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 borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

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 celes ...

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 (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

was entering

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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

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

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. 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 which, during various times in its existence, made automotive brake shoes and systems, vacuum tubes, aircraft brakes, aeronautical hydraulics and electric power systems, av ...

. 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 W ...

* 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 as ...

ST-124-M3 inertial platform The ST-124-M3 inertial platform was a device for measuring acceleration and attitude of the Saturn V launch vehicle. It was carried by the Saturn V Instrument Unit, a , section of the Saturn V that fit between the third stage (S-IVB) and the Ap ...

for the

Saturn V 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, with multistage rocket, three stages, and powered with liquid-propellant r ...

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