Early years On December 6, 1928,
Clement Melville Keys founded North American as a
holding company that bought and sold interests in various
airlines and aviation-related companies. However, the
Air Mail Act of 1934 forced the breakup of such holding companies. North American became a manufacturing company, run by
James H. "Dutch" Kindelberger, who had been recruited from
Douglas Aircraft Company. NAA did retain ownership of
Eastern Air Lines until 1938. In 1933, the
General Motors Corporation purchased a
controlling interest in NAA, and merged it with the
General Aviation Manufacturing Corporation, but retained the name North American Aviation. Kindelberger moved the company's operations from
Dundalk, Maryland, to
Los Angeles, California, which allowed flying year-round, and decided to focus on training aircraft, on the theory that it would be easier than trying to compete with established companies on larger projects. NAA's first planes were the
GA-15 observation plane and the GA-16 trainer, followed by the
O-47 and
BT-9, also called the GA-16. North American's follow-on to the BT-9 was the
T-6 Texan trainer, of which 17,000 were built, making it the most widely used trainer ever. The twin-engine
B-25 Mitchell bomber achieved fame in the
Doolittle Raid and was used in all combat theaters of operation. The
P-51 Mustang was initially produced for Britain as an alternative to the
Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, which North American had declined to produce under licence. The derivative
A-36 Mustang was developed as a ground attack aircraft and dive bomber. This was done, in part, to keep the airframe in production as the US Army Air Corps had not yet decided to purchase the type as a fighter. A suggestion by the
RAF that North American switch the P-51's powerplant from its original Allison engine to the
Rolls-Royce Merlin engine may have been one of the most significant events in World War II aviation, as it transformed the P-51 into what many consider to be the best American fighter of the war. Labor troubles became a grave issue in 1941. During the 22 months from August 1939 to June 1941 Stalin and Hitler supported each other as war raged in Europe. In the U.S., Communist local union officials opposed American aid to Britain's war against Germany. They called strikes in war industries that were supplying Lend Lease to Britain. The
United Auto Workers (UAW) won the election over the
International Association of Machinists and represented all the employees at the North American factory in Inglewood, California. UAW negotiators demanded the starting pay be raised from 50 cents an hour to 75 cents, plus a 10 cents raise for the 11,000 current employees. The national union had made a no-strike pledge but suddenly a wildcat strike by the local on June 5 closed the plant that produced a fourth of the fighters. The UAW national leader
Richard Frankensteen flew in but was unable to get the workers to return. So Washington intervened. With the approval of national CIO leadership, President Franklin Roosevelt on June 8 sent in the California national guard to reopen the plant with bayonets. Strikers were told to return immediately or be drafted into the US Army. They sullenly complied. However, when Germany suddenly invaded the USSR on June 22, the Communist activists suddenly became the strongest supporters of war production; they crushed wildcat strikes.
Post-war years Post-war, North American's employment dropped from a high of 91,000 to 5,000 in 1946. On
V-J Day, North American had orders from the U.S. government for 8,000 aircraft. A few months later, that had dropped to 24. the first nuclear reactor to produce power for a commercial power grid in the United States (the
Sodium Reactor Experiment located at the
Santa Susana Field Laboratory) and the first nuclear reactor launched into outer space (the
SNAP-10A). As overall interest in nuclear power declined, Atomics International transitioned to non-nuclear energy-related projects such as coal gasification and gradually ceased designing and testing nuclear reactors. Atomics International was eventually merged with the
Rocketdyne division in 1978.
Navigation and guidance, radar, and data systems Autonetics began in 1945 at North American's Technical Research Laboratory, a small unit in the Los Angeles Division's engineering department based in
Downey, California. The evolution of the
Navaho missile program resulted in the establishment of Autonetics as a separate division of North American Aviation in 1955, first located in Downey, later moving to
Anaheim, California in 1963. The division was involved in the development of
guidance systems for the
Minuteman ballistic missile system.
Space program mission In 1955, the rocket engine operations were spun off into a separate division as
Rocketdyne. This division furnished engines for the
Redstone,
Jupiter,
Thor,
Delta, and
Atlas missiles, and for
NASA's
Saturn family of
launch vehicles. North American designed and built the airframe for the
X-15, a rocket-powered aircraft that first flew in 1959. In 1959, North American built the first of several
Little Joe boosters used to test the
launch escape system for the
Project Mercury spacecraft. In 1960, the new CEO
Lee Atwood decided to focus on the
space program, and the company became the prime contractor for the
Apollo command and service module, a larger
Little Joe II rocket to test Apollo's launch escape system, and the
S-II second stage of the
Saturn V.
Merger and acquisition The fatal
Apollo 1 fire in January 1967 was initially blamed on the company in the press, although a congressional hearing later ruled otherwise. In September, it merged with Rockwell-Standard, and the merged company became known as
North American Rockwell. The company continued its involvement with the
Apollo program, building the Command and Service modules for all 11 missions. Within two years, the new company also was studying concepts for the
Space Shuttle, and won the
orbiter contract in 1972. In 1973, the company changed its name again to
Rockwell International and named its aircraft division North American Aircraft Operations. Rockwell International's defense and space divisions (including the North American Aviation divisions Autonetics and Rocketdyne) were sold to
Boeing in December 1996. Initially called Boeing North American, these groups were integrated with Boeing's
Defense division.
Rocketdyne was eventually sold by Boeing to
UTC Pratt & Whitney in 2005. UTC later sold Rocketdyne to
Aerojet (
GenCorp) in 2013. ==Products==