Lockheed Corporation

In 1916 the brothers Allan and Malcolm Loughead (pronounced Lockheed) founded the, Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company, at Santa Barbera, California. The brothers had been interested in aviation since 1910, but despite their early enthusiasm the Company organisation ran into financial difficulties and was wound up in 1921. In 1926 they founded a new Company, the Lockheed Aircraft Company, but this to survived for less than three years. During this time however, the brothers had developed a successful seven seat monoplane, the Vega, designed by John K. ‘Jack’ Northrop with assistance from Gerald F. ‘Gerry’ Vultee- both of whom would later go on to found their own aircraft companies.

In 1929 the Lockheed name was acquired by the Detroit Aircraft Corporation, but this business too was ruined in 1931 during the Great Depression. Nevertheless a group of investors headed by brothers Robert and Courtland Gross, and including Walter Varney bought the company out of receivership in 1932, and with a new title of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation would establish of the most successful and profitable Aircraft manufacturing organizations in the world.. Robert Gross was named chairman and the corporation set up its headquarters at Burbank airport, California.

Under the new management Lockheed would be responsible for some of the most outstanding aircraft designs from the mid 1930s to the present day including the P-38 Lightning fighter of World War II and the Constellation airliner of the 1950s. They were also able to diversify into other non-aviation activities which would lead to the word ‘Aircraft’ being dropped from the Corporation’s name in 1977. In 1995 the Lockheed Corporation merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed-Martin.

See Also

C-5 Galaxy
C-130 Hercules

Pages with the same tags

Page Tags
List Of Active United Kingdom Military Aircraft aircraft list raf
Medium Bomber aircraft bomber
B-25 Mitchell aircraft bomber wwii
Grumman G34 Skyrocket aircraft prototype
Heinkel He 111 aircraft bomber luftwaffe
Tupolev Vakhmistrov Zveno aircraft experimental
Junkers Ju 287 aircraft bomber luftwaffe prototype
Messerschmitt Me 163 aircraft fighter luftwaffe wwii
F-35 Lightning II aircraft fighter
Saab 340 AEW&C aew aircraft
page 1 of 9123...89next »
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under GNU Free Documentation License.