The Pioneer Instrument Company was an American aircraft component manufacturer.

History

The Pioneer Instrument Company was started by Morris Maxey Titterington and Brice Herbert Goldsborough in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

in 1919 using patents from the Lawrence Sperry Aircraft Corporation. Charles Herbert Colvin was the president. They specialized in aeronautical instruments including a bubble

sextant A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of cel ...

and the Earth Inductor Compass. The company later acquired control of Brandis & Sons, Inc., in 1922, and Pioneer was later acquired by the Bendix Aviation Corporation in 1928. As the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

was entering

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 ...

, the company became the Pioneer Instrument Division of Bendix Aviation, and moved to

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

. By 1943 it had merged with the Eclipse Machine Company to become the Eclipse-Pioneer Division of

Bendix Aviation Bendix Corporation is an American manufacturing and engineering company founded in 1924 and subsidiary of Knorr-Bremse since 2002. During various times in its existence, Bendix made automotive brake shoes and systems, vacuum tubes, aircraft ...

. The Pioneer division did not survive the end of the Bendix Corporation in 1983.

Products

* ST-90 for the Jupiter and early Saturn I * ST-80 for the

PGM-11 Redstone The PGM-11 Redstone was the first large American ballistic missile. A short-range ballistic missile (SRBM), it was in active service with the United States Army in West Germany from June 1958 to June 1964 as part of NATO's Cold War defense of ...

* ST-120 for the

Pershing missile The MGM-31A Pershing was the missile used in the Pershing 1 and Pershing 1a field artillery missile systems. It was a solid-fueled two-stage theater ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the PGM-11 Redstone missile a ...

* ST-124-M3 inertial platform for the

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 ...

References

Notes

Bibliography

* 1919 establishments in New York (state) Aerospace companies of the United States Aircraft component manufacturers of the United States American companies established in 1919 American companies disestablished in 1983 Companies based in New Jersey Electronics companies established in 1919 Electronics companies disestablished in 1983 Bendix Corporation {{US-manufacturing-company-stub