North American Aviation: История американского авиастроителя

Former aerospace manufacturer in the United States

North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included the T 6 Texan trainer, the P 51 Mustang fighter, the B 25 Mitchell bomber, the F 86 Sabre jet fighter, the X 15 rocket plane, the XB 70, the B 1 Lancer, the Apollo command and service module, the second stage of the Saturn V rocket, and the Space Shuttle orbiter. Through a series of mergers and sales, North American Aviation became part of North American Rockwell, which later became Rockwell International, and is now part of Boeing.

On December 6, 1928, Clement Melville Keys founded North American as a holding company that bought and sold interests in various airlines and aviation related companies. However, the Air Mail Act of 1934 forced the breakup of such holding companies. North American became a manufacturing company, run by James H. "Dutch" Kindelberger, who had been recruited from Douglas Aircraft Company. NAA did retain ownership of Eastern Air Lines until 1938. In 1933, the General Motors Corporation purchased a controlling interest in NAA, and merged it with the General Aviation Manufacturing Corporation, but retained the name North American Aviation. Kindelberger moved the company's operations from Dundalk, Maryland to Los Angeles, California, which allowed flying year round, and decided to focus on training aircraft, on the theory that it would be easier than trying to compete with established companies on larger projects. NAA's first planes were the GA 15 observation plane and the GA 16 trainer, followed by the O 47 and BT 9, also called the GA 16. North American's follow on to the BT 9 was the T 6 Texan trainer, of which 17,000 were built, making it the most widely used trainer ever. The twin engine B 25 Mitchell bomber achieved fame in the Doolittle Raid and was used in all combat theaters of operation. The P 51 Mustang was initially produced for Britain as an alternative to the Curtiss P 40 Warhawk, which North American had declined to produce under licence. The derivative A 36 Mustang was developed as a ground attack aircraft and dive bomber. This was done, in part, to keep the airframe in production as the US Army Air Corps had not yet decided to purchase the type as a fighter. A suggestion by the RAF that North American switch the P 51's powerplant from its original Allison engine to the Rolls Royce Merlin engine may have been one of the most significant events in World War II aviation, as it transformed the P 51 into what many consider to be the best American fighter of the war. Labor troubles became a grave issue in 1941. During the 22 months from August 1939 to June 1941 Stalin and Hitler supported each other as war raged in Europe. In the U. S., local union officials opposed American aid to Britain's war against Germany. They called strikes in war industries that were supplying Lend Lease to Britain. The United Auto Workers (UAW) won the election over the International Association of Machinists and represented all the employees at the North American factory in Inglewood, California. UAW negotiators demanded the starting pay be raised from 50 cents an hour to 75 cents, plus a 10 cents raise for the 11,000 current employees. The national union had made a no strike pledge but suddenly a wildcat strike by the local on June 5 closed the plant that produced a fourth of the fighters. The UAW national leader Richard Frankensteen flew in but was unable to get the workers to return. So Washington intervened. With the approval of national CIO leadership, President Franklin Roosevelt on June 8 sent in the California national guard to reopen the plant with bayonets. Strikers were told to return immediately or be drafted into the US Army. They sullenly complied. However when Germany suddenly invaded the USSR on June 22, the Communist activists suddenly became the strongest supporters of war production; they crushed wildcat strikes.

Post war, North American's employment dropped from a high of 91,000 to 5,000 in 1946. On V J Day, North American had orders from the U. S. government for 8,000 aircraft. A few months later, that had dropped to 24. the first nuclear reactor to produce power for a commercial power grid in the United States (the Sodium Reactor Experiment located at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory) and the first nuclear reactor launched into outer space by the United States (the SNAP 10A). As overall interest in nuclear power declined, Atomics International transitioned to non nuclear energy related projects such as coal gasification and gradually ceased designing and testing nuclear reactors. Atomics International was eventually merged with the Rocketdyne division in 1978.

Autonetics began in 1945 at North American's Technical Research Laboratory, a small unit in the Los Angeles Division's engineering department based in Downey, California. The evolution of the Navaho missile program resulted in the establishment of Autonetics as a separate division of North American Aviation in 1955, first located in Downey, later moving to Anaheim, California in 1963. The division was involved in the development of guidance systems for the Minuteman ballistic missile system.

In 1955, the rocket engine operations were spun off into a separate division as Rocketdyne. This division furnished engines for the Redstone, Jupiter, Thor, Delta, and Atlas missiles, and for NASA's Saturn family of launch vehicles. North American designed and built the airframe for the X 15, a rocket powered aircraft that first flew in 1959. In 1959, North American built the first of several Little Joe boosters used to test the launch escape system for the Project Mercury spacecraft. In 1960, the new CEO Lee Atwood decided to focus on the space program, and the company became the prime contractor for the Apollo command and service module, a larger Little Joe II rocket to test Apollo's launch escape system, and the S II second stage of the Saturn V.

The fatal Apollo 1 fire in January 1967 was partly blamed on the company. In September, it merged with Rockwell Standard, and the merged company became known as North American Rockwell. During this period the company continued its involvement with the Apollo program, building the Command and Service modules for all eleven missions. Within two years the new company also was studying concepts for the Space Shuttle, and won the orbiter contract in 1972. In 1973, the company changed its name again to Rockwell International and named its aircraft division North American Aircraft Operations. Rockwell International's defense and space divisions (including the North American Aviation divisions Autonetics and Rocketdyne) were sold to Boeing in December 1996. Initially called Boeing North American, these groups were integrated with Boeing's Defense division. Rocketdyne was eventually sold by Boeing to UTC Pratt & Whitney in 2005. UTC later sold Rocketdyne to Aerojet (GenCorp) in 2013.