X-Nico

19 unusual facts about Northrop Corporation


Acme Sierra

During the 1960s, the US aerospace manufacturer Northrop used the aircraft as a technology demonstrator for boundary layer control concepts.

BINAC

BINAC, the Binary Automatic Computer, was an early electronic computer designed for Northrop Aircraft Company by the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in 1949.

He emphasizes the economic and practical infeasibility of the BINAC computer project for Northrop Aircraft.

Ernest E. Tissot, Jr.

He retired from the Navy in 1981 and worked for Northrop Corporation until 1991 and is a member of the Navy Golden Eagles.

Fixed-price contract

Airbus's German chief executive Tom Enders has noted the fixed-price contract for the A400 transport was a disaster rooted in naivety, excessive enthusiasm and arrogance, stating, "If you had offered it to an American defence contractor like Northrop, they would have run a mile from it".

Fred Gehrke

Fred however did contribute to war effort by landing a job with Northrop Aircraft, which was based in California, as a technical illustrator, and began helping with the design of airplanes.

Lockheed YF-22

A request for proposal (RFP) was issued in July 1986, and two contractor teams, Lockheed, Boeing and General Dynamics, along with Northrop and McDonnell Douglas, were selected on 31 October 1986 to undertake a 50-month demonstration phase, culminating in the flight test of two prototypes, the YF-22 and the YF-23.

Magnetic Drum Digital Differential Analyzer

The Magnetic Drum Digital Differential Analyzer (MADDIDA) was a computer built by Northrop Aircraft Corporation in 1950.

Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant, Calverton

Grumman merged with Northrop Corporation in 1994, forming Northrop Grumman Corporation and the new firm eliminated almost all operations on Long Island.

Northrop Alpha

Design work was done at the Avion Corporation, which in 1929, became the Northrop Aircraft Corporation based in Burbank, California.

Northrop XFT

In December 1932, it ordered the XF7B from Boeing, and based on the impressive performance of Northrop's Gamma and Delta, both stressed skin monoplanes, placed an order with Northrop on May 8, 1933 for a single prototype fighter, designated XFT-1.

Radioplane BTT

The Radioplane BTT, known as RP-71 by the company, was a family of target drones produced by the Radioplane Company, and later Northrop.

Radioplane was bought out by Northrop in 1952 to become the Northrop Ventura Division, though it appears that the "Radioplane" name lingered on for a while.

Radioplane Q-1

Required to be jet-powered to provide the most reallistic training, the contract for the development of the drone was given to the Radioplane Company, later a division of Northrop.

Radioplane XKD4R

The Radioplane XKD4R, known by the company designation RP-70, was an American target drone developed by the Radioplane Division of the Northrop Corporation.

Steven J. Morello

After leaving the Judge Advocate General's Corps, Morello worked as an attorney for Digital Equipment Corporation and the Northrop Corporation.

Tammy Locke

Locke's parents both worked for Northrop Corporation; her father Earl as a leadman in electrical maintenance, and her mother Lola in template control.

Thomas Patrick Cavanaugh

Cavanaugh, who worked at Northrop, was debt-ridden, undergoing a divorce, and was "willing to take 25,000 American dollars in cash for technology that cost the United States billions to develop".

Vought V-141

In 1935, Northrop had flown the Northrop 3A, a single-engined, single-seat monoplane with a retractable undercarriage, to meet a United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) requirement for a single-seat fighter.


AIDC AT-3

A total of sixty-two aircraft were manufactured by the Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation of the Taiwan (Republic of China) in collaboration with US aircraft manufacturer Northrop between 1984 and 1990.

Irving S. Reed

He was part of the team that built the MADDIDA, guidance system for Northrop's Snark cruise missile – one of the first digital computers.

Jack Northrop

In 1932, Northrop, backed by Donald Douglas of Douglas Aircraft, founded another company, the Northrop Corporation in El Segundo, California.

Los Angeles Assembly

After closure, the plant was then purchased by Northrop Corporation in 1982 where they established their "Advanced Systems Division," which was a cover for the development of the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.

Mary Feik

She restored antique and classic aircraft and has participated in the construction of reproduction World War I aircraft, helping restore the National Air and Space Museum’s 1910 Wiseman-Cooke aircraft, a WWI Spad XIII fighter, Betty Skelton's Little Stinker and a 1930 Northrop “Alpha” mail plane.

Togo D. West, Jr.

West returned to private practice in 1981 with the firm of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler and later worked as senior vice president for government relations of the Northrop Corporation until he became a member of the Clinton administration.

Vought

Northrop Grumman, the successor to Northrop and Grumman, bought out the Carlyle Group's share of Vought for $130 million in 1994.