Convair
| Industry | Aerospace |
|---|---|
| Fate | Operations shutdown |
| Predecessor |
Consolidated Aircraft Vultee Aircraft |
| Founded | 1943 |
| Defunct | 1996 |
| Headquarters | San Diego, California, United States |
| Products | Aircraft |
| Parent |
General Dynamics (1953–1996) |
Convair was an American aircraft manufacturing company which later expanded into rockets and spacecraft. The company was formed in 1943 by the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft, and went on to produce aircraft such as the Convair B-36 bomber, the F-102 Delta Dagger, the F-106 Delta Dart, the B-58 Hustler bomber plus the Convair 880 and Convair 990 jet airliners. It also manufactured the first Atlas rockets, including the rockets that were used for the manned 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 2010. In 1994 most of the company's divisions were sold by then-owners General Dynamics to McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed, with the remaining components deactivated in 1996.
The Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, whose name was in the course of time changed to Convair, was an American aircraft, rocket, and spacecraft company for the design, development, and manufacturing of aerospace products. It existed as a company from 1943 until 1994, although the Consolidated Aircraft company existed before that, and 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. Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force, the British flying forces, and others. The Catalina remained in production through May 1945, and more than 4,000 were built. What was soon to be called "Convair" (first unofficially, and then officially), was created in 1943 by the merger of the Consolidated Aircraft Company and 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 like Douglas Aircraft, Boeing, and Lockheed. Convair always had most of its research, design, and manufacturing operations in San Diego County of Southern California, and nearby counties, though other locations were involved as well.
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