Hughes Aircraft Company

Hughes Aircraft Company

Hughes Aircraft Company logo, during most of the company's first 50 years
Industry	Aerospace and defense (Defense and Communications Electronics)
Fate	sold to Raytheon
Founded	1932 in Glendale, California
Founder	Howard Hughes
Headquarters	Culver City, El Segundo and Westchester, United States
Revenue	$11B peak, 1986
Owner	Hughes Tool Company (1932) Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1953) General Motors Corp (1985)
Number of employees	84,000 peak, 1985

The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded in 1932 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California as a division of Hughes Tool Company. The company was known for producing, among other products, the Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose" aircraft, the atmospheric entry probe carried by the Galileo spacecraft, and the AIM-4 Falcon guided missile.

It was acquired by General Motors from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1985. Hughes Aircraft was put under the umbrella of Hughes Electronics, now known as DirecTV, until GM sold its assets to Raytheon in 1997.

During World War II the company designed and built several prototype aircraft at Hughes Airport. These included the famous Hughes H-4 Hercules, better known by the public's nickname for it, the "Spruce Goose", the H-1 racer, D-2 and the XF-11. However the plant's hangars at Hughes Airport, location of present-day Playa Vista in the Westside of Los Angeles, California, were primarily used as a branch plant for the construction of other companies' designs. At the start of the war Hughes Aircraft had only four full-time employees—by the end the number was 80,000.