Edo Aircraft Corporation
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EDO Aircraft Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturing company known primarily for manufacturing pontoons for
floatplane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...
s.


History

The EDO Aircraft Corporation began operations on October 16, 1925 in
College Point, New York College Point is a working-middle-class neighborhood in the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of Queens. It is bounded to the south by Whitestone Expressway and Flushing, Queens, Flushing; to the east by 138th Street and Malba, Que ...
. Although its founder, Earl Dodge Osborne, had dreamed of building
airplane An airplane (American English), or aeroplane (Commonwealth English), informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, Propeller (aircraft), propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a vari ...
s, his first successful product line was EDO floats. Because of a new innovative design, the use of
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rather than wood, and the scarcity of hard-surfaced runways in the 1920s, demand built quickly for the floats. With the outbreak 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 ...
, the company's focus shifted, and EDO began to provide subassemblies for
military aircraft A military aircraft is any Fixed-wing aircraft, fixed-wing or rotorcraft, rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary military of any type. Some military aircraft engage directly in aerial warfare, while others take on su ...
of the U.S. Naval Air Corps, U.S. Army Air Forces, and foreign air forces. This shift in emphasis led to the company's being renamed the EDO Corporation in November 1947. EDO built a factory in 1940 on
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, designed by the NYC firm of Malmfeldt, Adams & Prentice. Construction cost was $305,000.


EDO-Aire

In June 1950, Ray Erwin (died 1961) founded the Erwin Sales Company. On 1 March 1952 its operations were reorganized as Garwin Inc., whose business was rebuilding aircraft instruments and accessories. By late 1952 it was also manufacturing its own instruments. In 1963 it became Garwin-Carruth Inc. In 1966 it was sold to Weston Instruments. By 1966 it was marketing throughout South America and Europe as well as the United States. In 1969, EDO Corporation purchased the Wichita Division of the Weston Instrument Company. In 1969 EDO also purchased control of Electronic Equipment Engineering, Inc. of Dallas, Texas. EEE designed and produced radio/audio control equipment for long-range aircraft. EEE was moved to Wichita in 1970. The consolidated company was named EDO-Aire. By the 1980s, the light aircraft industry was in a prolonged deep slump. Annual production had shrunk from over 12,000 units to around 1,600. In 1982, EDO Aircraft Corporation made a business decision to divest itself of the EDO-Aire Group, ending a 60–year presence in the aviation industry. In April 1983, four former directors of EDO-Aire Wichita formed Sigma Tek, Inc. and purchased the assets of EDO-Aire Wichita from EDO Corporation (the deal was finalized on 25 May 1983). A Wichita Kansas aviation services company, Sigma Tek, was founded in 1983 after its principals had been employed by EDO Corporation.


EDO floats

EDO earned its original fame as the world's principal producer of pontoon floats for aircraft, starting before World War II. EDO floats were developed for the most popular aircraft, ranging from
Piper Cub The Piper J-3 Cub is an American light aircraft that was built between 1938 and 1947 by Piper Aircraft. The aircraft has a simple, lightweight design which gives it good low-speed handling properties and short-field performance. The Cub is P ...
s to the
Douglas C-47 The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota ( RAF designation) is a military transport aircraft developed from the civilian Douglas DC-3 airliner. It was used extensively by the Allies during World War II. During the war the C-47 was used for troo ...
. EDO's leadership in this field continued well into the 1970s, when it began to get significant competition from Wipaire and their Wipline floats. The Kenmore Air Company, a small transportation company founded in the Seattle Washington area after
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 ...
, soon augmented its charter operations with maintenance, sales and restoration work. It acquired the sales rights for EDO floats in the northwestern United States. As EDO Corporation began moving to divest itself of its aircraft-related affiliations in the 1980s, it sold the name and rights of EDO floats to Kenmore.''Kenmore Air Floatplane Operation, Now 70, Earned Its Cachet''
William Garvey,
Aviation Week & Space Technology ''Aviation Week & Space Technology'', often abbreviated ''Aviation Week'' or ''AW&ST'', is the flagship magazine of the Aviation Week Network, a division of Informa. The weekly magazine is available in print and online, reporting on the aeros ...
, 28 September 2016


Products

* EDO floats * 1925 EDO B monoplane * Edo Malolo flying boat * Edo OSE floatplane


References


External links

{{commons category, Edo Aircraft Corporation
Long Island Technology Hall of Fame
Aircraft component manufacturers Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United States Defunct manufacturing companies based in New York City Manufacturing companies established in 1925