LA's is second to none! You guys are probably not even Americans--1st generation at best.
Hughes Aircraft Company was a major aerospace and defense company founded by
Howard Hughes. The group was based in
Culver City, California.
Hughes Aircraft was acquired by
General Motors in 1985. In 1995, Hughes Aircraft sold its automated wire and die bonder division to an investor group led by
Citicorp and incorporated the division as
Palomar Technologies. In 2008, Citicorp sold the bonder division to the current management team at Palomar Technologies
[1]. GM sold off the aerospace and defense operations during the late 1990s; Hughes Aircraft was sold to
Raytheon in 1997 and the
Hughes Research Laboratories became jointly owned by
Boeing, GM, and
Raytheon. Raytheon has since sold its share to GM and Boeing, but remains a customer of
Hughes Research Laboratories. Hughes Space and Communications Company was purchased by
Boeing in 2000 and renamed
Boeing Satellite Development Center. GM sold the remainder of Hughes Electronics to
News Corporation which renamed the company
DirecTV Group.
[edit] History
Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose"
Hughes' Galileo probe being deployed
Hughes-built NASA Surveyor lunar lander
In 1932,
Howard Hughes Jr. formed Hughes Aircraft Company operating out of
Grand Central Airport in Glendale as a division of the
Hughes Tool Company.
[2] In 1935 Hughes, with his trusted friend and aviation engineer
Glenn Odekirk, built the
H-1 Racer, which included every
streamlining concept then known, including retractable
landing gear, a fully enclosed cockpit, and the first use of recessed rivets. The H-1 captured a number of speed records during the next few years, and made Hughes a household name.[
citation needed]
During World War II the company designed and built several prototype aircraft including the famous
Hughes H-4 Hercules, better known as the "Spruce Goose". However the plant was used primarily 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.
[3]
Post World War II
Hughes Aircraft was one of many aerospace and defense companies which flourished in
Southern California during and after
World War II and was at one time the largest employer in the area.
In 1948 Hughes created a new division of the company, the
Aerospace Group. Two Hughes engineers,
Simon Ramo and
Dean Wooldridge, had new ideas on the packaging of electronics to make complete
fire control systems. Their
MA-1 system combined signals from the aircraft's
radar with an
analog computer to automatically guide the
interceptor aircraft into the proper position for firing missiles. At the same time other teams were working with the newly formed
US Air Force on air-to-air missiles, delivering the
AIM-4 Falcon, then known as the F-98. The MA-1/Falcon package, with several upgrades, was the primary interceptor weapon system in the US for many years, lasting into the 1980s. Ramo and Wooldridge, having failed to reach an agreement with Howard Hughes regarding management problems, resigned in September 1953. They founded the
Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation, later to join
Thompson Products to form
TRW, another aerospace company and a major competitor to Hughes Aircraft.
Howard Hughes donated Hughes Aircraft to the newly formed
Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1953 allegedly as a way of avoiding taxes on its huge income.
[4] The next year,
L.A. "Pat" Hyland was hired as vice president and general manager of Hughes Aircraft;
[2] he would ultimately become company president and CEO after Howard Hughes' death in 1976.
Under Hyland's guidance, the Aerospace Group continued to diversify and become massively profitable, and became a primary focus of the company. The company developed
radar systems, electro-optical systems, the first working
laser, aircraft computer systems, missile systems,
ion-propulsion engines (for space travel), and many other advanced technologies. The
Electronic Properties Information Center (EPIC)
[5] of the United States was hosted at the Hughes Culver City library in the 1970s. EPIC published the multi-volume
Handbook of Electronic Materials as public documents.
Nobel Laureates Richard Feynman and
Murray Gell-Mann had Hughes connections: Feynman would hold weekly seminars at
Hughes Research Laboratories; Gell-Mann shared an office with Malcolm Currie, later a Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer at Hughes Aircraft.
Greg Jarvis and
Ronald McNair, two of the astronauts on the
last flight of the
Space Shuttle Challenger were Hughes alumni.
Hughes Space and Communications Company
See also:
Boeing Satellite Development Center
Hughes Space and Communications Company was formed as a subsidiary of Hughes Aircraft in 1961 following the merger of the company's Space and Communications Group and the Hughes Space Systems Division.
