The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astrona ...

and

defense contractor The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and ...

founded on February 14, 1934 by

Howard Hughes Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in t ...

Glendale, California Glendale is a city in the San Fernando Valley and Verdugo Mountains regions of Los Angeles County, California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents ac ...

, as a division of Hughes Tool Company. The company was known for producing, among other products, the

Hughes H-4 Hercules The Hughes H-4 Hercules (commonly known as the ''Spruce Goose''; registration NX37602) is a prototype strategic airlift flying boat designed and built by the Hughes Aircraft Company. Intended as a transatlantic flight transport for use during ...

''Spruce Goose'' aircraft, the atmospheric entry probe carried by the ''Galileo'' spacecraft, and the AIM-4 Falcon guided

missile In military terminology, a missile is a missile guidance, guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously ...

. Hughes Aircraft was founded to construct Hughes' H-1 Racer world speed record aircraft, and it later modified aircraft for his transcontinental and global circumnavigation speed record flights. The company relocated to

Culver City, California Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most ...

, in 1940 and began manufacturing aircraft parts as a subcontractor. Hughes attempted to mold it into a major military aircraft manufacturer during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

; however, its initial military projects ended in failure, with millions of dollars in U.S. government funds expended but only three aircraft actually built, resulting in a highly publicized U.S. Senate investigation into alleged mismanagement. The U.S. military consequently hesitated to award new aircraft contracts to Hughes Aircraft, prompting new management installed in the late 1940s to instead pursue contracts for fire-control systems and guided missiles, which were then new technologies. The company soon became a highly profitable industry leader in these fields. In a 1953 accounting maneuver designed to reduce his

income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...

liabilities, Howard Hughes donated most of Hughes Aircraft's stock and assets to a charity he created, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and subsequently ceased managing the company directly. Hughes retained a small cadre of engineers under his personal control as the ''Hughes Tool Company Aircraft Division'', which initially operated from the same Culver City complex as Hughes Aircraft, despite being under a separate corporate umbrella. This entity subsequently became fully independent from Hughes Aircraft and changed its name to Hughes Helicopters. After Hughes' 1976 death, Hughes Aircraft was acquired by General Motors from HHMI in 1985 and was put under the umbrella of Hughes Electronics, now known as DirecTV, until GM sold its assets to

Raytheon Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitaliz ...

in 1997.

History

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During

the company designed and built several prototype aircraft at Hughes Airport. These included the famous

, better known by the public's nickname for it, the ''Spruce Goose'', the H-1 racer, D-2, and the

XF-11 The Hughes XF-11 (redesignated XR-11 in 1948) was a prototype military reconnaissance aircraft designed and flown by Howard Hughes and built by Hughes Aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). Although 100 F-11s were ordered ...

. However the plant's

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

s at Hughes Airport, location of present-day Playa Vista in the Westside of

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wo ...

, were primarily used as a

branch plant It is not entirely evident who first used the branch plant economy concept; however, it has been extensively used in Canadian and UK literature since the 1970s. This concept broadly describes the negative consequences on the growth of the regions ...

for the construction of other companies' designs. At the start of the war Hughes Aircraft had only four full-time employees—by the end the number was 80,000. During the war, the company was awarded contracts to build B-25 struts, centrifugal cannons, and machine gun feed chutes.

Post–World War II

Hughes Aircraft was one of many aerospace and defense companies which flourished in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

during and after

and was at one time the largest employer in the area. Yet, employment had dropped to 800 by 1947. By the summer of 1947 certain politicians had become concerned about Hughes' alleged mismanagement of the Spruce Goose and the

photo reconnaissance plane project. They formed a special committee to investigate Hughes which culminated in a much-followed Senate investigation, one of the first to be televised to the public. Despite a highly critical committee report, Hughes was cleared. The company then expanded into the booming electronics field, eventually employing 3,300 Ph.D.s. Hughes hired Ira Eaker, Harold L. George, and Tex Thornton to run the company. By 1953, the company employed 17,000 and had $600,000,000 in government contracts. In 1948 Hughes created a new division of the company, the Aerospace Group. Two Hughes engineers, Simon Ramo and Dean Wooldridge, had new ideas on the packaging of electronics to make complete fire control systems. Their

MA-1 MA-1 may refer to: * Bennett MA-1 ventilator, a powerful medical ventilator to assist respiration * Fire control system used on the F-106 interceptor * MA-1 bomber jacket, a nylon flight jacket * MA-1 rifle, a variant of the EMERK K-3 rifle * U.S. ...

system combined signals from the aircraft's

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...

