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32-626: Convair Astronautics was awarded a contract to deliver the S-V stage for the Saturn I . The stage was intended to boost lift capacity for U.S. military launches in the 1960s. The S-V would ultimately fly as the third stage on early launches of the Saturn I. Convair delivered two S-V stages in February 1961 with one being flown on SA-1 attached to an also inert S-IV, the second was used for dynamic testing of

64-701: A 247,000-square-foot (22,900 m ) continuous flow factory in San Diego, California. The first production PBY Catalina was launched in San Diego Bay in 1936, and the first XPB2Y-1 Coronado test aircraft made its first flight in 1937. Consolidated vice president Edgar Gott was responsible for securing the company's contract to design and build the B-24 Liberator bomber. The XB-24 Liberator prototype made its first flight in December 1939, and

96-515: A number of major contractors across a number of versions; it holds records as the world's most-produced bomber, heavy bomber, multi-engine aircraft, and American military aircraft in history. The Catalina remained in production through May 1945, and more than 4,000 were built. What was soon called "Convair" (first unofficially, and then officially), was created in 1943 by the merger of the Consolidated Aircraft Company and

128-531: A very reliable booster for launching of satellites and continued to evolve, remaining in use into the 21st century, when combined with the Centaur upper stage to form the Atlas-Centaur launch vehicle for launching geosynchronous communication satellites and space probes . The Centaur rocket was also designed, developed, and produced by Convair, and it was the first widely used outer space rocket to use

160-771: Is not related. Consolidated Aircraft (and later Convair) had their headquarters in San Diego, California , on the border of Lindbergh Field (KSAN). Consolidated's first design was one of those purchased by Fleet from Dayton-Wright, the TW-3 primary trainer, sold to the U.S. Army as the PT-1 Trusty . In September 1924 the company moved from the Gallaudet plant in Connecticut to new facilities in Buffalo, New York , and in

192-733: Is widely used today to calculate trigonometric functions in calculators , field-programmable gate arrays , and other small electronic systems. General Dynamics announced the sale of the Missile Systems Division segment of Convair to Hughes Aircraft Company in May 1992 and the Space Systems Division segment to Martin Marietta in 1994. In July 1994, General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas mutually agreed to terminate Convair's contract to provide fuselages for

224-504: The Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 , but somewhat faster than both. This combination of features failed to find a profitable niche and the company exited the airliner design business. However, the manufacturing capability built up for these projects proved very profitable and the company became a major subcontractor for airliner fuselages. The jets made their first flights on January 27, 1959 and January 24, 1961 respectively. 65 and 37 examples of

256-554: The Mirage fighter planes . One of Convair's most famous products was the ten-engined Convair B-36 strategic bomber, burning four turbojets and turning six pusher propellers driven by Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial piston engines. The Convair B-36 was the largest landbased piston engined bomber in the world. The Atlas missile , the F-102 Delta Dagger and F-106 Delta Dart delta-winged interceptors, and

288-581: The Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 space probes, the first two to be launched on trajectories that carried them out of the Solar System . In addition to aircraft, missiles, and space vehicles, Convair developed the large Charactron vacuum tubes, a form of cathode-ray tube (CRT) computer display with a shaped mask to form characters, and to give an example of a minor product, the CORDIC algorithms, which

320-529: The U.S. Air Force using V-2 technology motors in response to the Soviet missile threat. It was first launched in 1957 but its use as an ICBM was soon replaced in 1962 by the room-temperature liquid-fueled Titan II missile , and later by the solid-fueled Minuteman missile . The Atlas rocket transitioned into a civilian launch vehicle and was used for the first orbital crewed U.S. space flights during Project Mercury in 1962 and 1963. The Atlas rocket became

352-683: The Vultee Aircraft Company. This merger produced a large airplane company , ranked fourth among United States corporations by value of wartime production contracts, higher than the giants Douglas Aircraft , Boeing , and Lockheed . Convair always had most of its research, design, and manufacturing operations in San Diego County in Southern California , though surrounding counties participated as well, mostly as contractors to Convair. In March 1953, all of

