Northrop Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer from its formation in 1939 until its 1994 merger with Grumman to form Northrop Grumman . The company is known for its development of the flying wing design, most successfully the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.
33-441: Northrop may refer to: Businesses [ edit ] Northrop Corporation , an American aircraft manufacturer formed in 1939 Northrop Grumman , an American aircraft manufacturer formed in 1994 as a merger of the above company with Grumman Northrop Loom , an American designed weaving loom Places [ edit ] United States [ edit ] Northrop, Minnesota ,
66-569: A globe. This logo was later adopted by McDonnell Douglas in 1967, and became the basis of Boeing 's current logo after their merger in 1997. Douglas Aircraft designed and built a wide variety of aircraft for the U.S. military, including the Navy, Army Air Forces, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard. The company initially built torpedo bombers for the U.S. Navy, but it developed a number of different versions of these aircraft, including reconnaissance planes and airmail aircraft. Within five years,
99-618: A government-owned factory in Marietta, Georgia . World War II was a major boost for Douglas. Douglas ranked fifth among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. The company produced almost 30,000 aircraft from 1942 to 1945, and its workforce swelled to 160,000. The company produced a number of aircraft including the C-47 Skytrain, the DB-7 (known as the A-20, Havoc or Boston),
132-426: A list of people with the name Northrop Frye (1912–1991), Canadian literary theorist Suzane Northrop (born 1948), American self-proclaimed psychic medium See also [ edit ] Northrup (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Northrop . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change
165-621: A small amount of "bypass" ( turbofan ) to improve cooling and allow the engine bay to be lighter, as well as much more wing surface. The P-530 also included radar and other systems considered necessary on modern aircraft. When the Light Weight Fighter program was announced, the P-530 was stripped of much of its equipment to become the P-600, and eventually the YF-17 Cobra , which lost the competition to
198-518: A town Northrop, Minneapolis , Minnesota, a neighborhood Northrop Auditorium , on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota Northrop Field , a former stadium for the University of Minnesota Northrop High School , Fort Wayne, Indiana Northrop University , a former aviation institute Mount Northrop , Minnesota People [ edit ] Northrop (surname) , including
231-529: A wholly owned subsidiary of McDonnell Douglas, with Douglas' son, Donald Wills Douglas Jr. , as president. Later, former McDonnell president David S. Lewis became chairman of Douglas Aircraft. His successful turnaround of the division allowed him to become president of McDonnell Douglas in 1969. Meanwhile, Douglas' space and missiles division became part of a new subsidiary called McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company. McDonnell Douglas later merged with its rival Boeing in 1997. Boeing merged Douglas Aircraft into
264-803: The Boeing Commercial Airplanes division, and retired the Douglas Aircraft name after 76 years. The last Long Beach -built commercial aircraft, the Boeing 717 (third generation version of the Douglas DC-9), ceased production in May 2006. By 2011, the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III was the last aircraft being assembled at the Long Beach facility; the final C-17 was assembled in late 2015. However,
297-472: The Douglas DC-2 , followed by the famous DC-3 in 1936. The wide range of aircraft produced by Douglas included airliners , light and medium bombers , fighter aircraft , transports, reconnaissance aircraft, and experimental aircraft. The company is most famous for the "DC" (Douglas Commercial) series of commercial aircraft, including what is often regarded as the most significant transport aircraft ever made:
330-742: The Douglas DC-3 , which was also produced as a military transport known as the C-47 Skytrain or "Dakota" in British service. Many Douglas aircraft have long service lives. During World War II , Douglas joined the BVD ( Boeing - Vega -Douglas) consortium to produce the B-17 Flying Fortress . After the war, Douglas built another Boeing design under license, the B-47 Stratojet turbojet -powered bomber, using
363-708: The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon . Nevertheless, the YF-17 Cobra was modified with help from McDonnell Douglas to become the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet in order to fill a similar lightweight design competition for the US Navy . Northrop intended to sell a de-navalized version as the F-18L, but the basic F-18A continued to outsell it, leading to a long and fruitless lawsuit between
