Wright-Martin

Wright-Martin Aircraft Corporation

Industry	Aerospace
Predecessors	Glenn L. Martin Company Wright Company
Founded	1916 (1916)
Defunct	1919 (1919)
Fate	Reformed as Wright Aeronautical in 1919
Successor	Wright Aeronautical
Headquarters	New Brunswick, New Jersey , U.S.
Key people	Glenn L. Martin Orville Wright
Subsidiaries	Wright Company Glenn L. Martin Company Simplex Automobile Company Wright Flying Field, Inc. General Aeronautic Company of America, Inc.
Footnotes / references [1][2]

Wright-Martin Model V

Wright-Martin Model V

Wright-Martin Aircraft Corporation was a short-lived aircraft manufacturing business venture between the Wright Company (after Orville Wright sold the Wright Company and divested himself from it) and Glenn L. Martin.

History

Company officials merged their respective organizations, the Wright Company and the Glenn L. Martin Company, in 1916.

The company continued and escalated the Wright brothers patent war with other aircraft manufacturers, until its resolution—under duress from the government, in 1917, at the start of U.S. involvement in World War I—by the cross-licensing agreement developed and managed through the Manufacturers Aircraft Association.^[3]

A license-built version of the Hispano-Suiza 8 was manufactured by the company under the engineering leadership of Henry M. Crane. It was used by Vought VE-7, VE-8, Boeing NB-2, and Loening M-8.

By 1918, the company had a factory in Long Island City, New York.^[4] Martin soon resigned, dissolving the Wright-Martin joint enterprise within a year. The company was renamed Wright Aeronautical in 1919, and shifted from manufacturing aircraft to manufacturing aircraft engines, developing the pivotal Wright Whirlwind engines which changed aviation dramatically.^[3]

He continued development of his Glenn L. Martin Company, which remained a major aircraft manufacturer until the 1950s, when it also began developing rockets, missiles, and spacecraft. In 1961, the company merged with the American-Marietta Corporation to become industrial conglomerate (and continued aerospace manufacturer) Martin Marietta; it merged with Lockheed in 1995 to become today's Lockheed Martin, one of the United States' three remaining major large aircraft manufacturers (along with Boeing and Northrop Grumman).^[5][6]

Aircraft

Model name	First flight	Number built	Type
Wright-Martin Model R		14[7]	Single engine biplane reconnaissance airplane
Wright-Martin Model V		1[7]	Single engine biplane reconnaissance airplane

References

1. The Story of the Aeroplane. Wright-Martin Aircraft Corporation. 1917. Retrieved 25 July 2021.
2. "Wright-Martin Aircraft Corp". Aviation and Aeronautical Engineering. Vol. 1, no. 8. 15 November 1916. pp. 240–241. Retrieved 9 September 2021.
3. Roland, Alex (foreword by Jimmy Doolittle), Chapter 2: "War Business: A Laboratory and Licensing; Committees and Engines, 1915-1918", in Model Research - Volume 1, SP-4103 National Aeronautics and Space Administration, retrieved December 4, 2017
4. "Development of the Wright-Martin Company". Aerial Age Weekly. Vol. 8, no. 6. Aerial Age Company. 21 October 1918. p. 305. Retrieved 13 July 2021.
5. Harwood, William B., book: [Raise Heaven and Earth: The Story of Martin Marietta], Simon & Schuster; (1993)
6. "The Founding of Lockheed Martin". Lockheed Martin. 28 March 2018. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
7. Eckland, K. O. (7 October 2008). "Wright, Wright-Bellanca, Wright-Martin". Aerofiles. Retrieved 25 July 2021.

External links

• World War I advertisement for the Wright-Martin Aircraft Corporation - FIGHT or Join the Industrial Aircraft Service, Popular Science monthly, December 1918, page 91.