Vultee Aircraft

The company Vultee Aircraft was a U.S. aircraft manufacturer that became independent in 1939 and was in 1943 merged with the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation Consolidated Aircraft Corporation, or Convair shortly.

Gerard "Jerry" Vultee and Vance Breese founded the company in 1932 Airplane Development Corporation, after American Airways, a predecessor of American Airlines, had shown interest in their design for a six -seater passenger aircraft V -1. Not much later, Errett Lobban ( EL) Cord every 500 shares of stock of the company and the Airplane Development Corporation became a subsidiary of the company Cord Corporation.

Due to air mail scandal 1934, the company Aviation Corporation bought ( AVCO ) ( a group of companies that is now part of Textron ) the Cord Corporation and founded on 30 November 1934, the Aviation Manufacturing Corporation (AMC ), which also Vultee 's Airplane Development Corporation (ADC ) was included. AMC itself was liquidated on 1 January 1936 and the Vultee Aircraft Division was created as an independent subsidiary of AVCO. In addition, Vultee took over the company still Lycoming and Stinson Aircraft Company as further radicals of liquidated AMC. In November 1939, the company Vultee Aircraft Division of the AVCO group was separated and independently as Vultee Aircraft.

In the meantime, had Vultee and Breese the design according to the wishes of American Airlines revised and expanded to an eight -seater model V -1A. American Airlines has bought eleven piece, but the plane ultimately failed because of the single-engine design of safety concerns about the two -engined airplanes, DC-2 and DC - third Also as an attack aircraft for the United States Army Air Corps ( predecessor of the United States Army Air Force) modified version of V -11 was sold only in small numbers.

On February 7, 1938 before Vultee Aircraft was independent of AVCO, Jerry Vultee died along with his wife Sylvia in the crash of the aircraft steered by him in a snowstorm near Wilson Mountain / Sedona in Arizona. A bronze plaque at the crash site remembered. Jerry Vultee 's friend and Vice President of Vultee wrote a letter about his death on the TIME magazine:

Sir:

Gerard F. Vultee ( "Jerry" ), not Gerald, my close friend and business associate for many years, which killed When the cabin monoplane hey what flying with Mrs. Vultee crashed on the flat top of Wilson Mountain [TIME, February 7 ]. Caught ... in a local snow -storm and blizzard with no workout in blind or instrument flying, hey what 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 of the Vultee Aircraft Vultee began with the development of military aircraft. The largest number were from the training aircraft BT -13 Valiant and the V -72 Vengeance (as A -31 and A-35 as ) built.

On March 13, 1943 Vultee Aircraft closed and the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation Consolidated Vultee Aircraft commonly known to the Corporation, as Convair, together. The management of Vultee resigned.

In museums issued aircraft

• Virginia Aviation Museum, Richmond International Airport Richmond (Virginia)

• Mid-Atlantic Air Museum, Reading ( Pennsylvania)