OT, Where did they go?

Actually would be interesting to start just before WW II. Not sure how long companies like Brewster actually lasted. Did they survive the war. Especially with most of the shop in the Bund.

Anyway there was a merger chart in Time or Newsweek when the real industry merger craze was starting. Maybe about 10 or 11 years ago.

Maybe with enough inputs we can construct one. Gotta be messy when companies merged and then they spun off parts to other companies. Need a product line dimension and spin -off.

Look at Grumman - at one time there were aircraft carriers with only Grumman planes on the deck. They merge with Northrop. Now Northrop Grumman is the only company building Carriers - and just parts of carrier aircraft.

Val Kraut

The best I could find was a web site listing aircraft manufacturers in alphabetical order with links to company historoes. Site seems to be a work in progress as some histories aren't done yet. Interesting if you have a specific company in mind - example Brewster life-span was

1932~1942.

One that would interest me would delieate how all the British manufacturers ended up in BAe except Westlands (or did they?). The French manufacturers also all seem to have grouped up and disappeared behind acronyms.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Bloch was a French Jew hidden by a Catholic family at mortal risk to their lives.

After the war Bloch changed his name to that of the family who saved him, slightly changing it to Dassault.

Tom

That's an easy one - it was the same as Britain's car industry. Correct me if I'm wrong, you Brits, but IIRC, the govenment in power at the time - mid

50s/early 60s? - (probably Labour - they seem to be the bas****s of the piece!) saw that the industry was ailing and instead of doing the smart thing and encouraging each maker to compete with the others, as well as overseas manufacturers, took the political decision to merge all the makers into one - BAe in the case of the aero industry (it wasn't called that originally, I think, but it is now!) and British Leyland for cars. The result - complete loss of anything resembling pride, achievment or product development - with a very few notable exceptions. It's probably a little more complicated than that, but you get the gist.

RobG

I think that was from not being able to develop the P-40 farther (though it did indirectly lead to the P-51) and problems with the Helldiver and Curtiss-built P-47s.

Try doing it this way (I did it myself a few years ago). Go to your local library and look up the "Jane's" series of aircraft books. In addition to having a wealth of data on some really obscure modeling subjects, they always had a brief write-up on the (then) current status of the different manufacturers.

Tell me about it. C-W and Consolidated were both located in Buffalo; C-W's factory (one of threee or so that I know of) by the Buffalo Airport was sold to Westinghouse and torn down last year. Consolidated's was to to a tin can manufacturer and somebody else has it now.

-- John The history of things that didn't happen has never been written. . - - - Henry Kissinger

Beg, borrow, steal or get from your lending library a copy of "Project Cancelled" by Derek Wood. Appendix 1 is exactly what you want to see, (well, starting from 1946) and Appendix 2 is the equivalent for engine manufacturers.

To summarise, missing out some details: AV Roe, Hawker, Airspeed, De Havilland, General Aircraft, Blackbur and Folland became Hawker Siddley in 1959-60. Gloster merged with Armstrong-Whitworth who were assimilated by HS.

Bristol, English Electric, Percival and Vickers Armstrong became BAC in

1960.

HS, BAC and Scottish Aviation became BAe in 1977.

Westland, Cierva, Saunders-Roe, Bristol (helo bits) and Fairey became Westlands in 1959-60.

Auster became Beagle in 1962 and closed in 1970 Miles shut down in 1947 Handley Page was liquidated in 1970 Bolton Paul stopped aircraft design in the '50's and became part of Dowty in 1961.

FWIW I read an article by Donovan Berlin (designer of the Curtiss P-36/P-40 series) and he attributed their decline to "Corporate Senility". Essentially, times changed and Curtiss' management didn't.

Bill Shuey

EGMcCann wrote:

Yep, IIRC, d'assault was his resistance name. I was thinking along the lines of Nord, Sud-Ouest, SNECMA, etc.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Curtiss-Wright did a job on Studebaker-Packard too back in the late '50s. They had a King-Midas-in-reverse touch after the P-40.

Bill Banaszak, MFE