Convair, previously Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, was an American aircraft-manufacturing company that later expanded into

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

s and

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle that is designed spaceflight, to fly and operate in outer space. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including Telecommunications, communications, Earth observation satellite, Earth observation, Weather s ...

. The company was formed in 1943 by the merger of

Consolidated Aircraft The Consolidated Aircraft Corporation was founded in 1923 in aviation, 1923 by Reuben H. Fleet in Buffalo, New York, the result of the Gallaudet Aircraft Company's liquidation and Fleet's purchase of designs from the Dayton-Wright Company as the ...

and Vultee Aircraft. In 1953, it was purchased by

General Dynamics General Dynamics Corporation (GD) is an American publicly traded aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2020, it was the fifth largest defense contractor in the world by arms sales and fifth largest in the Unit ...

, and operated as their Convair Division for most of its corporate history. Convair is best known for its military aircraft; it produced aircraft such as the

Convair B-36 Peacemaker The Convair B-36 "Peacemaker" is a strategic bomber built by Convair and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) from 1949 to 1959. The B-36 is the largest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft ever built, although it was exceeded in spa ...

and

Convair B-58 Hustler The Convair B-58 Hustler, designed and produced by American aircraft manufacturer Convair, was the first operational bomber capable of Mach 2 flight. The B-58 was developed during the 1950s for the United States Air Force (USAF) Strategic Air ...

strategic bombers, and the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger and

Convair F-106 Delta Dart The Convair F-106 Delta Dart is an all-weather interceptor aircraft designed and produced by the American aircraft manufacturer Convair. The F-106 was designed in response to the 1954 interceptor program. Envisioned as an imagined "Ultimate I ...

interceptors. It also manufactured the first

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets. Atlases have traditio ...

rockets, including the rockets that were used for the crewed orbital flights of

Project Mercury Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...

. The company's subsequent

Atlas-Centaur The Atlas-Centaur was a United States expendable launch vehicle derived from the SM-65 Atlas D missile. The vehicle featured a Centaur (rocket stage), Centaur upper stage, the first such stage to use high-performance liquid hydrogen as fuel. La ...

design continued this success and derivatives of the design remain in use as of 2025. The company also entered the jet airliner business with its

Convair 880 The Convair 880 is a retired American Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body jet airliner produced by the Convair division of General Dynamics. It was designed to compete with the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 by being smaller but faster, a niche that f ...

and Convair 990 designs. These were smaller than contemporary aircraft like the

Boeing 707 The Boeing 707 is an early American long-range Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype, the initial first flew on Decembe ...

and

Douglas DC-8 The Douglas DC-8 (sometimes McDonnell Douglas DC-8) is an early long-range Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body jetliner designed and produced by the American Douglas Aircraft Company. Work began in 1952 towards the United States Air Force's (USA ...

, but somewhat faster than both. This combination of features failed to find a profitable niche and the company exited the airliner design business. However, the manufacturing capability built up for these projects proved very profitable and the company became a major subcontractor for airliner fuselages. The jets made their first flights on January 27, 1959 and January 24, 1961 respectively. 65 and 37 examples of the Convair 880 and Convair 990 were produced respectively. In 1994, most of the company's divisions were sold by General Dynamics to

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas Corporation was a major American Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own ...

and Lockheed, with the remaining components deactivated in 1996.

History

Origins

Consolidated produced important aircraft in the early years of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, especially the

B-24 Liberator The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models desi ...

heavy bomber and the

PBY Catalina The Consolidated Model 28, more commonly known as the PBY Catalina (U.S. Navy designation), is a flying boat and amphibious aircraft designed by Consolidated Aircraft in the 1930s and 1940s. In U.S. Army service, it was designated as the O ...

seaplane for the U.S. armed forces and their allies. Approximately 18,500 B-24s were produced by Consolidated and a number of major contractors across a number of versions; it holds records as the world's most-produced bomber, heavy bomber, multi-engine aircraft, and American military aircraft in history. The Catalina remained in production through May 1945, and more than 4,000 were built. What was soon called "Convair" (first unofficially, and then officially), was created in 1943 by the merger of the

Company and the Vultee Aircraft Company. This merger produced a large airplane company, ranked fourth among United States corporations by value of wartime production contracts, higher than the giants

Douglas Aircraft The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace and defense company based in Southern California. Founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr., it merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas, where it operated as a di ...

