed into fires to create explosions during religious
festivals. lt is entirely possible that some of those tubes failed to explode and instead
skittered out of the fires, propelled by the gases and sparks produced by the burning
gunpowder.
Figure 14. Chinese Fire Arrow
It is certain that the Chinese began to experiment with the gunpowder-filled tubes. At
some point, bamboo tubes were attached to arrows and launched with bows. Soon it was
discovered that these gunpowder tubes could launch themselves just by the power
produced from the escaping gas. The true rocket was born.
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The first date we know true rockets were used was the year 1232. At this time, the
Chinese and the Mongols were at war with each other. During the battle of Kai-Keng,
the Chinese repelled the Mongol invaders by a barrage of "arrows of flying fire." These
fire-arrows were a simple form of a solid-propellant rocket. A tube, capped at one end,
was filled with gunpowder. The other end was left open and the tube was attached to a
long stick. When the powder was ignited, the rapid burning of the powder produced fire,
smoke, and gas that escaped out the open end and produced a thrust. The stick acted as
a simple guidance system that kept the rocket headed in one general direction as it flew
through the air. It is not clear how effective these arrows of flying fire were as weapons
of destruction, but their psychological effects on the Mongols must have been
formidable.
Figure 15. Chinese Fire Arrow Launch
Following the battle of Kai-Keng, the Mongols produced rockets of their own and may
have been responsible for the spread of rockets to Europe. All through the 13th to the
15th centuries there were reports of many rocket experiments. In England, a monk
named Roger Bacon worked on improved forms of gunpowder that greatly increased the
range of rockets. In France, Jean Froissart found that more accurate flights could be
achieved by launching rockets through tubes. Froissart's idea was the forerunner of the
modern bazooka. Joanes de Fontana of Italy designed a surface-running rocket-powered
torpedo for setting enemy ships on fire.
Figure 16. Surface Running Torpedo
By the 16th century rockets fell into a time of disuse as weapons of war, though they
were still used for fireworks displays, and a German fireworks maker, Johann
Schmidlap, invented the "step rocket," a multi-staged vehicle for lifting fireworks to
higher altitudes. A large sky rocket (first stage) carried a smaller sky rocket (second
stage). When the large rocket burned out, the smaller one continued to a higher altitude
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before showering the sky with glowing cinders. Schmidlap's idea is basic to all rockets
today that go into outer space.
Nearly all uses of rockets up to this time were for warfare or fireworks, but there is an
interesting old Chinese legend that reported the use of rockets as a means of
transportation. With the help of many assistants, a lesser-known Chinese official named
Wan-Hu assembled a rocket- powered flying chair. Attached to the chair were two large
kites, and fixed to the kites were forty- seven fire-arrow rockets.
On the day of the flight, Wan-Hu sat himself on the chair and gave the command to light
the rockets. Forty-seven rocket assistants, each armed with torches, rushed forward to
light the fuses. In a moment, there was a tremendous roar accompanied by billowing
clouds of smoke. When the smoke cleared, Wan-Hu and his flying chair were gone. No
one knows for sure what happened to Wan-Hu, but it is probable that if the event really
did take place, Wan-Hu and his chair were blown to pieces. Fire-arrows were as apt to
explode as to fly.
Figure 17. Wan-Hu Flying Chair
Rocketry Becomes a Science
During the latter part of the 17th century, the scientific foundations for modern rocketry
were laid by the great English scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). Newton organized
his understanding of physical motion into three scientific laws. The laws explain how
rockets work and why they are able to work in the vacuum of outer space.
Newton's laws soon began to have a practical impact on the design of rockets. About
1720, a Dutch professor, Willem Gravesande, built model cars propelled by jets of
steam. Rocket experimenters in Germany and Russia began working with rockets with a
mass of more than 45 kilograms. Some of these rockets were so powerful that their
escaping exhaust flames bored deep holes in the ground even before lift-off.
During the end of the 18th century and early into the 19th, rockets experienced a brief
revival as a weapon of war. The success of Indian rocket barrages against the British in
1792 and again in 1799 caught the interest of an artillery expert, Colonel William
Congreve. Congreve set out to design rockets for use by the British military.
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The Congreve rockets were highly successful in battle. Used by British ships to pound
Fort McHenry in the War of 1812, they inspired Francis Scott Key to write "the rockets'
red glare," words in his poem that later became The Star- Spangled Banner.
