 Hughes Aircraft Company logo, during most of the company's first 50 years | |
| Industry | Aerospace anddefense (Defense and Communications Electronics) |
|---|---|
| Founded | February 14, 1934; 91 years ago (1934-02-14) inGlendale, California |
| Founder | Howard Hughes |
| Defunct | 1997; 28 years ago (1997) |
| Fate | Sold toRaytheon |
| Headquarters | , United States |
Key people | |
| Revenue | $11B peak, 1986 |
| Owner | Hughes Tool Company (1934) Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1953) General Motors (1985) |
Number of employees | 84,000 peak, 1985 |
TheHughes Aircraft Company was a major Americanaerospace anddefense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 byHoward Hughes inGlendale, California, as a division of theHughes Tool Company.[1] The company produced theHughes H-4 Hercules aircraft, the atmospheric entry probe carried by theGalileo spacecraft, and theAIM-4 Falcon guidedmissile.[2][3]
Hughes Aircraft was founded to build Hughes'H-1 Racer world speed record aircraft, and later modified other aircraft for his transcontinental and global circumnavigation speed record flights. The company relocated toCulver City, California, in 1940 and began manufacturing aircraft parts as a subcontractor.[4] Hughes attempted to mold it into a major military aircraft manufacturer duringWorld War II. However, its early military projects ended in failure, with millions of dollars in U.S. government funds expended for only a handful of prototypes, resulting in a highly publicizedU.S. Senate investigation into alleged mismanagement.[5] The U.S. military consequently hesitated to award new aircraft contracts to Hughes Aircraft, prompting new management in the late 1940s to instead pursue contracts forfire-control systems andguided missiles, which were new technologies. The company soon became a highly profitable industry leader in these fields.[6][7]
In a 1953 accounting maneuver designed to reduce hisincome tax liabilities, Howard Hughes donated most of Hughes Aircraft's stock and assets to theHoward Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a charity he created himself, and subsequently ceased managing the company directly.[8] 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 separately owned and managed. This entity subsequently became fully independent from Hughes Aircraft and changed its name toHughes Helicopters.[9][10] After Hughes' 1976 death, Hughes Aircraft was acquired byGeneral Motors from HHMI in 1985 and was put under the umbrella ofHughes Electronics (which becameDirecTV in 1994), until GM sold its assets toRaytheon in 1997.[11][12]
.jpg)
DuringWorld War II, the company designed and built severalprototype aircraft atHughes Airport. These included the famousHughes H-4 Hercules (better known by the public's nickname for it, theSpruce Goose), theH-1 racer,D-2, and theXF-11.[13] However, the plant'shangars at Hughes Airport, the location of present-dayPlaya Vista in theWestside ofLos Angeles, California, were primarily used as abranch plant for the construction of other companies' designs. At the start of the war, Hughes Aircraft had only four full-time employees; by the end of the war, the number was 80,000.[14][15] During the war, the company was awarded contracts to build B-25 struts, centrifugal cannons, and machine gun feed chutes.[16]
Hughes Aircraft was one of many aerospace and defense companies which flourished inSouthern California during and afterWorld War II, and was at one time the largest employer in the area. However, 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 theXF-11 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.[16]: 198–207, 259
The company then expanded into the booming electronics field, eventually employing 3,300 Ph.D.s. Hughes hiredIra Eaker,Harold L. George, andTex Thornton to run the company. By 1953, the company employed 17,000 and had $600 million in government contracts.[16]: 259–269
In 1948, Hughes created a new division of the company, the Aerospace Group. Two Hughes engineers,Simon Ramo andDean Wooldridge, had new ideas on the packaging of electronics to make completefire control systems. TheirMA-1 system combined signals from the aircraft'sradar with adigital computer to automatically guide theinterceptor aircraft into the proper position for firing missiles. At the same time other teams were working with the newly formedUS Air Force on air-to-air missiles, delivering theAIM-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. Having failed to reach an agreement with Howard Hughes regarding management problems, Ramo and Wooldridge resigned in September 1953 and founded theRamo-Wooldridge Corporation, later to joinThompson Products to form theThompson-Ramo-Wooldridge based inCanoga Park, with Hughes leasing space fornuclear research programs (present-dayWest Hills).[17] The company becameTRW in 1965, another aerospace company and a major competitor to Hughes Aircraft.