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

, and Lockheed. Convair always had most of its research, design, and manufacturing operations in

San Diego County San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of California, north to its border with Mexico. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634; it is the second-most populous ...

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

, though surrounding counties participated as well, mostly as contractors to Convair.

Jet Age, Cold War, and Space Age

In March 1953, all of the Convair company was bought by the General Dynamics Corporation, a conglomerate of military and high-technology companies, and it became officially the Convair Division within General Dynamics. After the beginning of the

Jet Age The Jet Age is a period in the history of aviation defined by the advent of aircraft powered by jet turbine engines and the social and cultural changes fostered by commercial jet travel. Jet airliners were able to fly higher, faster, and farth ...

of military fighters and bombers, Convair was a pioneer of the delta-winged aircraft design, along with the French Dassault aircraft company, which designed and built the Mirage fighter planes. One of Convair's most famous products was the ten-engined Convair B-36 strategic bomber, burning four turbojets and turning six pusher propellers driven by Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial piston engines. The Convair B-36 was the largest landbased piston engined bomber in the world. The Atlas missile, the F-102 Delta Dagger and F-106 Delta Dart delta-winged interceptors, and the delta-winged B-58 Hustler supersonic intercontinental nuclear bomber were all Convair products. For a period of time in the 1960s, Convair manufactured its own line of jet commercial airliners, the

and

Convair 990 Coronado The Convair 990 Coronado is a retired American narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body four-engined jet airliner produced between 1961 and 1963 by the Convair division of American company General Dynamics. It was a stretched version of its earlier Co ...

, but this did not turn out to be profitable. However, Convair found that it was profitable to be an aviation subcontractor and manufacture large subsections of airliners — such as fuselages — for the larger airliner companies,

, and Lockheed. In the 1950s, Convair shifted money and effort to its missile and rocket projects, producing the Terrier missile ship-launched surface-to-air system for the U.S. Navy during the 1960s and 1970s. Convair's Atlas rocket, originally proposed in 1945 with a unique pressurized cylinder airframe, was revived in the 1950s as an

ICBM An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...

for the U.S. Air Force using V-2 technology motors in response to the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

missile threat. It was first launched in 1957 but its use as an ICBM was soon replaced in 1962 by the room-temperature liquid-fueled Titan II missile, and later by the solid-fueled Minuteman missile. The Atlas rocket transitioned into a civilian launch vehicle and was used for the first orbital crewed U.S. space flights during

in 1962 and 1963. The Atlas rocket became a very reliable booster for launching of satellites and continued to evolve, remaining in use into the 21st century, when combined with the

Centaur A centaur ( ; ; ), occasionally hippocentaur, also called Ixionidae (), is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse that was said to live in the mountains of Thessaly. In one version o ...

upper stage to form the

launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage ...

for launching geosynchronous

communication satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. ...

s and

space probe Uncrewed spacecraft or robotic spacecraft are spacecraft without people on board. Uncrewed spacecraft may have varying levels of autonomy from human input, such as remote control, or remote guidance. They may also be autonomous, in which th ...

s. The Centaur rocket was also designed, developed, and produced by Convair, and it was the first widely used outer space rocket to use the all-

cryogenic In physics, cryogenics is the production and behaviour of materials at very low temperatures. The 13th International Institute of Refrigeration's (IIR) International Congress of Refrigeration (held in Washington, DC in 1971) endorsed a univers ...

fuel-oxidizer combination of

liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen () is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecule, molecular H2 form. To exist as a liquid, H2 must be cooled below its critical point (thermodynamics), critical point of 33 Kelvins, ...

and

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen, sometimes abbreviated as LOX or LOXygen, is a clear cyan liquid form of dioxygen . It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an application which is ongoing. Physical ...

. The use of this liquid hydrogen – liquid oxygen combination in the Centaur was an important direct precursor to the use of the same fuel-oxidizer combination in the Saturn

S-II The S-II (pronounced "S-two") was the second stage of the Saturn V rocket. It was built by North American Aviation. Using liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) it had five J-2 engines in a quincunx pattern. The second stage accelerated ...

second stage and the Saturn

S-IVB The S-IVB (pronounced "S-four-B") was the third stage on the Saturn V and second stage on the Saturn IB launch vehicles. Built by the Douglas Aircraft Company, it had one J-2 rocket engine. For lunar missions it was fired twice: first for Earth ...

third stage of the gigantic

Saturn V The Saturn V is a retired American super heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by NASA under the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon. The rocket was human-rated, had multistage rocket, three stages, and was powered by liquid-propel ...

