Wright-Martin

Wright-Martin 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.

Wright-Martin
IndustryAircraft manufacturing
FateReformed as Wright Aeronautical in 1919
PredecessorWright Company, Glenn L. Martin Company
SuccessorWright Aeronautical
Founded1916
Defunct1919
Key people
Orville Wright; Glenn L. Martin

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.[1]

A license-built version of the Hispano-Suiza 8 was manufactured by the company which was used by Vought VE-7, VE-8, Boeing NB-2, and Loening M-8.

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.[1]

Glenn Martin continued with development of his Glenn L. Martin Company, which continued as a major aircraft manufacturer until the 1950s and early 1960s, 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 -- which, in 1995, merged with Lockheed to become today's Lockheed-Martin, one of the United States's three remaining major large-aircraft manufacturers (along with Boeing and Northrop-Grumman).[2][3]

References
  1. 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
  2. Harwood, William B., book: [Raise Heaven and Earth: The Story of Martin Marietta], Simon & Schuster; (1993)
  3. The Founding of Lockheed Martin", official website of Lockheed Martin Corp., retrieved December 4, 2017
  • World War I advertisement for the Wright-Martin Aircraft Corporation - FIGHT or Join the Industrial Aircraft Service, Popular Science monthly, December 1918, page 91.
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