The Vega Aircraft Corporation was a subsidiary of the

Lockheed Aircraft Company The Lockheed Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturer. Lockheed was founded in 1926 and later merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin in 1995. Its founder, Allan Lockheed, had earlier founded the similarly named but ...

in Burbank, California responsible for much of its parent company's production in

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 opposing ...

History

The company was first formed in August 1937 as the AiRover Company to produce a new

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 ...

design. It was renamed in May 1938 to honor Lockheed's first aircraft design, the

Vega Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr. This star is relatively close at only from the Sun, a ...

. The AiRover Model 1 was a

Lockheed Altair The Lockheed Altair was a single-engined sport aircraft produced by Lockheed Aircraft Limited in the 1930s. It was a development of the Lockheed Sirius with a retractable undercarriage, and was the first Lockheed aircraft and one of the first air ...

fitted with a

Menasco Unitwin 2-544 The Menasco Unitwin 2-544 was a coupled piston engine. Menasco Motors Company of Burbank, California was a well known manufacturer of inverted inline four and six cylinder engines. At the request of Lockheed Aircraft designers, Menasco produced ...

engine, which featured two engines driving a single shaft. The AiRover Model 2 was a new design named the Vega Starliner. One Starliner prototype was built and tested, but the design did not go into production. In 1940, with World War II already underway in Europe, Vega changed its focus from light aircraft to military aircraft. The company began by producing five

North American NA-35 The North American NA-35 was a training aircraft designed by North American Aviation. It was first test-flown in January 1940 by Vance Breese. Although announced for trade the month after, the project was pushed aside by plant expansions and the ...

trainers under license with North American Aviation. Production by Vega really got underway with the Hudson, a patrol bomber designed for use by the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

. Vega entered a partnership between three companies (the other two being

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 p ...

and

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals * Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking *Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civi ...

) (abbreviated BVD) to produce the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. Of over 12,000 B-17s produced by war's end, 2,750 were built by Vega. The company also built two experimental B-17 variants, the

Boeing XB-38 Flying Fortress The XB-38 Flying Fortress was a single example conversion of a production B-17E Flying Fortress, testing whether the Allison V-1710 V type engine could be substituted for the standard Wright R-1820 radial engine during early World War II. Desig ...

and the

Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress The Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress was a modification for operational testing purposes of the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber aircraft, converted to act as a heavily armed Gunship#Bomber escort, gunship to support other bombers during World War II. ...

. By the end of November 1943, Vega had merged back into Lockheed, having far surpassed its original mission of producing light aircraft.

Aircraft

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Francillon, René J, ''Lockheed Aircraft since 1913''. Naval Institute Press: Annapolis, 1987. * Yenne, Bill, ''Lockheed''. Crescent Books, 1987.

External links