with a digital computer to automatically guide the

interceptor aircraft An interceptor aircraft, or simply interceptor, is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically for the defensive interception role against an attacking enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Aircraft that are ...

into the proper position for firing missiles. At the same time other teams were working with the newly formed US Air Force on air-to-air missiles, delivering the AIM-4 Falcon, then known as the F-98. The MA-1/Falcon package, with several upgrades, was the primary interceptor weapon system of the USAF for many years, lasting into the 1980s. Ramo and Wooldridge, having failed to reach an agreement with Howard Hughes regarding management problems, resigned in September 1953 and founded the

Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation TRW Inc., was an American corporation involved in a variety of businesses, mainly aerospace, electronics, automotive, and credit reporting.http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/TRW-Inc-Company-History.html TRW Inc. It was a pioneer ...

, later to join Thompson Products to form the Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge based in

Canoga Park Canoga Park is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. Before the Mexican–American War, the district was part of a rancho, and after the American victory it was converted into wheat farms and the ...

, with Hughes leasing space for nuclear research programs (present day West Hills (Canoga Park)). The company became TRW in 1965, another aerospace company and a major competitor to Hughes Aircraft. In 1951 Hughes Aircraft Co. built a missile plant in

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive ...

. The construction of this plant, wrote David Leighton, in the Arizona Daily Star newspaper, was due to "Howard Hughes’ long-held fear that his plant in Culver City, California, was vulnerable to enemy attack because it was on the Pacific Coast." By the end of that year, the U.S. Air Force had purchased the property but allowed the company to continue to run day to day operations of the site. This Tucson plant is still in operation under the ownership of Raytheon Missiles & Defense. Howard Hughes donated Hughes Aircraft to the newly formed Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in 1953 allegedly as a way of avoiding taxes on its huge income. The next year, L.A. "Pat" Hyland was hired as vice president and general manager of Hughes Aircraft; he would ultimately become company president and CEO after Howard Hughes' death in 1976. Under Hyland's guidance, the Aerospace Group continued to diversify and become massively profitable, and became a primary focus of the company. The company developed

systems, electro-optical systems, the first working

laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The firs ...

, aircraft computer systems, missile systems, ion-propulsion engines (for space travel), and many other advanced technologies. The 'Electronic Properties Information Center' (EPIC) of the United States was hosted at the Hughes Culver City library in the 1970s. EPIC published the multi-volume ''Handbook of Electronic Materials'' as public documents. Nobel Laureates

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superf ...

and Murray Gell-Mann had Hughes connections: Feynman would hold weekly seminars at Hughes Research Laboratories; Gell-Mann shared an office with Malcolm Currie, later a chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Hughes Aircraft. Greg Jarvis and Ronald McNair, two of the astronauts on the

last flight Last Flight may refer to: * ''Last Flight'' (album), a 2000 live album by Jefferson Airplane * ''Last Flight'' (book), a 1937 book by Amelia Earhart * "The Last Flight" (''The Twilight Zone''), a 1960 episode of the American television series '' ...

of the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'', were Hughes alumni.

Ground Systems Group

Hughes Aircraft Ground Systems Group was located in Fullerton, California. The facility was 3 million square feet and included manufacturing, laboratories, offices, and a Munson road test course. It designed developed and produced the Air Defense Systems that replaced the Semi Automatic Defense Ground Environment (SAGE) in the United States with the Joint Surveillance System (JSS) AN/FYQ-93 including

NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...

with Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) and provided defense systems and air traffic control systems around the world. These systems are massive and at its peak Ground Systems Group employed 15,000 people and generated revenue in excess of $1 billion per year. These systems included the following Ground Systems Group subsystems: Computer H5118, Consoles HMD-22 and HMD-44, Liquid Crystal Large Screen Displays, and Software that set the standard for software development based on science and engineering starting with the Combat Grande System. Ground Systems Group was known to push technology envelopes in the computers, displays, local area networks, human interfaces, and software in their systems. They also blazed the path to very highly distributed human intensive systems.

Hughes Space and Communications Group

Hughes Space and Communications Group and the Hughes Space Systems Division built the world's first geosynchronous

communications 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 Ear ...

, Syncom, in 1963 and followed by the first geosynchronous weather satellite, ATS-1, in 1966. Later that year their

Surveyor 1 Surveyor 1 was the first lunar soft-lander in the uncrewed Surveyor program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, United States). This lunar soft-lander gathered data about the lunar surface that would be needed for the ...

made the first soft landing on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width ...

as part of the lead-up to the moon landings in Project Apollo. Hughes also built Pioneer Venus in 1978, which performed the first extensive radar mapping of

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

, and the ''Galileo'' probe that flew to

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandt ...

in the 1990s. The company built nearly 40 percent of commercial satellites in service worldwide in 2000.

