Curtiss-Wright

Curtiss-Wright Corporation

Type	Public
Traded as	NYSE: CW
Industry	Aerospace Defense Oil and Gas Nuclear Power Generation Other various industry
Founded	Buffalo, New York (1916-Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company) New York City (1909-Wright Aeronautical)
Headquarters	Parsippany, New Jersey, US
Key people	Martin R. Benante, CEO Glenn E. Tynan, VP, CFO David J. Linton, Co-COO David C. Adams, Co-COO
Products	Valves, Pumps, Motors, Generators Instrumentation, Controls, Actuation, Drive Sensors Embedded Computing Metal Treatment
Revenue	US$2.54 billion (FY 2012)
Employees	7,500 (2007)
Divisions	Curtiss-Wright Flow Control Curtiss-Wright Motion Control Curtiss-Wright Metal Treatment Wright Aeronautical
Website	www.curtisswright.com

The Curtiss-Wright Corporation was the largest aircraft manufacturer in the United States at the end of World War II, but has evolved to largely become a component manufacturer, specializing in actuators, aircraft controls, valves, and metal treatment.

History

Merger and expansion

Curtiss-Wright came into existence on July 5, 1929, the result of a merger of 12 companies associated with Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company of Buffalo, New York, and Wright Aeronautical of Dayton, Ohio, and was headquartered in Buffalo, New York. With $75 million in capital, it was the largest aviation company in the country.

Companies Merged	Owner
Wright Aeronautical Corp	Hoyt
Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Co	Keys
Curtiss Airports Corp.	Keys
Curtiss Flying Service	Keys
Curtiss Aeroplane Export Co.	Keys
Curtiss-Caproni Corp.	Keys
Curtiss-Robertson Airplane Mfg. Co.	Keys
New York Air Terminals	Hoyt
N.Y. & Suburban Airlines	Hoyt
Keystone Aircraft Corp	Hoyt

There were three main divisions: the Curtiss-Wright Airplane Division, which manufactured airframes; the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, which produced aeronautical engines; and the Curtiss-Wright Propeller Division, which manufactured propellers. After 1929, most engines produced by the new company were known as Wrights, while most aircraft were given the Curtiss name, with a few exceptions.

Throughout the 1930s, Curtiss-Wright designed and built aircraft for military, commercial, and private markets. But it was the Wright engine division and the longstanding relationship with the US military that would help the company through the difficult years of the Great Depression. In 1937, the company developed the P-36 fighter aircraft, resulting in the largest peacetime aircraft order ever given by the Army Air Corps. Curtiss-Wright also sold the P-36 abroad, where they were used in the early days of World War II.

During World War II, Curtiss-Wright produced 142,840 aircraft engines, 146,468 electric propellers and 29,269 airplanes. Curtiss-Wright employed 180,000 workers, and ranked second among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts (behind only General Motors).

Aircraft production included almost 14,000 P-40 fighters, made famous by their use by Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers in China, over 3,000 C-46 Commando transport aircraft, and later in the war, over 7,000 SB2C Helldivers. Its most visible success came with the P-40, variously known as the Tomahawk, Kittyhawk, and Warhawk, which were built between 1940 and 1944 at the main production facility in Buffalo, New York. Along with the Buffalo plant, major aircraft production was at Columbus, Ohio, St. Louis, Missouri, and Louisville, Kentucky. Engine and propeller production was at plants in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

Curtiss-Wright building at Caldwell, New Jersey, in 1941.

In May 1942, the U.S. government assigned Curtiss-Wright a defense production factory for wartime aircraft construction at Louisville, Kentucky, to produce the C-76 Caravan cargo plane, which was constructed mostly of wood, a non-priority war material. However, after difficulties with the C-76 (including a crash of a production model in mid-1943), as well as the realization that sufficient quantities of aluminum aircraft alloys would be available for war production, plans for large-scale C-76 production were rejected. The Louisville plant was converted to C-46 Commando production, eventually delivering 438 Commandos to supplement the roughly 2,500 C-46s produced at Buffalo. The C-46 cargo plane was fitted with two powerful radial engines, and could carry more cargo at higher altitudes than any other Allied aircraft. Consequently, it was used extensively in the China-Burma-India Theater.

