HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Ryan Aeronautical Company was founded by T. Claude Ryan in
San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United Stat ...
, in 1934. It became part of Teledyne in 1969, and of
Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military tech ...
when the latter company purchased Ryan in 1999. Ryan built several historically and technically significant aircraft, including four innovative V/STOL designs, but its most successful production aircraft was the
Ryan Firebee The Ryan Firebee is a series of target drones developed by the Ryan Aeronautical Company beginning in 1951. It was one of the first jet-propelled drones, and remains one of the most widely used target drones ever built. Development Ryan Fireb ...
line of unmanned drones used as
target drone A target drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle, generally remote controlled, usually used in the training of anti-aircraft crews. One of the earliest drones was the British DH.82 Queen Bee, a variant of the Tiger Moth trainer aircraft operational ...
s and
unmanned air vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
s.


Early history

In 1922, T.C. Ryan founded a flying service in San Diego that would lead to several aviation ventures bearing the Ryan name, including Ryan Airline Company founded in 1925. T.C. Ryan, whose previous companies were best known for building
Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...
's transatlantic '' Spirit of St. Louis'', actually had no part in building the famous aircraft. Ryan had been owner or partner in several previous companies, one of which also bore the name Ryan Aeronautical. The '' Spirit of St. Louis'' was not built by the final Ryan Aeronautical entity. The new company's first aircraft was the S-T Sport Trainer, a low-wing tandem-seat monoplane with a Menasco B-4 Pirate
straight-4 A straight-four engine (also called an inline-four) is a four-cylinder piston engine where cylinders are arranged in a line along a common crankshaft. The vast majority of automotive four-cylinder engines use a straight-four layout (with the ...
engine. Five were built before production switched to the Ryan ST-A Aerobatic with a more powerful Menasco C-4 in 1935. This aircraft now had enough power for aerobatic display, and it won the 1937 International Aerobatic Championships. A further improved ST-A Special was built in 1936, with a supercharged Menasco C-4S. In 1937 and 1938, a second civilian aircraft model was introduced, the S-C Sport Coupe, or SC-W with a Warner Super Scarab radial engine. The SC-W was a larger three-seater aircraft with a sliding canopy and side-by-side front seating. The prototype SC-M was originally powered by a Menasco C-4 inline engine, however testing revealed that more power was needed. Thirteen examples of the SC-W were built, although the last one was assembled from surplus parts decades after the initial production run was finished.


USAAC trainers

Interest from the
United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...
followed. The Menasco engines proved unreliable, and instead Kinner
radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ...
s were fitted. Aircraft were produced as the PT-16 (15 built); PT-20 (30 built); PT-21 (100 USAAF, 100 USN); and finally as the definitive PT-22 Recruit (1,048 built) ordered in 1941 as pilot training began its rapid expansion. Ryan also pioneered
STOL A short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft is a conventional fixed-wing aircraft that has short runway requirements for takeoff and landing. Many STOL-designed aircraft also feature various arrangements for use on airstrips with harsh condi ...
techniques in its YO-51 Dragonfly observation craft. Three prototypes were built, but no USAAF order materialized.


Postwar

In the immediate postwar years, Ryan diversified, including even building
coffin A coffin is a funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, either for burial or cremation. Sometimes referred to as a casket, any box in which the dead are buried is a coffin, and while a casket was originally regarded as a box for j ...
s for a short period. It bought the rights to the Navion
light aircraft A light aircraft is an aircraft that has a maximum gross takeoff weight of or less.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 308. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. Light aircraft are used as utility aircraft co ...
from
North American Aviation North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included: the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the ...
in 1947, selling it to both military and civilian customers. Ryan became involved in the missile and unmanned aircraft fields, developing the
Ryan Firebee The Ryan Firebee is a series of target drones developed by the Ryan Aeronautical Company beginning in 1951. It was one of the first jet-propelled drones, and remains one of the most widely used target drones ever built. Development Ryan Fireb ...
unmanned target drone, the Ryan Firebird (the first American air-to-air missile) among others, as well as a number of experimental and research aircraft. Ryan acquired a 50% stake in
Continental Motors Corporation Continental Aerospace Technologies is an aircraft engine manufacturer located at the Brookley Aeroplex in Mobile, Alabama, United States. It was originally spun off from automobile engine manufacturer Continental Motors Company in 1929 and own ...
, the aircraft-engine builder, in 1965.Leyes, Richard A., and William A. Fleming, The History of North American Small Gas Turbine Aircraft Engines, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1999: p.143 In the 1950s, Ryan was a pioneer in jet vertical flight with the
X-13 Vertijet The Ryan X-13 Vertijet (company designation Model 69) was an experimental vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet aircraft built by Ryan Aeronautical and flown in the United States in the 1950s. The main objective of the project was to demons ...
, a tail-sitting jet with a delta wing which was not used in production designs. In the early 1960s, Ryan built the
XV-5 Vertifan The Ryan XV-5 Vertifan was a jet-powered V/STOL experimental aircraft in the 1960s. The United States Army (US Army) commissioned the Ryan VZ-11-RY (re-designated XV-5A in 1962) in 1961, along with the Lockheed VZ-10 Hummingbird (re-designated ...
for the U.S. Army, which used wing- and nose-mounted lift vanes for V/STOL vertical flight. It was flown, crashing after ingesting a test rescue dummy in its fans, and was not made into a production aircraft. Other Ryan V/STOL designs included the VZ-3 Vertiplane and the YO-51 Dragonfly. In 1966/67, Ryan was awarded the contract to build the digital
Doppler radar A Doppler radar is a specialized radar that uses the Doppler effect to produce velocity data about objects at a distance. It does this by bouncing a microwave signal off a desired target and analyzing how the object's motion has altered the fr ...
system installed aboard the Apollo Lunar Lander. In 1968, the company was acquired by Teledyne for $128 million and a year later became a wholly owned subsidiary of that company as Teledyne Ryan. Claude Ryan retired as chairman with the Teledyne purchase.
Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military tech ...
purchased Teledyne Ryan in 1999, with the products continuing to form the core of that firm's unmanned aerial vehicle efforts.


Aircraft


Missiles

* AAM-A-1 Firebird *
ADM-160 MALD The ADM-160 MALD (Miniature Air-Launched Decoy) is a decoy missile developed by the United States. Overview DARPA MALD program The Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (MALD) program was begun in 1995 by DARPA as an effort to develop a small, low cost ...


References


External links


Ryan Aeronautical – Port of San Diego

Ryan Aeronautical Collection – San Diego Air & Space Museum

The Ryan Aeronautical Photo Collection – Flickr
{{Authority control Northrop Grumman Manufacturing companies based in San Diego Defunct companies based in California Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United States 1934 establishments in California Manufacturing companies established in 1934