Moon rocket of the

Apollo program The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in sp ...

. The S-IVB had earlier also been used as the second stage of the smaller Saturn IB rocket, such as the one used to launch

Apollo 7 Apollo 7 (October 11–22, 1968) was the first crewed flight in NASA's Apollo program, and saw the resumption of human spaceflight by the agency after the fire that had killed the three Apollo 1 astronauts during a launch rehearsal test ...

. The Centaur upper stage was first designed and developed for launching the

Surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the ...

lunar landers, beginning in 1966, to augment the

delta-V Delta-''v'' (also known as "change in velocity"), symbolized as and pronounced , as used in spacecraft flight dynamics, is a measure of the impulse per unit of spacecraft mass that is needed to perform a maneuver such as launching from or l ...

of the Atlas rockets and give them enough payload capability to deliver the required mass of the Surveyors to the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

. More than 100 Convair-produced Atlas-Centaur rockets (including those with their successor designations) were used to successfully launch over 100 satellites, and among their many other outer-space missions, they launched the

Pioneer 10 ''Pioneer 10'' (originally designated Pioneer F) is a NASA space probe launched in 1972 that completed the first mission to the planet Jupiter. ''Pioneer 10'' became the first of five artificial objects to achieve the escape velocity needed ...

and

Pioneer 11 ''Pioneer 11'' (also known as ''Pioneer G'') is a NASA robotic space probe launched on April 5, 1973, to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter and Saturn, the solar wind, and cosmic rays. It was the first probe to Exploration ...

space probes, the first two to be launched on trajectories that carried them out of the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

. In addition to aircraft, missiles, and space vehicles, Convair developed the large Charactron vacuum tubes, a form of

cathode-ray tube A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms on an oscilloscope, a ...

(CRT) computer display with a shaped mask to form characters, and to give an example of a minor product, the CORDIC algorithms, which is widely used today to calculate

trigonometric function In mathematics, the trigonometric functions (also called circular functions, angle functions or goniometric functions) are real functions which relate an angle of a right-angled triangle to ratios of two side lengths. They are widely used in all ...

s in

calculator An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-si ...

s, field-programmable gate arrays, and other small electronic systems.

Dissolution

General Dynamics announced the sale of the Missile Systems Division segment of Convair to

Hughes Aircraft Company The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of the Hughes Tool Company. The company produced the Hughes H-4 Hercules air ...

in May 1992 and the Space Systems Division segment to

Martin Marietta The Martin Marietta Corporation was an American company founded in 1961 through the merger of Glenn L. Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation. In 1995, it merged with Lockheed Corporation to form Lockheed Martin. History Martin Marie ...

in 1994. In July 1994, General Dynamics and

mutually agreed to terminate Convair's contract to provide fuselages for the 300-seat MD-11 airliner. Manufacturing responsibility was to be transferred to McDonnell Douglas, which said it would not preserve the operation in San Diego. General Dynamics had tried for two years to sell the Aircraft structures segment of Convair unit, but the effort ultimately failed. The termination of the contract meant the end of the Convair Division and of General Dynamics' presence in San Diego, as well as the city's long aircraft-building tradition. The defense contractor once employed 18,000 people there, but after selling its divisions, that number is now zero. General Dynamics closed its complex in Kearny Mesa, demolishing the facility between 1994 and 1996. Homes and offices now occupy the site. The Lindbergh Field plant that produced B-24s during

was also demolished and the consolidated rental car facility now occupies this space. The

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...

factory, constructed to build the B-24s, and its associated engineering locations and laboratories — all previously used to make hundreds of Consolidated B-24s,

General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark The General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark is a retired supersonic, medium-range, multirole combat aircraft. Production models of the F-111 had roles that included attack (e.g. interdiction), strategic bombing (including nuclear weapons capabiliti ...

fighter-bombers and

General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American single-engine supersonic Multirole combat aircraft, multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superio ...

s, along with dozens of smaller projects — were sold, along with all intellectual property and the legal rights to the products designed and built within, to the

Lockheed Corporation The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturer. Lockheed was founded in 1926 and merged in 1995 with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin. Its founder, Allan Lockheed, had earlier founded the similarly named but otherwise-u ...

. In 1996, General Dynamics deactivated all of the remaining legal entities of the Convair Division.