Even with Congreve's work, the accuracy of rockets still had not improved much from
the early days. The devastating nature of war rockets was not their accuracy or power,
but their numbers. During a typical siege, thousands of them might be fired at the
enemy. All over the world, rocket researchers experimented with ways to improve
accuracy. An Englishman, William Hale, developed a technique called spin stabilization.
In this method, the escaping exhaust gases struck small vanes at the bottom of the
rocket, causing it to spin much as a bullet does in flight. Variations of the principle are
still used today.
Rockets continued to be used with success in battles all over the European continent.
However, in a war with Prussia, the Austrian rocket brigades met their match against
newly designed artillery pieces. Breech-loading cannon with rifled barrels and exploding
warheads were far more effective weapons of war than the best rockets. Once again,
rockets were relegated to peacetime uses.
Modern Rocketry Begins
In 1898, a Russian schoolteacher, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), proposed the
idea of space exploration by rocket. In a report he published in 1903, Tsiolkovsky
suggested the use of liquid propellants for rockets in order to achieve greater range.
Tsiolkovsky stated that the speed and range of a rocket were limited only by the exhaust
velocity of escaping gases. For his ideas, careful research, and great vision, Tsiolkovsky
has been called the father of modern astronautics.
Figure 18. Tsiolkovsky Rockets
Early in the 20th century, an American, Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945), conducted
practical experiments in rocketry. He had become interested in a way of achieving
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higher altitudes than were possible for lighter-than-air balloons. He published a
pamphlet in 1919 entitled A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes. It was a
mathematical analysis of what is today called the meteorological sounding rocket.
In his pamphlet, Goddard reached several conclusions important to rocketry. From his
tests, he stated that a rocket operates with greater efficiency in a vacuum than in air. At
the time, most people mistakenly believed that air was needed for a rocket to push
against and a New York Times newspaper editorial of the day mocked Goddard's lack of
the "basic physics ladled out daily in our high schools." Goddard also stated that
multistage or step rockets were the answer to achieving high altitudes and that the
velocity needed to escape Earth's gravity could be achieved in this way.
Goddard's earliest experiments were with solid-propellant rockets. In 1915, he began to
try various types of solid fuels and to measure the exhaust velocities of the burning
gases.
Figure 19. Goddard’s 1926 Rocket
While working on solid-propellant rockets, Goddard became convinced that a rocket
could be propelled better by liquid fuel. No one had ever built a successful liquid-
propellant rocket before. It was a much more difficult task than building solid-
propellant rockets. Fuel and oxygen tanks, turbines, and combustion chambers would
be needed. In spite of the difficulties, Goddard achieved the first successful flight with a
liquid- propellant rocket on March 16, 1926. Fueled by liquid oxygen and gasoline, the
rocket flew for only two and a half seconds, climbed 12.5 meters, and landed 56 meters
away in a cabbage patch. By today's standards, the flight was unimpressive, but like the
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first powered airplane flight by the Wright brothers in 1903, Goddard's gasoline rocket
was the forerunner of a whole new era in rocket flight.
Goddard's experiments in liquid-propellant rockets continued for many years. His
rockets became bigger and flew higher. He developed a gyroscope system for flight
control and a payload compartment for scientific instruments. Parachute recovery
systems were employed to return rockets and instruments safely. Goddard, for his
achievements, has been called the father of modern rocketry.
A third great space pioneer, Hermann Oberth (1894-1989) of Germany, published a
book in 1923 about rocket travel into outer space. His writings were important. Because
of them, many small rocket societies sprang up around the world. In Germany, the
formation of one such society, the Verein fur Raumschiffahrt (Society for Space Travel),
led to the development of the V-2 rocket, which was used against London during World
War II. In 1937, German engineers and scientists, including Oberth, assembled in
Peenemunde on the shores of the Baltic Sea. There the most advanced rocket of its time
would be built and flown under the directorship of Wernher von Braun.
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Figure 20. German V2 Rocket
The V-2 rocket (in Germany called the A-4) was small by comparison to today's rockets.
It achieved its great thrust by burning a mixture of liquid oxygen and alcohol at a rate of
about one ton every seven seconds. Once launched, the V-2 was a formidable weapon
that could devastate whole city blocks.
Fortunately for London and the Allied forces, the V-2 came too late in the war to change
its outcome. Nevertheless, by war's end, German rocket scientists and engineers had
already laid plans for advanced missiles capable of spanning the Atlantic Ocean and
landing in the United States. These missiles would have had winged upper stages but
very small payload capacities.