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#1732845655808396-564: The Northrop Gamma and Northrop Delta . However, labor difficulties led to the dissolution of the corporation by Douglas in 1937, and the plant became the El Segundo Division of Douglas Aircraft . Northrop still sought his own company, and so in 1939 he established the "Northrop Corporation" in nearby Hawthorne, California , a site located by co-founder Moye Stephens . The corporation ranked 100th among United States corporations in
429-597: The SBD Dauntless dive bomber , and the A-26 Invader . Douglas Aircraft suffered cutbacks at the end of the war, with an end to government aircraft orders and a surplus of aircraft. It was necessary to cut heavily into its workforce, letting go of nearly 100,000 workers. The United States Army Air Forces established 'Project RAND' (Research ANd Development) with the objective of looking into long-range planning of future weapons. In March 1946, Douglas Aircraft Company
462-605: The U.S. Navy . The DTs were taken from the assembly lines at the company's manufacturing plants in Rock Island, Illinois , and Dayton, Ohio , to be modified. The modified aircraft known as the Douglas World Cruiser (DWC), also was the first major project for Jack Northrop who designed the fuel system for the series. After the prototype was delivered in November 1923, upon the successful completion of tests on 19 November,
495-602: The 1950s. Douglas moved from producing air-to-air rockets and missiles to entire missile systems under the 1956 Nike missile program and became the main contractor for the Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile program and the Thor ballistic missile program. Douglas also earned contracts from NASA, most notably for designing the S-IVB stage of the Saturn IB and Saturn V rockets. In 1967,
528-648: The Army commissioned Douglas to build four production series aircraft. Due to the demanding expedition ahead, spare parts, including 15 extra Liberty L-12 engines, 14 extra sets of pontoons, and enough replacement airframe parts for two more aircraft were chosen. These were sent to airports along the route. The last of these aircraft was delivered to the U.S. Army on March 11, 1924. The four aircraft left Seattle , Washington, on April 6, 1924, flying west, and two of these returned there on 28 September to great acclaim, while one plane had been lost under fog conditions, and another
561-634: The Davis-Douglas Company. An early claim to fame was the first circumnavigation of the world by air in Douglas airplanes in 1924. In 1923, the U.S. Army Air Service was interested in carrying out a mission to circumnavigate the Earth for the first time by aircraft , a program called "World Flight". Donald Douglas proposed a modified Douglas DT to meet the Army's needs. The two-place, open cockpit DT biplane torpedo bomber had previously been produced for
594-480: The company was building about 100 aircraft annually. Among the early employees at Douglas were Ed Heinemann , "Dutch" Kindelberger , Carl Cover , and Jack Northrop , who later founded the Northrop Corporation . The company retained its military market and expanded into amphibian airplanes in the late 1920s, also moving its facilities to Clover Field at Santa Monica, California . The Santa Monica complex
627-557: The company was struggling to expand production to meet demand for DC-8 and DC-9 airliners and the A-4 Skyhawk military attack aircraft. The company was also struggling with quality and cash flow problems and DC-10 development costs, as well as shortages due to the Vietnam War . Under the circumstances, Douglas was very receptive to an offer from McDonnell Aircraft Corporation . On April 28, 1967, after almost four years of merger talks,
660-606: The experimentation with flying wings the company developed the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber of the 1990s. In 1994, partly due to the loss of the Advanced Tactical Fighter contract to Lockheed Corporation and the removal of their proposal from consideration for the Joint Strike Fighter competition , the company bought Grumman to form Northrop Grumman . Douglas Aircraft The Douglas Aircraft Company
693-527: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Northrop&oldid=1087823509 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Disambiguation pages with given-name-holder lists Place name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Northrop Corporation Jack Northrop founded 3 companies using his name. The first
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#1732845655808726-466: The more "jet age" style F4D Skyray in 1951. Douglas also made commercial jets, producing the Douglas DC-8 in 1958 to compete with the new Boeing 707 . Douglas was a pioneer in related fields, such as ejection seats , air-to-air missiles , surface-to-air missiles , and air-to-surface missiles , launch rockets, bombs, and bomb racks. The company was ready to enter the new missile business during