Hughes helicopter business

In 1947, Howard Hughes redirected Hughes Aircraft's efforts from airplanes to

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribut ...

s. The effort began in earnest in 1948, when helicopter manufacturer Kellett Aircraft Co. sold its latest design to Hughes for production. The XH-17 "Sky Crane" first flew in October 1952, but was commercially unsuccessful. In 1955, Howard Hughes split the helicopter production unit from the Hughes Aircraft Company, and reconstituted it with Hughes Tool Company, calling it Hughes Tool Company's Aircraft Division. The Aircraft Division had a focus on the production of light helicopters, mainly the Hughes 269/ 300 and the OH-6 Cayuse/ Hughes 500.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute sells Hughes Aircraft Company

Hughes left no will and following his death in 1976 there were numerous claims to his estate. A Hughes executive and a Hughes lawyer claimed they had the right to set up an "executive committee" to take over the running of the HHMI and its Hughes Aircraft subsidiary. The Attorney General of Delaware Richard R. Wier challenged this and filed suit in 1978.

Charles M. Oberly Charles Monroe Oberly III (born November 9, 1946) is an American attorney from Delaware. He had served as United States Attorney for the District of Delaware from 2010 to 2017 and had served as Attorney General of Delaware from 1983 to 1995. E ...

continued the action when he became attorney general in 1983. Oberly stated he wished to see an independent board of trustees to ensure both that the institute fulfilled its charitable mission and that it did not continue to operate as a tax shelter. In January 1984 Judge Grover C. Brown ruled that the Chancery Court should appoint the trustees because Hughes had not left a succession plan. Brown asked for both the executive committee and the attorney general's office to submit a list of recommendations that he could approve. Brown approved a list in April 1984. In January 1985 the new board of trustees of the HHMI announced they would sell Hughes Aircraft either by private sale or public stock offering.

Hughes Electronics Corporation

On June 5, 1985, General Motors was announced as the winner of a secretive five-month sealed-bid auction. Other bidders included

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles ...

and

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...

. The purchase was completed on December 20, 1985, for an estimated $5.2 billion, $2.7 billion in cash and the rest in 50 million shares of GM Class H stock. On December 31, 1985, General Motors merged Hughes Aircraft with its Delco Electronics unit to form Hughes Electronics Corporation, an independent subsidiary. The group then consisted of: Delco Electronics Corporation and Hughes Aircraft Company. In August 1992 Hughes Aircraft completed its purchase of General Dynamics' missile businesses for $450 million. This brought the Tomahawk Cruise Missile, Advanced Cruise Missile, Standard missile, Stinger missile, Phalanx Close-in weapon system, and

Rolling Airframe Missile The RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) is a small, lightweight, infrared homing surface-to-air missile in use by the German, Japanese, Greek, Turkish, South Korean, Saudi Arabian, Egyptian, Mexican, UAE, and U.S. Navies. It was orig ...

into Hughes' portfolio. In

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson Ma ...

Hughes Electronics introduced DirecTV, the world's first high-powered

DBS DBS may refer to: Music groups * The dB's, a power pop band of the '70s and '80s *d.b.s., a Canadian punk rock band from 1992 to 2001 * Death by Stereo, an American heavy metal/punk rock group from California Companies and organizations Schools ...

service. In

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake strike ...

Hughes Electronic's Hughes Space and Communications division became the largest supplier of commercial satellites. Also in 1995 the group purchased Magnavox Electronic Systems from the Carlyle Group. In 1996 Hughes Electronics and PanAmSat agree to merge their fixed satellite services into a new publicly held company, also called PanAmSat with Hughes Electronics as majority shareholder. In 1995, Hughes Aircraft sold its Technology Products Division (automated wire and die bonder) to an investor group led by Citicorp and incorporated the division as Palomar Technologies. In 2008, Citicorp sold the bonder division to the current management team at Palomar Technologies. In 1997 GM transferred Delco Electronics to its Delphi Automotive Systems business. Later that year the assets of Hughes Aircraft were sold to

for $9.5 billion. The remaining companies remained under the Hughes Electronics name and within GM. In 2000, the Boeing Company purchased three units within Hughes Electronics Corp.: Hughes Space and Communications Co., Hughes Electron Dynamics, and Spectrolab Inc., in addition to Hughes Electronics' interest in HRL, the company's primary research laboratory. The four joined Boeing Satellite Systems, a company subsidiary, later becoming the Satellite Development Center, part of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. In 2003 the remaining parts of Hughes Electronics (DirecTV, DirecTV Latin America, PanAmSat, Hughes Network Systems) were purchased by News Corporation from GM and renamed The DirecTV Group.