In 1951, Hughes Aircraft built a missile plant inTucson, Arizona due to Howard Hughes' fear that his Culver City plant could be attacked. By the end of that year, the U.S. Air Force had purchased the property and contracted Hughes (and subsequentlyRaytheon[18]) to operate the site asAir Force Plant 44.
In 1953, Howard Hughes donated Hughes Aircraft to the newly formedHoward Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), allegedly as a way of avoiding taxes on its huge income.[19] The next year,Lawrence 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. It developedradar systems, electro-optical systems, the first workinglaser, 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-volumeHandbook of Electronic Materials as public documents.[20]
Nobel LaureatesRichard Feynman andMurray Gell-Mann had Hughes connections: Feynman would hold weekly seminars atHughes Research Laboratories, and Gell-Mann shared an office withMalcolm R. Currie, later a chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Hughes Aircraft.Greg Jarvis andRonald McNair, two of the astronauts on thelast flight of theSpace ShuttleChallenger, were Hughes alumni.
Hughes Aircraft Ground Systems Group was located inFullerton, 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 theSemi Automatic Defense Ground Environment (SAGE) in the United States with theJoint Surveillance System (JSS)AN/FYQ-93 includingNORAD withJoint 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.[citation needed]
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[21] 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.
In 1963, Hughes Space and Communications Group and the Hughes Space Systems Division built the world's first geosynchronouscommunications satellite,Syncom, followed by the first geosynchronous weather satellite, ATS-1, in 1966. Later that year, theirSurveyor 1 made the first soft landing on theMoon as part of the lead-up to the Moon landings inProject Apollo. Hughes also builtPioneer Venus in 1978, which performed the first extensive radar mapping ofVenus, and theGalileo probe that flew toJupiter in the 1990s.[14] The company built nearly 40 percent of commercial satellites in service worldwide in 2000.[22]
In 1947, Howard Hughes redirected Hughes Aircraft's efforts from airplanes tohelicopters. The effort began in earnest in 1948, when helicopter manufacturer Kellett Aircraft Co. sold its latest design to Hughes for production. TheXH-17 "Flying 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 theHughes 269/300 and theOH-6 Cayuse/Hughes 500.[23]
Hughes left no will, and following his death in 1976, there werenumerous 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. TheAttorney General of DelawareRichard R. Wier Jr.[24] challenged this and filed suit in 1978.Charles M. Oberly 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.[25]
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.[25] 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.[26]
.jpg)
On June 5, 1985,General Motors was announced as the winner of a secretive five-month sealed-bid auction. Other bidders includedFord Motor Company andBoeing.[27] 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.[28]
On December 31, 1985, General Motors merged Hughes Aircraft with itsDelco Electronics unit to formHughes Electronics Corporation, an independent subsidiary.[citation needed]
In August 1992, Hughes Aircraft completed its purchase ofGeneral Dynamics' missile businesses for $450 million.[29] This brought theTomahawk Cruise Missile,Advanced Cruise Missile,Standard missile,Stinger missile,PhalanxClose-in weapon system, andRolling Airframe Missile into Hughes' portfolio.
In 1994, Hughes Electronics introducedDirecTV, the world's first high-poweredDBS service. In 1995, its Hughes Space and Communications division became the largest supplier of commercial satellites. That same year, the group purchasedMagnavox Electronic Systems from theCarlyle Group. In 1996, Hughes Electronics andPanAmSat agreed 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 byCiticorp and incorporated the division as Palomar Technologies.[30] In 2008, Citicorp sold the bonder division to the current management team at Palomar Technologies.[31]
In 1997, GM transferred Delco Electronics to itsDelphi Automotive Systems business. Later that year, the assets of Hughes Aircraft were sold toRaytheon for $9.5 billion.[32] The remaining companies remained under the Hughes Electronics name and within GM.
In 2000, Boeing purchased three units within Hughes Electronics Corp.: Hughes Space and Communications Co.,Hughes Electron Dynamics, andSpectrolab 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.[33]
In 2003, the remaining parts of Hughes Electronics (DirecTV, DirecTV Latin America, PanAmSat, Hughes Network Systems) were purchased byNews Corporation from GM and renamedThe DirecTV Group.
The wide range of science and technology developed by Hughes Aircraft never included medical applications because the company was owned by theHoward Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). This restriction was imposed to avoid even the appearance of aconflict of interest.[34]
The money provided to HHMI by Hughes Aircraft led to major improvements in genetics and cancer research.
The city ofFullerton, 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.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
