After
Giuseppe Mario Bellanca, the designer and builder of Italy's first aircraft, moved to the United States in 1911, he began to design aircraft for a number of firms, including the
Maryland Pressed Steel Company,
Wright Aeronautical Corporation and the
Columbia Aircraft Corporation. Bellanca founded his own company, Bellanca Aircraft Corporation of America, in 1927, sited first in Richmond Hill, New York and moving in 1928 to New Castle (Wilmington), Delaware. In the 1920s and 1930s, Bellanca's aircraft of his own design were known for their efficiency and low operating cost, gaining fame for world record endurance and distance flights.
Lindbergh's first choice for his New York to Paris flight was a
Bellanca WB-2. The company's insistence on selecting the crew drove Lindbergh to
Ryan. Bellanca remained president and chairman of the board from the corporation's inception on the last day of 1927 until he sold the company to L. Albert and Sons in 1954. From that time on, the Bellanca line was part of a succession of companies that maintained the lineage of the original aircraft produced by Bellanca. In 2022, the company moved from Alexandria, Minnesota to Sulphur, Oklahoma. While as of 2024 the company website states "Bellanca recently opened a new aircraft factory and maintenance facility in Sulphur, Oklahoma," no new aircraft have been recently produced. ==Aircraft==