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29-448: The project was classified as secret in 1962 and cleared for public release on December 28, 1999. Its declassified technical report had been compiled by R. J. Oberto, Los Angeles Division of North American Aviation . His report described the LRV as an offensive weapons system. Popular Mechanics obtained information on the LRV from a Freedom of Information Act request after documents describing

58-574: A public company. Nevertheless, NAA continued with new designs, including the T-28 Trojan trainer and attack aircraft, the F-82 Twin Mustang fighter, B-45 Tornado jet bomber, the FJ Fury fighter, AJ Savage , the revolutionary XB-70 Valkyrie Mach-3 strategic bomber , Shrike Commander , and T-39 Sabreliner business jet. The Columbus, Ohio division of North American Aviation was instrumental in

87-553: 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,

116-624: The GA-15 observation plane and the GA-16 trainer, followed by the O-47 and BT-9 , also called the GA-16. The BC-1 of 1937 was North American's first combat aircraft; it was based on the GA-16. In 1940, like other manufacturers, North American started gearing up for war, opening factories in Columbus, Ohio , Dallas, Texas , and Kansas City, Kansas . North American ranked eleventh among United States corporations in

145-700: 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

174-597: The S-II second stage of the Saturn V . The fatal Apollo 1 fire in January 1967 was initially blamed on the company in the press, although a Congressional Hearing later ruled otherwise. 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

203-870: 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 bomber, 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

232-623: The US Navy and US Marine Corps for four decades. The Buckeye's name would be an acknowledgment to the state tree of Ohio , as well as the mascot of Ohio State University . The North American F-86 Sabre started out as a redesigned Fury and achieved fame shooting down MiGs in the Korean War . Over 9,000 F-86s were produced. Its successor, the North American F-100 Super Sabre , was also popular. Some 6,656 F-86s were produced in

261-511: 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

290-412: The 1960s and 1970s. According to Oberto's report, the LRV was a 40-foot (12 m) half-saucer with a flat rear edge. The design-study documents indicated it could support a crew of four men for six-week orbital missions. Propulsion was from a rocket engine (either chemical or nuclear) and the craft would also have contained an onboard nuclear reactor for electrical power generation. The existence of

319-636: The Columbus plant grew from 1,600 in 1950 to 18,000 in 1952. The cancellation of the F-107 and F-108 programs in the late 1950s, as well as the cancellation of the Navaho intercontinental cruise missile program, was a blow to North American from which it never fully recovered. Atomics International was a division of North American Aviation which began as the Atomic Energy Research Department at

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348-778: 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

377-554: The Downey plant in 1948. In 1955, the department was renamed Atomics International and engaged principally in the early development of nuclear technology and nuclear reactors for both commercial and government applications. Atomics International was responsible for a number of accomplishments relating to nuclear energy: design, construction and operation of the first nuclear reactor in California (a small aqueous homogeneous reactor located at

406-482: The LRV program may lend credence to the military flying saucers theory of unidentified flying objects . However, the flight characteristics of the LRV, as described by these documents, are more similar to a standard orbital space capsule of the 1960s era rather than the rapid motion and sudden velocity change characteristics of many reported UFOs . As of the publication of the Popular Mechanics article, there

435-820: The NAA Downey plant), 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

464-545: 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

493-512: 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. Two years later in 1948, General Motors divested NAA as

522-488: The United States, the most produced postwar military aircraft in the West, as well as another 2,500 elsewhere. To accommodate its Sabre production, North American opened facilities in a former Curtiss-Wright plant in Columbus, Ohio . It also moved into a former Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft plant at Downey, California , and in 1948, built a new plant at Downey. By the end of 1952, North American sales topped $ 315 million. Employment at

551-580: 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

580-722: The exclusive development and production of the A-5 Vigilante , an advanced high speed attack aircraft that saw significant use as a naval reconnaissance aircraft during the Vietnam War , the OV-10 Bronco , the first aircraft specifically designed for forward air control (FAC), and counter-insurgency (COIN) duties, and the T-2 Buckeye Naval trainer, which would serve from the late 1950s until 2008 and be flown in training by virtually every Naval Aviator and Naval Flight Officer in

609-412: The majority of the voting shares, other present circumstances can be considered to determine whether that party is still considered to hold a controlling ownership interest. In the United States, Delaware corporations have a 2/3 vote requirement for a motion to pass. In theory, this could mean that a controlling interest would have to be over two-thirds of the voting shares. A 2019 study published in

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638-574: 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

667-545: The project were declassified in 1999. Related research commenced during the late 1950s. The Convair /Pomona division of General Dynamics initiated a project entitled Pye Wacket . Its purpose was to determine the feasibility of developing a missile-defense system based on flying discs (lenticular vehicles). Although Pye Wacket was terminated by 1961, research had shown lenticular-shaped vehicles possessed sound re-entry characteristics. Subsequently, research proceeded towards developing crewed lenticular re-entry vehicles during

696-673: The value of wartime production contracts. 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

725-655: 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

754-635: 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

783-406: Was eventually sold by Boeing to UTC Pratt & Whitney in 2005. UTC later sold Rocketdyne to Aerojet ( GenCorp ) in 2013. Controlling interest A controlling interest is an ownership interest in a corporation with enough voting stock shares to prevail in any stockholders ' motion. A majority of voting shares (over 50%) is always a controlling interest. When a party holds less than

812-506: 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

841-595: Was no official confirmation as to whether the Lenticular Reentry Vehicle ever flew. Dynamic analysis of lenticular missile configurations was conducted by the General Dynamics Pomona Division under Army Missile Command contract in 1963. North American Aviation North American Aviation ( NAA ) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included

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