The Vought V-141 (which was later redesignated V-143 after modification) was a prototype American single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s. It was a development of the unsuccessful Northrop 3-A design, but was itself a failure, being rejected by the United States Army Air Corps . The sole prototype was sold to the Japanese Army in 1937, but no production followed, with the type proving to be inferior to existing Japanese fighters.
21-512: In 1935, Northrop had flown the Northrop 3A, a single-engined, single-seat monoplane with a fixed undercarriage, to meet a United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) requirement for a single-seat fighter. This was a development of Northrop's XFT prototype carrier fighter, and shared the XFT's instability and tendency to enter spins . The sole Northrop 3A prototype disappeared during a test flight over
42-503: A batch of 25 aircraft (excluding engines and Government provided equipment), reducing to $ 16,041 for a batch of 200 aircraft. Testing showed that the V-141 still had poor handling and was prone to spinning, and also suffered from tail flutter , leading to it being rejected. The primary winner of the competition was Seversky, with 77 P-35s being ordered. Vought then offered it for export, modifying it with larger tail surfaces and renaming it
63-538: A subsidiary named "Northrop Aircraft Corporation" (and later became part of Boeing ). The parent company moved its operations to Kansas in 1931, and so Jack, along with Donald Douglas , established a "Northrop Corporation" located in El Segundo, California , which produced several successful designs, including the Northrop Gamma and Northrop Delta . However, labor difficulties led to the dissolution of
84-891: The Light Weight Fighter program was announced, the P-530 was stripped of much of its equipment to become the P-600, and eventually the YF-17 Cobra , which lost the competition to the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon . Nevertheless, the YF-17 Cobra was modified with help from McDonnell Douglas to become the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet in order to fill a similar lightweight design competition for
105-650: The Mississippi River (Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky, Vought, and Hamilton Standard Propeller Company) were merged as United Aircraft Corporation (later United Technologies Corporation ), headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut , with Rentschler as president. The western manufacturing interests (including Northrop Aviation Corporation, formerly Avion Corporation), became Boeing Airplane Company , headquartered in Seattle . The airline interests were merged into
126-664: The US Navy . Northrop intended to sell a de-navalized version as the F-18L, but the basic F-18A continued to outsell it, leading to a long and fruitless lawsuit between the two companies. Northrop continued to build much of the F-18 fuselage and other systems after this period, but also returned to the original F-5 design with yet another new engine to produce the F-20 Tigershark as a low-cost aircraft. This garnered little interest in
147-587: The 3A, the V-141 was a low-wing monoplane with a retractable tailwheel undercarriage and an enclosed cockpit. It was powered by a 750 hp (560 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-1535 Twin Wasp Junior radial engine , a slightly more powerful version of the engine that powered the 3A. The competing bids were evaluated by the Air Corps in April 1936. Vought offered to sell V-141s at a unit price of $ 34,148 for
168-766: The Boeing School of Aeronautics, United Aircraft Exports, United Airports Company of California, which built an airport at Burbank, and the United Airports of Connecticut, which built factories in East Hartford for Pratt & Whitney and Chance Vought. The first annual report lists William Boeing as chairman, Frederick Rentschler as president, and Chance M. Vought , Philip G. Johnson , and George Wheat as vice presidents. The Standard Steel Propeller Company were added to United's portfolio shortly thereafter, followed by several airlines also brought into
189-623: The Curtiss 75 was selected instead. Further rejections from Turkey, Norway and Yugoslavia followed. This led to Vought, in a final attempt to solve the fighter's handling problems, to rebuild the aircraft again in May 1937, with a longer rear fuselage and a new taller tail resembling that of the Vought SB2U . The engine was replaced by an 825 hp (615 kW) R-1535-SB4G. Thus modified, the V-143
210-643: The F-5 was the N-300 , which featured much more powerful engines and moved the wing to a higher position to allow for increased ordnance that the higher power allowed. The N-300 was further developed into the P-530 with even larger engines, this time featuring a small amount of "bypass" ( turbofan ) to improve cooling and allow the engine bay to be lighter, as well as much more wing surface. The P-530 also included radar and other systems considered necessary on modern aircraft. When