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384-871: The 1920s and 1930s, for its line of flying boats . The most successful of the Consolidated patrol boats was the PBY Catalina , which was produced throughout World War II and used extensively by the Allies. Equally famous was the B-24 Liberator , a heavy bomber which, like the Catalina, saw action in both the Pacific and European theaters. In 1943 , Consolidated merged with Vultee Aircraft to form Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft, later known as Convair . The Los Angeles-based Consolidated Steel Corporation

416-551: The 300-seat MD-11 airliner. Manufacturing responsibility was to be transferred to McDonnell Douglas, which said it would not preserve the operation in San Diego. General Dynamics had tried for two years to sell the Aircraft structures segment of Convair unit, but the effort ultimately failed. The termination of the contract meant the end of the Convair Division and of General Dynamics' presence in San Diego, as well as

448-578: The B-24s, and its associated engineering locations and laboratories — all previously used to make hundreds of Consolidated B-24s, General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark fighter-bombers and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcons , along with dozens of smaller projects — were sold, along with all intellectual property and the legal rights to the products designed and built within, to the Lockheed Corporation . In 1996, General Dynamics deactivated all of

480-427: The Consolidated staff to meet defense production needs. By the fall of 1941, Consolidated was San Diego's largest employer with 25,000 employees, which eventually expanded to 45,000 by the following year. In November 1941, Fleet sold his 34.26% interest in Consolidated for $ 10.9 million to Victor Emanuel, the president of AVCO , with the idea that Consolidated would be merged with AVCO's Vultee subsidiary. To meet

512-543: The Convair 880 and Convair 990 were produced respectively. In 1994, most of the company's divisions were sold by General Dynamics to McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed , with the remaining components deactivated in 1996. Consolidated produced important aircraft in the early years of World War II , especially the B-24 Liberator heavy bomber and the PBY Catalina seaplane for the U.S. armed forces and their allies. Approximately 18,500 B-24s were produced by Consolidated and

544-744: The Convair company was bought by the General Dynamics Corporation , a conglomerate of military and high-technology companies, and it became officially the Convair Division within General Dynamics. After the beginning of the Jet Age of military fighters and bombers, Convair was a pioneer of the delta-winged aircraft design, along with the French Dassault aircraft company, which designed and built

576-463: The S-V. A version of this stage was also used on the Atlas-LV3C as the Centaur , modern derivatives of which are still flown today, making it the only Saturn rocket stage still currently operating. Ultimately, the S-V would go on to fly four times between 1961 and 1964. Each of which were flown on suborbital test flights of the Saturn I. Because of the suborbital nature of these flights, each S-V

608-646: The all- cryogenic fuel-oxidizer combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen . The use of this liquid hydrogen – liquid oxygen combination in the Centaur was an important direct precursor to the use of the same fuel-oxidizer combination in the Saturn S-II second stage and the Saturn S-IVB third stage of the gigantic Saturn V Moon rocket of the Apollo program . The S-IVB had earlier also been used as

640-572: The city's long aircraft-building tradition. The defense contractor once employed 18,000 people there, but after selling its divisions, that number is now zero. General Dynamics closed its complex in Kearny Mesa , demolishing the facility between 1994 and 1996. Homes and offices now occupy the site. The Lindbergh Field plant that produced B-24s during World War II was also demolished and the consolidated rental car facility now occupies this space. The Fort Worth, Texas factory, constructed to build

672-538: The complete Saturn I before being later flown. In May 1961 NASA eliminated the requirement for all Saturn I launches to be flown with S-V's by flying in a two-stage only version. Despite this, the stage would fly four times in total. With the introduction of the Saturn IB and the needs of the military fulfilled on other launches, all further launches would be on either the Saturn IB or Saturn V , neither of which used

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704-494: The delta-winged B-58 Hustler supersonic intercontinental nuclear bomber were all Convair products. For a period of time in the 1960s, Convair manufactured its own line of jet commercial airliners, the Convair 880 and Convair 990 Coronado , but this did not turn out to be profitable. However, Convair found that it was profitable to be an aviation subcontractor and manufacture large subsections of airliners — such as fuselages — for