Timeline

Central Manufacturing Co. of Connersville, Indiana
, a history of Cord, AVCO, and others * 1923 Consolidated Aircraft Corporation formed by Major Reuben H. Fleet * 1934 AVCO acquired the Airplane Development Corporation from Cord and formed the Aviation Manufacturing Corporation (AMC) * 1936 AMC liquidated to form the Vultee Aircraft Division, an autonomous subsidiary of AVCO * 1939 Vultee Aircraft Division of AVCO reorganized as an independent company known as Vultee Aircraft, Inc. * 1941 Consolidated Aircraft Corporation sold to AVCO * 1943 Consolidated-Vultee, formed by the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft; still controlled by AVCO * 1947 Convair acquired by the

Atlas Corporation The Atlas Corporation is an American investment firm that was formed in 1928. History Atlas corporation was formed in 1928, in a merger of the United Corporation, an investment firm started in 1923 with $40,000, with Atlas Utilities and Investo ...

* 1953-1954 Convair acquired by

* 1985 General Dynamics formed their "Space Systems Division" from the Convair Space Program * 1992 Missile Systems Division sold to

* 1993 The Fort Worth facility sold to

(now

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...

) * 1994 Space Systems Division sold to

(now

) * 1994 Convair Aircraft Structures unit sold to

(now

)

Products

Aircraft

Missiles and rockets

* RTV-A-2 Hiroc (1946) – high-altitude rocket * SAM-N-2 Lark (late 1940s) – surface-to-air naval missile * MX-774 (1948) – precursor to Atlas * XSM-74 (1950s) – decoy cruise missile * RIM-2 Terrier (1951) – surface-to-air naval missile * RIM-24 Tartar (1962) – surface-to-air naval missile * XGAM-71 Buck Duck (1955) – decoy missile * Sky Scorcher (1956) – proposed air-to-air missile * Pye Wacket (1957) – air-to-air defensive missile project, cancelled during development * FIM-43 Redeye (1960) – man-portable surface-to-air missile *

Atlas (rocket family) Atlas is a family of US missiles and space launch vehicles that originated with the SM-65 Atlas. The Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program was initiated in the late 1950s under the Convair Division of General Dynamics. Atlas was ...

(1959) The Atlas civilian space booster ** Atlas E/F ** Atlas G **

Atlas H The Atlas H was an American expendable launch system derived from the SM-65 Atlas missile. It was a member of the Atlas (rocket family), Atlas family of rockets, and was used to launch five clusters of Naval Ocean Surveillance System, NOSS satell ...

Atlas LV-3B The Atlas LV-3B, Atlas D Mercury Launch Vehicle or Mercury-Atlas Launch Vehicle, was a Human-rating certification, human-rated expendable launch system used as part of the United States Project Mercury to send astronauts into low Earth orbit. M ...

** Atlas SLV-3 ** Atlas-Able **

Atlas-Agena The Atlas-Agena was an American expendable launch system derived from the SM-65 Atlas missile. It was a member of the Atlas (rocket family), Atlas family of rockets, and was launched 109 times between 1960 and 1978. It was used to launch the first ...

SM-65 Atlas The SM-65 Atlas was the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. It was built for the U.S. Air Force by the Convair Division of General ...

– The Atlas ICBM Air Force missile (1957) ** Convair X-11 and SM-65A Atlas (1957) – Atlas A prototype ** Convair X-12 and SM-65B Atlas (1958 – Atlas B prototype ** SM-65C Atlas ** SM-65D Atlas ** SM-65E Atlas ** SM-65F Atlas **

(1962) and its successor-designations, all of which combined an Atlas booster with a centaur upper stage – a civilian rocket to launch spacecraft to outer space. *

(1962) * BGM-109 Tomahawk long-range, all-weather, subsonic cruise missile. * AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missile (1983) – stealthy, nuclear, air-launched cruise missile

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Aerospacelegacyfoundation.org

* Employee newspaper,
Convairiety
'' at the Fort Worth Public Library Archives. {{Authority control General Dynamics 1943 establishments in California 1953 mergers and acquisitions 1996 disestablishments in California Aerospace companies of the United States American companies established in 1943 American companies disestablished in 1996 Companies based in San Diego County, California Computer companies established in 1943 Computer companies disestablished in 1996 Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United States Defunct companies based in California Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct technology companies based in California Lockheed Corporation Manufacturing companies based in California Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1996 Manufacturing companies established in 1943 McDonnell Douglas mergers and acquisitions Technology companies based in San Diego Technology companies established in 1943 Technology companies disestablished in 1996