Defective parts sold to U.S. military in World War II

From 1941 to 1943, the Curtiss Aeronautical plant in Lockland, Ohio produced aircraft engines under wartime contract destined for installation in U.S. Army Air Force aircraft. Wright officials at Lackland insisted on high engine production levels, resulting in a significant percentage of engines that did not meet Army Air Force (AAF) inspection standards. These defective engines were nevertheless approved by inspectors for shipment and installation in U.S. military aircraft. After investigation, it was later revealed that Wright company officials at Lockland had conspired with civilian technical advisers and Army inspection officers to approve substandard or defective aircraft engines for military use. Army Air Force technical adviser Charles W. Bond was dismissed by the Army in 1943 for "gross irregularities in inspection procedure." Bond would later testify that he had been "wined and dined" by Wright company officials; one of those occasions was the night before Bond fired four AAF engine inspectors another AAF inspector had described as "troublemakers." In 1944, three Army officers, Lt. Col. Frank Constantine Greulich of Detroit, former chief inspection officer for the material command, Major Walter A. Ryan of Detroit, former central states inspection officer, and Major William Bruckmann, a former Cincinnati brewer and resident Army inspections officer at the Wright plant in Lockland were charged with neglect of duty, conspiracy, and giving false testimony in a general court martial. All three men were later convicted of neglect of duty. The story of defective engines had reached investigators working for Sen. Harry Truman's congressional investigative board, the Truman Commission, after several Wright aircraft assembly workers informed on the company; they would later testify under oath before Congress. Arthur Miller's play All My Sons is based on this incident.

In 2011, columnist Richard J. Eskow, senior fellow with the Campaign for America's Future and columnist for the Huffington Post, alleged that his uncle Jack Temple "died in World War II." Temple's death in a military bomber crash was allegedly tied to engine failure due to improper manufacture and/or assembly; the engines had passed inspection even though they were defective. Eskow referenced a 2006 article by Sarah Anderson that appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and on AlterNet. Anderson had alleged that Curtiss-Wright "had sold leaky motors to the government and covered it up with forged inspection reports." As a result of the investigation, wrote Anderson, "heads rolled at Curtiss-Wright and one general wound up in prison."

Post–World War II

Curtiss-Wright failed to make the transition to design and production of jet aircraft, despite several attempts. During the war, the company had expended only small amounts on aircraft research and development, instead concentrating on incremental improvements in conventional aircraft already in wartime production. This was especially true in the first two years of the war. Curtiss' failure to research and develop more advanced wing and airframes provided an opening for North American, Bell, Lockheed, Northrop, and other U.S. aircraft manufacturers to submit newer and more advanced aircraft designs. With the rapid development of jet engine technology and near-supersonic flight, this technological lag resulted in Curtiss losing a number of critical postwar military aircraft orders. The final nail in the coffin was the choice of the Northrop F-89 Scorpion over the XF-87 Blackhawk; after the F-87 was cancelled October 10, 1948, Curtiss-Wright shut down its entire Aeroplane Division and sold the assets to North American Aviation.

While this marked Curtiss-Wright's departure from preeminence in the aviation industry, one notable spin-off involved Curtiss-Wright's flight research laboratory, founded in 1943 near the main plant at the Buffalo airport. During divestiture of the airframe division, the lab was given to Cornell University along with a cash gift to finish construction of a transonic wind tunnel. Cornell Aeronautical Labs, or CAL as it was known, was eventually spun off from the university as a private company, Calspan Corporation, which has been responsible for many subsequent innovations in flight and safety research. For an aircraft company that failed largely due to lack of sufficient research and development during World War II, it is ironic that Curtiss-Wright's flight research division was one of the few parts of the once-huge aviation conglomerate to survive to the present day.

Curtiss-Wright Travel Air CW-12Q at Cotswold Airport, Gloucestershire, England

After the Government gave the development of the Whittle jet engine to GE, the company concentrated on reciprocating engines and propeller production for military transport and civilian airliners. With the approaching twilight of the big piston aircraft engine, Curtiss-Wright needed new design inspiration. For a brief time, Curtiss-Wright licensed rights to the Wankel rotary engine from NSU in 1958 as a possible aircraft power plant. For this major innovative engineering project, Curtiss-Wright relied extensively on the design leadership of NSU-Wankel engineer Max Bentele.