[3] This division built the world's first geosynchronous
communications satellite,
Syncom, in 1963 and followed it closely with the first geosynchronous weather satellite, ATS-1, in 1966. Later that year their
Surveyor 1 made the first soft landing on the
Moon as part of the lead-up to the moon landings in
Project Apollo. Hughes also built
Pioneer Venus in 1978, which performed the first extensive radar mapping of
Venus, and the
Galileo probe that flew to
Jupiter in the 1990s.
[3] The company built nearly 40 percent of commercial satellites in service worldwide in 2000.
[6]
[edit] Hughes helicopter business
Main article:
Hughes Helicopters
In 1947, Howard Hughes redirected Hughes Aircraft's efforts from airplanes to helicopters. The effort began in earnest in 1948 when
helicopter manufacturer Kellett Aircraft Co. sold their latest design to Hughes for production. The
XH-17 "Sky Crane" first flew in October 1952, but was commercially unsuccessful. In 1955, Howard Hughes split the helicopter production unit from the Hughes Aircraft Company, and reconstituted it with Hughes Tool Company calling it
Hughes Tool Company's Aircraft Division. The Aircraft Division had a focus on the production of light helicopters, mainly the
Hughes 269/
300 and the
OH-6 Cayuse/
Hughes 500.
[edit] Timeline
- 1932: Howard Hughes formed Hughes Aircraft Company as a division of Hughes Tool Company.
- 1948: Hughes formed the Aerospace Group within the company, divided into:
- Hughes Space and Communications Group
- Hughes Space Systems Division
- 1953: The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) was formed, and Hughes Aircraft reformed as a subsidiary of the foundation. The Internal Revenue Service unsuccessfully challenged its "charitable" status which made it tax-exempt.
- 1955: Hughes formed its helicopter division, Aircraft Division
- 1960: The first laser is produced at Hughes Research Laboratories, by Theodore Maiman
- 1961: Hughes Space and Communications Company was formed, bringing together Hughes Space and Communications Group and the Hughes Space Systems Division and Hughes Research Laboratories completed its move to Malibu.
- 1972: Hughes sold the tool division of Hughes Tool Company. His remaining interests were transferred to the newly formed holding company, the Summa Corporation. This included Toolco Aircraft and Hughes' property and other businesses.
- 1976: Toolco Aircraft became Hughes Helicopters
- 1976: Howard Hughes dies at the age of 70, leaving no will
- 1984: The Summa Corporation sold Hughes Helicopters to McDonnell Douglas for $500 million; it was soon renamed McDonnell Douglas Helicopters.
- 1984: The Delaware Court of Chancery appointed eight trustees to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; they decide to sell Hughes Aircraft.
- 1985: The HHMI sold Hughes Aircraft to General Motors for $5.2 billion. This was merged with GM's Delco Electronics to form Hughes Electronics. This group then consisted of:
- Delco Electronics Corporation
- Hughes Aircraft Company
- Hughes Space and Communications Company
- Hughes Network Systems
- DirecTV
- 1987: Hughes Aircraft Company acquires M/A-COM Telecommunications, to form Hughes Network Systems
- 1994: Hughes Electronics introduces DirecTV
- 1995: Hughes Space and Communications Company became the world's biggest supplier of commercial satellites
- 1995: Hughes Electronics acquires Magnavox Electronic Systems from the Carlyle Group
- 1996: Hughes Electronics and PanAmSat agree to merge their fixed satellite services into a new publicly held company, also called PanAmSat with Hughes Electronics as majority shareholder.
- 1997: GM transferred Delco Electronics from Hughes Electronics to its Delphi Automotive Systems. Delphi became independent in 1999.
- 1997: The aerospace and defense operations of Hughes Electronics (Hughes Aircraft) are merged with Raytheon; Raytheon also acquired one half of the Hughes Research Laboratories
- 2000: Hughes Space and Communications Company remained independent until 2000, when it was purchased by Boeing and became Boeing Satellite Development Center. Boeing purchased one third of the HRL Laboratories, LLC which is now co-owned by Boeing, GM and Raytheon.
- 2003: The remaining parts of Hughes Electronics: DirecTV, DirecTV Latin America, PanAmSat and Hughes Network Systems were purchased by NewsCorp and renamed The DirecTV Group.
- Newscorp sold PanAmSat to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) in August 2004.
- SkyTerra Communications, Inc. completed its purchase of 100% controlling interest in Hughes Network Systems from the DirecTV Group in January 2006
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That thing you call TV.