736-399: The first Atlas rockets, including the rockets that were used for the crewed orbital flights of Project Mercury . The company's subsequent Atlas-Centaur design continued this success and derivatives of the design remain in use as of 2023. The company also entered the jet airliner business with its Convair 880 and Convair 990 designs. These were smaller than contemporary aircraft like

768-507: The first production order was from the French in 1940, just days before their surrender to Germany; six of these YB-24 Liberators were designated LB-30A and ferried to Britain. In 1940, Consolidated bought Hall-Aluminum Aircraft Corporation and dissolved the company. Archibald M. Hall was President of the company at the time and later became an executive of Consolidated. Several other Hall-Aluminum engineers and technical people were added to

800-474: The larger airliner companies, McDonnell Douglas , Boeing , and Lockheed . In the 1950s, Convair shifted money and effort to its missile and rocket projects, producing the Terrier missile ship-launched surface-to-air system for the U.S. Navy during the 1960s and 1970s. Convair's Atlas rocket , originally proposed in 1945 with a unique pressurized cylinder airframe, was revived in the 1950s as an ICBM for

832-593: The needs of the military during World War II, General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold decided to open a regular air transport service between the U.S. mainland and the Southwest Pacific in April 1942. The Ferry Command chose Consolidated as the operating agency, forming Consolidated Airways, Inc., also known as Consairways . The airlines carried personnel, cargo and delivered aircraft to the Pacific Theatre. It

864-594: The remaining legal entities of the Convair Division. Consolidated Aircraft The Consolidated Aircraft Corporation was founded in 1923 by Reuben H. Fleet in Buffalo, New York , the result of the Gallaudet Aircraft Company 's liquidation and Fleet's purchase of designs from the Dayton-Wright Company as the subsidiary was being closed by its parent corporation, General Motors . Consolidated became famous, during

896-671: The same year won a U.S. Navy contract for a naval version of the PT-1 designated the NY-1 . Lawrence D. Bell served as the Operating Head at Consolidated from 1929 to 1934. When the company relocated to San Diego, Bell decided to stay behind to start up his own company, the Bell Aircraft Corporation , in the former Consolidated plant. In September 1935 Consolidated moved across the country to its new "Building 1",

928-799: The second stage of the smaller Saturn IB rocket, such as the one used to launch Apollo 7 . The Centaur upper stage was first designed and developed for launching the Surveyor lunar landers, beginning in 1966, to augment the delta-V of the Atlas rockets and give them enough payload capability to deliver the required mass of the Surveyors to the Moon . More than 100 Convair-produced Atlas-Centaur rockets (including those with their successor designations) were used to successfully launch over 100 satellites, and among their many other outer-space missions, they launched

960-571: Was filled with water to act as ballast, making the stage inert. The water was released in space twice for Project Highwater . Modern derivatives of the stage are still in use today on the Atlas V and the Vulcan Centaur . (UTC) 15:06:04 14:00:34 17:45:02 20:11:55 Convair Convair , previously Consolidated Vultee , was an American aircraft-manufacturing company that later expanded into rockets and spacecraft . The company

992-620: Was formed in 1943 by the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft . In 1953, it was purchased by General Dynamics , and operated as their Convair Division for most of its corporate history. Convair is best known for its military aircraft; it produced aircraft such as the Convair B-36 Peacemaker and Convair B-58 Hustler strategic bombers, and the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and Convair F-106 Delta Dart interceptors. It also manufactured

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1024-465: Was reported to have carried more than 101 million tons of cargo and had flown more than 299 million passenger miles when it closed in 1945. In 1943 , Consolidated merged with Vultee Aircraft to form Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft or Convair . In March 1953, General Dynamics purchased a majority interest in Convair, where it continued to produce aircraft or aircraft components until being sold to McDonnell Douglas in 1994. McDonnell Douglas shut down

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