United Aircraft
| Industry | Aerospace |
|---|---|
| Predecessor | United Aircraft and Transport Corporation |
| Successor | United Technologies Corporation |
| Founded | 1934 |
| Headquarters | Hartford, Connecticut, United States |
|
Key people
|
Frederick Rentschler, founder; George J. Mead, senior engineer |
The United Aircraft Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer formed by the break-up of United Aircraft and Transport Corporation in 1934. In 1975, the company became the United Technologies Corporation.
The Air Mail scandal of the early 1930s resulted in a rebuilt air mail system, under the Air Mail Act of 1934, in which carriers and their equipment manufacturers (e.g., of airframes and engines) could no longer be owned by the same company. The United Aircraft and Transport Corporation was broken up as a result of this new law. The corporation's airline interests went on to become United Airlines. Its manufacturing interests east of the Mississippi River--Pratt & Whitney, Chance Vought, and Sikorsky—remained together as the new United Aircraft Corporation, headquartered in Hartford with Frederick Rentschler, founder of Pratt & Whitney, as president. All manufacturing interests west of the Mississippi became part of a revived Boeing Aircraft.
The latter half of the 1930s saw military procurement buildups around the world as governments foresaw possible war on the horizon. United Aircraft sold to both the United States Army and the United States Navy, but the Navy's requirements for carrier-based aircraft, with maximized power-to-weight ratios for minimized takeoff runway length, were always more in tune with the specialties of United's subsidiaries (Pratt & Whitney, Chance Vought, and Sikorsky).
...
Wikipedia