Vultee Aircraft

Due to the Air Mail Act of 1934, AVCO established the Aviation Manufacturing Corporation (AMC) on November 30, 1934 through the acquisition of Cord's holdings, including Vultee's Airplane Development Corporation. AMC was liquidated on January 1, 1936 and Vultee Aircraft Division was formed as an autonomous subsidiary of AVCO.

Jerry Vultee was named vice president and chief engineer.[3] Vultee acquired the assets of the defunct AMC, including Lycoming Engines and Stinson Aircraft Company.

Meanwhile, Vultee and Breese had redesigned the V-1 to meet American Airlines' needs and created the eight-passenger V-1A. American purchased 11 V-1As, but sales of the aircraft failed to materialize because regulations were introduced requiring that aircraft used on scheduled passenger routes have two engines, and the V-1 was of little interest to other operators and only 25 were built. Vultee then developed the V-11 attack aircraft using the wings and tail from the V-1, which received sizable orders, albeit almost all from foreign countries with 40 for Turkey, 30 for China, 26 for Brazil, and 4 for the Soviet Union, where an additional 31 were built under licence. Hoped for orders from the United States Army Air Corps failed to materialize beyond test samples though, as the USAAC had made the decision to use only twin engine attack aircraft. This led to the development of the improved V-12, but aside from the prototype, all of these were sold to China, including three completed aircraft and 75 as knockdown kits of which at least 25 were assembled before Japanese troops overran the facility where they were being assembled.

By 1937, Vultee headed his own factory in Downey, California, with more than a million dollars in orders for V-1s, V-1As, and V-11s.[3]

In 1938, before Vultee became independent again, Jerry Vultee and his wife Sylvia Parker, daughter of Twentieth Century Fox film director Max Parker,[3] died in late January when the plane he was piloting crashed in a snowstorm near Sedona, Arizona.[5]

A bronze plaque memorializing the Vultees is located near the crash site at the end of Coconino Forestry and Vultee Arch Trails, where a natural rock arch named for them, the Vultee Arch, is located.[6] Donald P. Smith, Vultee's close friend and vice president of Vultee Aircraft, wrote a letter to TIME magazine about Vultee's death:

Sirs:

''Gerard F. Vultee ("Jerry"), not Gerald, my close friend and business associate for many years, was killed when the cabin monoplane he was flying with Mrs. Vultee crashed on the flat top of Wilson Mountain [TIME, Feb. 7]. ... Caught in a local snow-storm and blizzard with no training in blind or instrument flying, he was unable to find his way out. The fire occurred after the crash, not before.

DON P. SMITH Vice President

Vultee Aircraft Los Angeles, Calif.[7]

Hanging an engine on a BT-13 Valiant trainer at the Vultee aircraft plant, Downey, California in World War II.[8]

AVCO hired Dick Palmer away from Howard Hughes to take Jerry Vultee's place, and Vultee Aircraft Division began to develop military designs. Dick Palmer created the BT-13, BT-15, and SNV Valiant trainers[3] and oversaw other major production program such as the V-72 Vengeance, serving in the USAAC as the A-31 and A-35.

Vultee Aircraft was created in November 1939, when Vultee Aircraft Division of AVCO was reorganized as an independent company.[9][3]

The P-66 Vanguard was a 1941 fighter program that was intended for Sweden that was inherited by the USAAC, Great Britain and finally, China. The P-66 had a mediocre combat record in China and was out of service by 1943. The XP-54 fighter project was the last Vultee Aircraft design, but only two examples were built.[10][11][12]

Vultee was the first company to build aircraft on a powered assembly line, and the first to use women workers in production-line positions.

On March 17–18, 1943, Consolidated and Vultee merged, creating Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, popularly known as Convair.[13] The Vultee management resigned.[12][14][1]