In 1954 United Airlines bought four flight simulators at a cost of $3 million dollars Curtiss-Wright that were like the earlier ones produced in the late 1940s for airliners plus they had visuals, sound and movement. This was the first of today's modern flight simulators for commercial aircraft.

In 1956, financially strapped automaker Studebaker-Packard Corporation entered into a management agreement with Curtiss-Wright as a means for the nation's fifth largest automobile manufacturer to avoid insolvency. The relationship lasted until 1959 at which time Curtiss-Wright withdrew from the agreement. The shift of civilian aircraft to jets left the company with little of its old business, and during the 1960s it shifted to components for aircraft and other types of equipment, such as nuclear submarines, a business that was still being conducted in 2009.

in 2007, Curtiss-Wright acquired Penny & Giles a supplier of Black Boxes, & sensing devices (Hybrid linear, hybrid rotary, and VRVT sensors)).^{[citation needed]}

In 2010, Curtiss-Wright acquired Hybricon Corporation for $19 million in cash. Hybricon is a supplier of electronic packaging for the aerospace, defense and commercial markets, and provides electronic subsystem integration.^{[citation needed]}

In 2011, Curtiss-Wright acquired Ireland based Acra Control for $61 million in cash. Acra Control is a supplier of data acquisition systems and networks, data recorders and telemetry ground stations for both defense and commercial aerospace markets.^{[citation needed]}

In the beginning of 2013, Curtiss-Wright acquired Exlar Corporation for $85 million in cash. Exlar, a private company, is a designer and manufacturer of highly engineered electric actuators used in motion control solutions in industrial and military markets. The acquired business will operate within Curtiss-Wright's Motion Control segment.^{[citation needed]}

Products

Aircraft

• Curtiss Bleeker SX-5-1 Helicopter
• Curtiss-Wright Junior
• Curtiss T-32 Condor II
• Curtiss-Wright CW-5
• Travel Air 6000
• Curtiss-Wright CW-12
• Travel Air 4000
• Curtiss-Wright CW-15
• Travel Air 4000
• Curtiss-Wright CW-19
• Curtiss C-46 Commando
• Curtiss-Wright CW-21
• Curtiss-Wright CW-22
• Curtiss AT-9
• Curtiss P-36 Hawk
• Curtiss P-40 Warhawk/Tomahawk/Kittyhawk
• Curtiss XP-53
• Curtiss-Wright XP-55 Ascender
• Curtiss P-60
• Curtiss XP-62
• Curtiss XP-71
• Curtiss SB2C Helldiver
• Curtiss SOC Seagull
• Curtiss SO3C Seamew
• Curtiss SC Seahawk
• Curtiss XF14C
• Curtiss XF15C
• Curtiss-Wright C-76 Caravan
• Curtiss-Wright XF-87 Blackhawk
• Curtiss-Wright X-19

Curtiss Electric propellers

As well as manufacturing engines, a range of electrically actuated constant speed three- and four-bladed propellers were manufactured under the name Curtiss Electric.

Curtiss-Wright Empire

Curtiss-Wright: Biggest Aviation Company Expands Its Empire. An overall perspective of how Curtiss-Wright stretches from St. Louis to Buffalo, and how its products flow from the factories to the U.S. aircraft industry. Dated: September 15, 1941.

See also

• United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp.
• George Conrad Westervelt

References

Bibliography

• Bowers, Peter M. Curtiss Aircraft 1907-1947. London: Putnam & Company Ltd., 1979. ISBN 0-370-10029-8.
• Eltscher, Louis R. and Young, Edward M. Curtiss-Wright – Greatness and Decline. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1998. ISBN 0-8057-9829-3.
• Gunston, Bill (2006). World Encyclopedia of Aero Engines, 5th Edition. Phoenix Mill, Gloucestershire, England, UK: Sutton Publishing Limited. ISBN 0-7509-4479-X. 

• House, Kirk W. Curtiss Wright. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-7385-3870-1.

External links

• Curtiss-Wright website
• Curtiss-Wright Controls website
• Curtiss-Wright Controls Avionics&Electronics website
• Acra Control website
• Curtiss-Wright Controls Electronics Systems website
• Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions website
• Curtiss-Wright Flow Control website
• Curtiss-Wright Metal Treatment website
• The Glenn Curtiss Companies: U.S. Centennial of Flight Commemoration
• History of the Aerospace Industry in Buffalo, NY