Corporate legacy

The wide range of science and technology developed by Hughes Aircraft never included medical applications because the company was owned by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). This restriction was imposed to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.''HughesNews'' (the company's weekly newspaper) The money provided to HHMI by Hughes Aircraft led to major improvements in genetics and cancer research. The city of Fullerton, California, named Hughes Drive after the site that the company formerly occupied before 1997. After Hughes closed, the city developed Amerige Heights, a residential community.

Timeline

* 1932: Howard Hughes formed Hughes Aircraft Company as a division of Hughes Tool Company. *

1948 Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...

: Hughes formed the Aerospace Group within the company, divided into: ** Hughes Space and Communications Group ** Hughes Space Systems Division *

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the Uni ...

: Hughes Aircraft opened missile plant in Tucson, Arizona. * 1953: The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) was formed, and Hughes Aircraft reformed as a subsidiary of the foundation. The Internal Revenue Service unsuccessfully challenged its "charitable" status which made it tax-exempt. * 1955: Hughes formed its helicopter division, Aircraft Division. * 1960: The first

was produced at Hughes Research Laboratories, by Theodore Maiman. * 1961: Hughes Research Laboratories completed their move to Malibu, California. * 1972: Hughes sold the tool division of Hughes Tool Company. His remaining interests were transferred to the newly formed holding company, the

Summa Corporation Summa Corporation was a holding company for the business interests of Howard Hughes after he sold the tool division of Hughes Tool Company in 1972. Its holdings included casino hotels, aviation businesses, and television channels. After Hughes's d ...

. This included Toolco Aircraft and Hughes' property and other businesses. * 1976: Toolco Aircraft became Hughes Helicopters. * 1976: Howard Hughes died at the age of 70, leaving no will. * 1984: The Summa Corporation sold Hughes Helicopters to

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas was a major American 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 merger with Boeing in 1997, it ...

for $500 million; it was soon renamed McDonnell Douglas Helicopters. * 1984: The Delaware Court of Chancery appointed eight trustees to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; they decided to sell Hughes Aircraft. * 1985: The HHMI sold Hughes Aircraft to General Motors for $5.2 billion. This was merged with GM's Delco Electronics to form Hughes Electronics Corporation. This group then consisted of: ** Delco Electronics Corporation ** Hughes Aircraft Company * 1987: Hughes Aircraft Company acquired M/A-COM Telecommunications, to form Hughes Network Systems. *

: Hughes Electronics introduced DirecTV. *

: Hughes Space and Communications Company became the world's biggest supplier of commercial satellites. * 1995: Hughes Electronics acquired Magnavox Electronic Systems from the Carlyle Group. * 1995: Hughes Aircraft acquired CAE-Link; CAE-Link was part of the original company founded by Edwin Link, inventor of the flight simulator. * 1996: Hughes Electronics and PanAmSat agreed to merge their fixed satellite services into a new publicly held company, also called PanAmSat with Hughes Electronics as majority shareholder. * 1997: GM transferred Delco Electronics from Hughes Electronics to its Delphi Automotive Systems. Delphi became independent in 1999. * 1997: The aerospace and defense operations of Hughes Electronics (Hughes Aircraft) merged with

; Raytheon also acquired one half of the Hughes Research Laboratories. *

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

: Hughes Space and Communications Company remained independent until 2000, when it was purchased by

and became Boeing Satellite Development Center. Boeing purchased one third of the HRL Laboratories, LLC which was then co-owned by Boeing, GM and Raytheon. * 2003: The remaining parts of Hughes Electronics: DirecTV, DirecTV Latin America, PanAmSat and Hughes Network Systems were purchased by NewsCorp and renamed The DirecTV Group. * 2003: Newscorp sold PanAmSat to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) in August 2004. *

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

: Director Martin Scorsese used the Hughes Aircraft stage in Playa Vista to film the motion-capture sequences in the film '' The Aviator''. * 2004:

SkyTerra SkyTerra (SKYT), formerly Mobile Satellite Ventures (MSV or MSVLP), was a Reston, Virginia company that developed telecommunications systems that integrate satellite and terrestrial radio communication technologies into one system. In March 2010, ...

Communications, Inc. completed its purchase of 100% controlling interest in Hughes Network Systems from the DirecTV Group in January 2006.

