The United Aircraft Corporation was an American

aircraft manufacturer An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology ind ...

formed by the break-up of

United Aircraft and Transport Corporation The United Aircraft and Transport Corporation was formed in 1929, when William Boeing of Boeing Airplane & Transport Corporation teamed up with Frederick Rentschler of Pratt & Whitney to form a large, vertically-integrated, amalgamated firm, un ...

in 1934. In 1975, the company became

United Technologies United Technologies Corporation (UTC) was an American multinational conglomerate headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut. It researched, developed, and manufactured products in numerous areas, including aircraft engines, aerospace systems, ...

History

Pre-1930s

1930s

The

Air Mail scandal The Air Mail scandal, also known as the Air Mail fiasco, is the name that the American press gave to the political scandal resulting from a 1934 congressional investigation of the awarding of contracts to certain airlines to carry airmail and ...

of the early 1930s resulted in a rebuilt air mail system, under the Air Mail Act of 1934, in which carriers and their equipment manufacturers (e.g., of airframes and engines) could no longer be owned by the same company.. The

was broken up on September 26, 1934, as a result of this new law. The corporation's airline interests went on to become

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

. Its manufacturing interests east of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest Drainage system (geomorphology), drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson B ...

—

Pratt & Whitney Pratt & Whitney is an American aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies. Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil aviation (especially airlines) and military av ...

, Chance Vought, and Sikorsky—remained together as the new United Aircraft Corporation, headquartered in

Hartford Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...

with

Frederick Rentschler Frederick Brant Rentschler (November 8, 1887 – April 25, 1956) was an American aircraft engine designer, aviation engineer, industrialist, and the founder of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. Rentschler created and manufactured many revolutiona ...

, founder of Pratt & Whitney, as president. All manufacturing interests west of the Mississippi became part of a revived

Boeing Aircraft 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 p ...

. The latter half of the 1930s saw military procurement buildups around the world as governments foresaw possible war on the horizon. United Aircraft sold to both the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

and the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

, but the Navy's

requirement In product development and process optimization, a requirement is a singular documented physical or functional need that a particular design, product or process aims to satisfy. It is commonly used in a formal sense in engineering design, includ ...

s for

carrier-based aircraft Carrier-based aircraft, sometimes known as carrier-capable aircraft or carrier-borne aircraft, are naval aircraft designed for operations from aircraft carriers. They must be able to launch in a short distance and be sturdy enough to withstand ...

, with maximized

power-to-weight ratio Power-to-weight ratio (PWR, also called specific power, or power-to-mass ratio) is a calculation commonly applied to engines and mobile power sources to enable the comparison of one unit or design to another. Power-to-weight ratio is a measuremen ...

s for minimized takeoff runway length, were always more in tune with the specialties of United's subsidiaries (Pratt & Whitney, Chance Vought, and Sikorsky). United Aircraft became a component of the

Dow Jones Industrial Average The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity inde ...

on March 4, 1939, when United Aircraft and

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile ...

were added to replace

Nash Motors Nash Motors Company was an American automobile manufacturer based in Kenosha, Wisconsin from 1916 to 1937. From 1937 to 1954, Nash Motors was the automotive division of the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation. Nash production continued from 1954 to 1 ...

and International Business Machines. United Aircraft, subsequently known as United Technologies, has remained a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since that time.

1940s

For the subsidiaries of United Aircraft, and for countless other manufacturing firms,

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 ...

was an exercise in how to attempt to meet limitless demand for production (as well as for R&D). The U.S. government encouraged corporations to build up their physical plant, but the corporations knew that there would be a postwar glut of overcapacity if they did so. In many cases a compromise was reached in which the government paid partially or fully for the expansions in the form of tax breaks and accelerated depreciation. United Aircraft ranked sixth among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. Peck, Merton J. & Scherer, Frederic M. ''The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis'' (1962)

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...

p.619 At the close of the war,

jet engine A jet engine is a type of reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet (fluid), jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition can include Rocket engine, rocket, Pump-jet, water jet, and ...

s and

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 attribu ...

s were both big new things whose coming growth many companies hoped to get in on. United Aircraft entered both industries, via Pratt & Whitney and Sikorsky, respectively.

1950s

Pratt & Whitney feared the head start that Rolls-Royce and General Electric would have in jets, based on their jet programs during the war and the late 1940s. But its jet team, led by

Leonard S. Hobbs Leonard S. (Luke) Hobbs (1896–1977) was an American aeronautical engineer who started in 1920 with the Army Air Service at McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio and later worked for Stromberg Motor Devices Corporation. He was born in Carbon County, Wyo ...

