Vultee Aircraft
The Vultee Aircraft company was an American aircraft manufacturer that became independent in 1939 and merged with the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation to form the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation (from 1954 Convair ) in March 1943 .
Company history
Gerard "Jerry" Vultee and Vance Breese founded Airplane Development Corporation in 1932 after American Airways showed interest in their design for a six-seat passenger aircraft V-1 . Soon after, Errett Lobban Cord took over all 500 shares in the company, making Airplane Development Corporation a subsidiary of Cord Corporation .
As a result of the airmail scandal of February 1934 , the Aviation Corporation (AVCO) (now Textron ) holding company had to part with its stakes in American Airlines . AVCO , which at that time already owned several aircraft manufacturers, took over the Cord Corporation and founded the Aviation Manufacturing Corporation (AMC) on November 30, 1934 , into which Vultees Airplane Development Corporation was also integrated. In the meantime, Vultee and Breese had revised the design according to American Airlines' wishes and developed it further into the eight-seat V-1A. American Airlines took over eleven machines of this version, but the aircraft ultimately failed because of the single-engine design due to safety concerns compared to the twin-engine aircraft DC-2 and DC-3 . The V-11 version, modified as an attack aircraft for the United States Army Air Corps , was also only sold in small numbers.
The Aviation Manufacturing Corporation was liquidated by AVCO on 1 January 1936th The successor company was the Vultee Aircraft Division , which was also wholly owned by AVCO . The original Cord companies Lycoming and Stinson Aircraft Company went into the new Vultee Aircraft Division as separate branches .
In November 1939, the Vultee Aircraft Division was spun off from the AVCO Group and became independent as Vultee Aircraft Inc. On March 13, 1943, Vultee Aircraft and the AVCO subsidiary Consolidated Aircraft merged to form Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation . AVCO sold its stake in this aircraft manufacturer in 1947 to the New York investment company Atlas Corporation . In 1954 the name of the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation was changed to Convair .
Company founder Jerry Vultee dies
On February 7, 1938, before Vultee Aircraft became independent from AVCO, Jerry Vultee and his wife Sylvia died when the aircraft he was piloting crashed in a snow storm near Wilson Mountain / Sedona , Arizona . A bronze plaque at the crash site reminds of this. Jerry Vultee's friend and Vice President of Vultee wrote a letter to TIME magazine about his death :
Sirs:
Gerard F. Vultee ("Jerry"), not Gerald, my close friend and business associate for many years, was killed when the cabin monoplane he was flying with Mrs. Vultee crashed on the flat top of Wilson Mountain [TIME, Feb. 7 ]. ... Caught in a local snow-storm and blizzard with no training in blind or instrument flying, he was unable to find his way out. The fire occurred after the crash, not before.
DON P. SMITH Vice President
Vultee Aircraft Los Angeles, Calif.
Under Richard Millar as the successor to Vultee, Vultee Aircraft began developing military aircraft. The largest numbers were built by the training aircraft BT-13 Valiant and the V-72 Vengeance (as A-31 and A-35).
Airplanes exhibited in museums
- 1936 V-1AD Special NC16099, "Lady Peace II", belonged to publisher William Randolph Hearst - probably the only remaining copy of the V-1
Web links
- "Vultee SNV Valiant" by Jack McKillop, Brown-Shoe Navy: US Naval Aviation , found January 6, 2006
Individual evidence
- ↑ USDA Forest Service Coconino National Forest (Eng.)
- ↑ Davis-Monthan Field Register (Engl.) ( Memento of the original on 27 September 2007 at the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link is automatically inserted and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