Technologies Systems and Products

Air Defense and Air Traffic Control Systems

Japanese Tactical Air Weapons Control System - JTAWCS Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Swiss Air Defense System - FLORIDA Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland *Swiss people Places *Swiss, Missouri *Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia *Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss International A ...

Spain Air Defense System - Combat Grande , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

Tactical Air Weapons Control System Tactic(s) or Tactical may refer to: * Tactic (method), a conceptual action implemented as one or more specific tasks ** Military tactics, the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield ** Chess tactics ** Political tacti ...

* Joint Surveillance System * German Air Defense Ground Environment (GEADGE) ** Integrated NATO Air Defense System ** NATO Air Defence Ground Environment (NADGE) - NSPA * Airborne Early Warning / Ground Environment Integration Segment (AEGIS) * Canadian Air Traffic Control System *

Korean Air Traffic Control System Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

* Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) * AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel * AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radar *

AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder radar Hughes AN/TPQ-37 Firefinder Weapon Locating System is a mobile radar system developed in the late 1970s by Hughes Aircraft Company, achieving Initial Operational Capability in 1980 and full deployment in 1984. Currently manufactured by ThalesRay ...

Hughes Research Laboratories

HRL Laboratories HRL Laboratories (formerly Hughes Research Laboratories) is a research center in Malibu, California, established in 1960. Formerly the research arm of Hughes Aircraft, HRL is currently owned by General Motors Corporation and Boeing. The resear ...

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

* Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Aircraft

* Hughes D-2 * Hughes H-1 *

* Hughes XF-11

Missiles

* AIM-4 Falcon ** AIM-26 Falcon ** AIM-47 Falcon * AIM-54 Phoenix *

AIM-120 AMRAAM The AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM (pronounced ), is an American Beyond-visual-range missile, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) capable of all-weather day-and-night operations. It is 7 inches (18 ...

AGM-65 Maverick The AGM-65 Maverick is an air-to-ground missile (AGM) designed for close air support. It is the most widely produced precision-guided missile in the Western world, and is effective against a wide range of tactical targets, including armor, a ...

* BGM-71 TOW * Brazo

Spacecraft

* HS-333 ** Anik (satellite) *

Jarvis (rocket) Jarvis was a proposed American medium-lift launch vehicle for space launch, designed by Hughes Aircraft and Boeing during the mid-1980s as part of the joint United States Air Force (USAF)/National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Adva ...

* ''Magellan'' (spacecraft) *

Morelos Satellite System The ''Morelos'' satellites are a series of Mexican communications satellites. The first two operated between 1985 and 1998 and provided telephony, data, and television services over the territory of the Mexican Republic and adjacent areas. ...

* Paksat-1 satellite *

Pioneer program The Pioneer programs were two series of United States lunar and planetary space probes exploration. The first program, which ran from 1958 to 1960, unsuccessfully attempted to send spacecraft to orbit the Moon, successfully sent one spacecraft to ...

Pioneer Venus Multiprobe The Pioneer Venus Multiprobe, also known as Pioneer Venus 2 or Pioneer 13, was a spacecraft launched in 1978 to explore Venus as part of NASA's Pioneer program. This part of the mission included a spacecraft bus which was launched from Earth c ...

** Pioneer Venus Orbiter * Surveyor program **

** Surveyor 2 **

Surveyor 3 Surveyor 3 was the third lander of the American uncrewed Surveyor program sent to explore the surface of the Moon in 1967. It was the first mission to carry a surface-soil sampling-scoop. Surveyor 3 was visited by Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Con ...

** Surveyor 4 ** Surveyor 5 ** Surveyor 6 ** Surveyor 7

Torpedo

* Mk-48 ADCAP

References

Bibliography

* * * Gart, Jason H. "Electronics and Aerospace Industry in Cold War Arizona, 1945–1968: Motorola, Hughes Aircraft, Goodyear Aircraft". Ph.D. diss., Arizona State University, 2006. * Marrett, George J. ''Howard Hughes: Aviator'', Naval Institute Press, 2004. * Marrett, George J. ''Testing Death: Hughes Aircraft Test Pilots and Cold War Weaponry'', Praeger Publishing, 2006. ** Parker, Dana T. ''Building Victory: Aircraft Manufacturing in the Los Angeles Area in World War II,'' Cypress, CA. . * D. Kenneth Richardson (2011). ''Hughes After Howard: The Story of Hughes Aircraft Company''. Sea Hill Press. . * Walter Sobkiw (2011). ''Systems Practices as Common Sense''. CassBeth. .

External links

Hughes aircraft history on CentennialofFlight.net
*

{{Authority control

Aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. ...

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