, successfully developed the

Pratt & Whitney J57 The Pratt & Whitney J57 (company designation: JT3C) is an axial-flow turbojet engine developed by Pratt & Whitney in the early 1950s. The J57 (first run January 1950) was the first 10,000 lbf (45 kN) thrust class engine in the United State ...

, which, being the most powerful jet engine on the market for some years, brought Pratt & Whitney profitability in the jet field. Vought was spun off as an independent business in 1954. Rentschler died two years later.

1960s

The 1960s brought new challenges, from more complex technology and bigger, more expensive aircraft to more mature markets with stiffer competition from GE, Rolls-Royce, and

SNECMA Safran Aircraft Engines, previously Snecma (''Société nationale d'études et de construction de moteurs d'aviation'') or Snecma Moteurs, is a French aerospace engine manufacturer headquartered in Courcouronnes and a subsidiary of Safran. It ...

. The competitions for the requested aircraft that would become the

Lockheed C-5 Galaxy The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy is a large military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed, and now maintained and upgraded by its successor, Lockheed Martin. It provides the United States Air Force (USAF) with a heavy intercontinental-rang ...

and the

Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, ...

were some of the financially riskier episodes. Pratt & Whitney ended up building the engines for the 747, producing the Pratt & Whitney JT9D, but the program was rocky. For several years Boeing and Pratt & Whitney struggled with an aircraft that was too heavy and underpowered. Eventually, after a lot of continued development work, the 747 redeemed itself. On the military side of the business, the TFX joint-procurement program led to the

General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark The General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark is a retired supersonic, medium-range, multirole combat aircraft. Production variants of the F-111 had roles that included ground attack (e.g. interdiction), strategic bombing (including nuclear weapons c ...

Pratt & Whitney TF30 The Pratt & Whitney TF30 (company designation JTF10A) is a military low-bypass turbofan engine originally designed by Pratt & Whitney for the subsonic F6D Missileer fleet defense fighter, but this project was cancelled. It was later adapted with ...

. UAC acquired

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond t ...

designed

UAC TurboTrain The UAC TurboTrain was an early high-speed rail, high-speed, gas turbine train manufactured by United Aircraft that operated in Canada between 1968 and 1982 and in the United States between 1968 and 1976. Amtrak disposed of the trains in 1980. It ...

to compete in the DOT's Northeast Corridor Demonstration Project. Two trainsets were built in 1967-1968 by Pullman for use by

Penn Central Transportation Company The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and th ...

and later

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada. ...

for service from 1968 to 1980. Five seven car sets were built by MLW for

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN i ...

Early 1970s

In the 1970s the jet engine manufacturers found that their products for the commercial (airline) market had been commoditized to a greater extent than in previous decades.. Leaving behind a tradition of mating airframes to particular engines (which linked the profitability of an airframe model to that of its exclusive engine supplier), the airframe builders began offering multiple brands of engines.. Producers had to compete on service, warranties, and eventually even by buying entire aircraft and then leasing them to the airlines.

Diversification and M&A

In 1974, Harry Gray left

Litton Industries Litton Industries was a large defense contractor in the United States named after inventor Charles Litton Sr. During the 1960s, the company began acquiring many unrelated firms and became one of the largest conglomerates in the United States. A ...

to become the CEO of United Aircraft. He pursued a strategy of growth and diversification, changing the parent corporation's name to

United Technologies Corporation United Technologies Corporation (UTC) was an American multinational conglomerate headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut. It researched, developed, and manufactured products in numerous areas, including aircraft engines, aerospace systems ...

(UTC) in 1975 to reflect the intent to diversify into numerous

high tech High technology (high tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or the newest te ...

fields beyond aerospace..

Business units

* Canadian Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company/United Aircraft of Canada 1962-1975 *

Sikorsky Aircraft Sikorsky Aircraft is an American aircraft manufacturer based in Stratford, Connecticut. It was established by aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky in 1923 and was among the first companies to manufacture helicopters for civilian and military use. Pre ...

—sold to Lockheed Martin in July 2015 * Chance Vought—from 1928 to 1954 *

Hamilton Standard Hamilton Standard was an American aircraft propeller parts supplier. It was formed in 1929 when United Aircraft and Transport Corporation consolidated Hamilton Aero Manufacturing and Standard Steel Propeller into the Hamilton Standard Propeller C ...

* Norden Systems

References

Footnotes

Notes

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

UTC−United Technologies Corporation website
{{United Technologies Corporation * Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Hartford, Connecticut American companies established in 1934 Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1934 Technology companies established in 1934 Technology companies disestablished in 1975 1934 establishments in Connecticut 1975 disestablishments in Connecticut Defunct companies based in Connecticut Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1975