With the fall of Germany, many unused V-2 rockets and components were captured by
the Allies. Many German rocket scientists came to the United States. Others went to the
Soviet Union. The German scientists, including Wernher von Braun, were amazed at the
progress Goddard had made.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union realized the potential of rocketry as a
military weapon and began a variety of experimental programs. At first, the United
States began a program with high-altitude atmospheric sounding rockets, one of
Goddard's early ideas. Later, a variety of medium- and long-range intercontinental
ballistic missiles were developed. These became the starting point of the U.S. space
program. Missiles such as the Redstone, Atlas, and Titan would eventually launch
astronauts into space.
On October 4, 1957, the world was stunned by the news of an Earth-orbiting artificial
satellite launched by the Soviet Union. Called Sputnik I, the satellite was the first
successful entry in a race for space between the two superpower nations. Less than a
month later, the Soviets followed with the launch of a satellite carrying a dog named
Laika on board. Laika survived in space for seven days before being put to sleep before
the oxygen supply ran out.
A few months after the first Sputnik, the United States followed the Soviet Union with a
satellite of its own. Explorer I was launched by the U.S. Army on January 31, 1958. In
October of that year, the United States formally organized its space program by creating
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA became a civilian
agency with the goal of peaceful exploration of space for the benefit of all humankind.
Soon, many people and machines were being launched into space. Astronauts orbited
Earth and landed on the Moon. Robot spacecraft traveled to the planets. Space was
suddenly opened up to exploration and commercial exploitation. Satellites enabled
scientists to investigate our world, forecast the weather, and to communicate
instantaneously around the globe. As the demand for more and larger payloads
increased, a wide array of powerful and versatile rockets had to be built.
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Since the earliest days of discovery and experimentation, rockets have evolved from
simple gunpowder devices into giant vehicles capable of traveling into outer space.
Rockets have opened the universe to direct exploration by humankind.
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Chapter 2
Changing Times
"The defense industry became detached from the rest of the economy"
America's defense companies are turning dual-purpose
Jul 18th 2002 | from the print edition
THE 1990s were an eventful time for America's defense industry. With the cold war at
an end, the number of big American contractors came down from 15 to five (Lockheed
Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics) within a decade.
That was a dramatic consolidation, but as budgets shrank, it was not unexpected.
The other, more surprising development was that the defense industry turned into a
kind of ghetto, despite considerable efforts to make doing business with the Pentagon
easier and less bureaucratic. Barriers to entry were removed in the hope of turning
defense into something more like a normal business, but instead of an influx of new
blood, a mass exodus followed. IBM, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, General Electric
(except engines) and Texas Instruments all sold or closed their defense companies. As
Merrill Lynch's Byron Callan put it, “The defense industry became detached from the
rest of the economy.”
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Figure 21. Aerospace & Defense Sales
The reasons are not hard to find: the federal government is a demanding customer;
defense profit margins are often tighter than in the private sector; and strict rules on
procurement have in the past caused some defense companies to lose money on fixed-
price development contracts. Many companies decided the defense game was not worth
the candle.
Downsizing: Merger & Acquisitions
A survey of the defense industry: Getting it together?
With just a handful of big American companies and a trio of European ones, each of
which dominates its home market and competes in places such as the Middle East and
Asia, proper globalization (in the sense of a number of transnational companies
competing worldwide) seems out of the question. But that does not mean that
globalization will have no part in the defense industry at all. Because electronics and
computing software play an increasing role in defense systems, the core defense
companies have to ensure they have access to a wider pool of technology.
What remains to be seen over the next decade is whether the ghetto model will survive,
or whether defense will eventually move closer to commercial business. The more it
does, the more global it could get at the level of the second- or third-tier suppliers, who
make components or equipment for the prime contractors. Lawrence Freedman of
King's College, London, who has written on the implications of RMA, sees the ghetto
walls coming down as the civil sector develops more technical dynamism. The trend
towards increased use of IT and systems integration in warfare should accelerate this
trend:
The old defense sector was based on dedicated programs with only a limited civilian
spin-off. This now exists side by side with a more dynamic industry, which can pass
through two generations of technology while the official defense-procurement
machinery is still working its way laboriously through its bureaucratic mechanisms.
Although the electronics and computing sectors originally took off on the back of
military investment, they have now developed their civilian markets to such an extent
that even the military is a minor player.
Underlying this is a worry that the defense industry, having consolidated so much with a
loss of competition on both sides of the Atlantic, might begin to lag in innovation, and
might not be up to supporting the transformation of the armed forces it serves. Even
though America's military might and technology is streets ahead of anyone else's, the
country cannot afford to be complacent. A recent study by RAND's National Defense
Research Institute looked at military revolutions throughout history and found that, by
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