231-539: The Pacific on 30 July 1935, and Northrop decided to abandon further development of the 3A. The Air Corps' requirement for a new fighter was still outstanding however, with final evaluation being delayed several times. Despite the warnings of his engineers, Eugene Wright, President of Vought , decided to buy the 3A project from Northrop with the hope of winning orders from the Air Corps, the purchase being agreed early in 1936. Vought's design team had little time to work on
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#1732788034033252-690: The Vought V-143. This was offered to Argentina as a replacement for its obsolete Dewoitine D.21s . When it came to be tested in Argentina, Curtiss-Wright representatives, eager to sell the Curtiss 75 , pointed out that the Vought was fitted with an anti-spin parachute in the tail. When the Argentines demanded that the spin characteristics be demonstrated without the parachute, Vought refused, and
273-668: The company bought Grumman to form Northrop Grumman . United Aircraft and Transport Corporation The United Aircraft and Transport Corporation was formed in 1929, when William Boeing of Boeing Airplane & Transport Corporation teamed up with Frederick Rentschler of Pratt & Whitney to form a large, vertically integrated , amalgamated firm, uniting business interests in all aspects of aviation —a combination of airframe and aircraft engine manufacturing and airline business, to serve all aviation markets, both civil aviation (cargo, passenger, private , air mail ) and military aviation . The holding company controlled
294-483: The corporation by Douglas in 1937, and the plant became the El Segundo Division of Douglas Aircraft . Northrop still sought his own company, and so in 1939 he established the "Northrop Corporation" in nearby Hawthorne, California , a site located by co-founder Moye Stephens . The corporation ranked 100th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. It
315-707: The fold. The airline interests were soon grouped under a new management company known as United Air Lines, Inc. However, the individual airlines (as well as the individual companies held by United) continued to operate under their own names. After the Air Mail scandal of 1934, the U.S. government concluded that such large holding companies as United Aircraft and Transport were anti-competitive, and new antitrust laws were passed forbidding airframe or aircraft engine manufacturers from having interests in airlines. This law forced United Aircraft and Transport to split into three separate companies. Its manufacturing interests east of
336-644: The market, and the project was dropped. In 1985, Northrop bought northrop.com, the sixth .com domain created. Based on the experimentation with flying wings the company developed the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber of the 1990s. In 1994, partly due to the loss of the Advanced Tactical Fighter contract to Lockheed Corporation and the removal of their proposal from consideration for the Joint Strike Fighter competition ,
357-432: The new fighter if it was to compete in the Air Corps competition, and changes made to the design purchased from Northrop were relatively small, with an enlarged rudder being fitted in a bid to solve the handling problems of the XFT and 3A, while the undercarriage and engine cowling were also modified. In this form, the prototype fighter, designated Vought V-141 by the manufacturer, made its first flight on 29 March 1936. Like
378-1064: The stock of several United Equipment Companies, including the Boeing Airplane Company of Seattle , the Northrop Aircraft Corporation , the Chance Vought Corporation , the Hamilton Aero Manufacturing Company (a propeller manufacturer), and the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company , the Sikorsky Aviation Corporation , the Stearman Aircraft Company of Wichita, Kansas . United Transport Companies included Boeing Air Transport, Pacific Air Transport , and Stout Air Services . Other United Operations included
399-568: Was an American aircraft manufacturer from its formation in 1939 until its 1994 merger with Grumman to form Northrop Grumman . The company is known for its development of the flying wing design, most successfully the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. Jack Northrop founded 3 companies using his name. The first was the Avion Corporation in 1928, which was absorbed in 1929 by the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation as
420-791: Was tested again by the USAAC in June 1937 but was rejected again. The V-143 prototype was finally purchased by Japan in July 1937 for $ 175,000. It underwent a technical evaluation by the Japanese Navy as the Navy Experimental Fighter Type V (for Vought) ( short designation AXV1), although they had no intention of using them. Data from The American Fighter General characteristics Performance Armament Northrop Corporation Northrop Corporation
441-823: Was there that the P-61 Black Widow night fighter , the B-35 and YB-49 experimental flying wing bombers, the F-89 Scorpion interceptor , the SM-62 Snark intercontinental cruise missile , and the F-5 Freedom Fighter economical jet fighter (and its derivative, the successful T-38 Talon trainer) were developed and built. The F-5 was so successful that Northrop spent much of the 1970s and 1980s attempting to duplicate its success with similar lightweight designs. Their first attempt to improve
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