759-607: The motto "First Around the World – First the World Around". Douglas initially used a logo that combined two letter Ds with two wings extended outwards, and two Ds placed back to back to form a heart as a reference to the Clan Douglas . After the success of the DWC, the company adopted a logo that showed three airplanes circling a globe. The logo eventually evolved into an aircraft, a missile, and
792-403: The two companies merged as McDonnell Douglas Corporation . The two companies seemed to be a good match for each other. McDonnell was a major defense contractor, but had almost no civilian business. Douglas' commercial contracts would allow McDonnell to withstand any downturns in procurement. Conversely, McDonnell had enough revenue to help solve Douglas' financial problems; soon after the merger
825-503: The two companies. Northrop continued to build much of the F-18 fuselage and other systems after this period, but also returned to the original F-5 design with yet another new engine to produce the F-20 Tigershark as a low-cost aircraft. This garnered little interest in the market, and the project was dropped. In 1985, Northrop bought northrop.com, the sixth .com domain created. Based on
858-686: The value of World War II military production contracts. It was there that the P-61 Black Widow night fighter , the B-35 and YB-49 experimental flying wing bombers, the F-89 Scorpion interceptor , the SM-62 Snark intercontinental cruise missile , and the F-5 Freedom Fighter economical jet fighter (and its derivative, the successful T-38 Talon trainer) were developed and built. The F-5
891-608: Was an American aerospace and defense company based in Southern California . Founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. , it merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas , where it operated as a division. McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in 1997. The company was founded as the Douglas Company by Donald Wills Douglas Sr. on July 22, 1921, in Santa Monica, California , following dissolution of
924-457: Was announced, McDonnell bought 1.5 million shares of Douglas stock to help Douglas meet "immediate financial requirements". The merged company was based at McDonnell's facility in St. Louis, Missouri . It adopted a modified version of Douglas' logo. Donald Wills Douglas Sr. became honorary chairman of the merged company, a post he would hold until his death in 1981. Douglas Aircraft Company continued as
957-640: Was forced down over the Atlantic and sank (the DWC prototype was then rechristened, and joined the other two in completing the North American leg of the flight). After the success of this flight, the Army Air Service ordered six similar aircraft as observation aircraft. The success of the DWC established the Douglas Aircraft Company among the major aircraft companies of the world and led it to adopt
990-547: Was granted the contract to research on intercontinental warfare. Project RAND later become the RAND Corporation . Douglas continued to develop new aircraft, including the successful four-engined Douglas DC-6 (1946) and its last propeller-driven commercial aircraft, the Douglas DC-7 (1953). The company had moved into jet propulsion, producing its first for the U.S. Navy — the straight-winged F3D Skyknight in 1948 and then
1023-430: Was so large, the mail girls used roller skates to deliver the intracompany mail. By the end of World War II, Douglas had facilities at Santa Monica, El Segundo , Long Beach , and Torrance, California , Tulsa and Midwest City , Oklahoma, and Chicago, Illinois . On November 30, 1928, the company was reorganized as the Douglas Aircraft Company. In 1934, Douglas produced a commercial twin-engined transport plane ,
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1056-571: Was so successful that Northrop spent much of the 1970s and 1980s attempting to duplicate its success with similar lightweight designs. Their first attempt to improve the F-5 was the N-300 , which featured much more powerful engines and moved the wing to a higher position to allow for increased ordnance that the higher power allowed. The N-300 was further developed into the P-530 with even larger engines, this time featuring
1089-606: Was the Avion Corporation in 1928, which was absorbed in 1929 by the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation as a subsidiary named "Northrop Aircraft Corporation" (and later became part of Boeing ). The parent company moved its operations to Kansas in 1931, and so Jack, along with Donald Douglas , established a "Northrop Corporation" located in El Segundo, California , which produced several successful designs, including
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