Gerard "Jerry" Freebairn Vultee and Vance Breese started the Airplane Development Corporation in early 1932 after American Airlines showed great interest in their six-passenger V-1 design. Soon after, Errett Lobban Cord bought all 500 shares of stock in the company and the Airplane Development Corporation became a Cord subsidiary.
Due to the Air Mail Act of 1934, AVCO established the Aviation Manufacturing Corporation on November 30, 1934 through the acquisition of Cord's holdings, including Vultee's Airplane Development Corporation. AMC was liquidated on January 1, 1936 and Vultee Aircraft Division was formed as an autonomous subsidiary of AVCO. Jerry Vultee was named vice president and chief engineer. Vultee acquired the assets of the defunct AMC, including Lycoming Engines and Stinson Aircraft Company. Meanwhile, Vultee and Breese had redesigned the V-1 to meet American Airlines' needs and created the eight-passenger V-1A. American purchased 11 V-1As, but the plane ultimately failed due to safety concerns about a single-engine plane and the advent of the twin-engine Douglas DC-2s and DC-3s. Vultee redesigned the V-1 into the V-11 attack aircraft for the United States Army Air Corps, but it received few initial orders. By 1937 Jerry was heading his own factory in Downey, California, with more than a million dollars in orders for V-1s, V-1As and V-11s. In 1938, before he could see Vultee become an independent company, Jerry Vultee and his wife Sylvia Parker, the daughter of Twentieth Century Fox film director Max Parker, died when the plane he was piloting crashed in a snowstorm near Sedona, Arizona. A bronze plaque memorializing the Vultees is located at the end of Coconino Forestry trail named in honor of Vultee Arch, a natural rock arch near the site of the plane crash near Sedona, Arizona. It is reached via a 5-mile jeep trail, followed by a 2-mile hike on a well-used trail. The Vultee Arch Trail goes to a viewpoint for the arch. Donald P. Smith, Jerry Vultee's close friend and Vice President of Vultee Aircraft, wrote a letter to TIME magazine about Vultee's death:
Sirs: trainer at the Vultee aircraft plant, Downey, California in World War II. AVCO hired Dick Palmer away from Howard Hughes to take Jerry Vultee's place, and Vultee Aircraft Division began to develop military designs. Dick Palmer created the BT-13, BT-15, and SNV Valiant trainers and oversaw other major production program such as the V-72 Vengeance, serving in the USAAC as the A-31 and A-35.
Independent company
Vultee Aircraft was created in November 1939, when Vultee Aircraft Division of AVCO was reorganized as an independent company. The P-66 Vanguard was a 1941 fighter program that was intended for Sweden that was inherited by the USAAC, Great Britain and finally, China. The P-66 had a mediocre combat record in China and was out of service by 1943. The XP-54 fighter project was the last Vultee Aircraft design, but only two examples were built. Vultee was the first company to build aircraft on a powered assembly line, and the first to use women workers in production-line positions.
Merger
On March 17, 1943, Consolidated and Vultee merged, creating Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, popularly known as Convair. The Vultee management resigned.
Timeline
1929 Aviation Corporationholding company formed by multiple participants
1932 Airplane Development Corporation formed by Gerard F. "Jerry" Vultee; Errett Lobban Cord soon takes it over
1934 AVCO acquired the Airplane Development Corporation from Cord and formed the Aviation Manufacturing Corporation
1936 AMC liquidated to form the Vultee Aircraft Division, an autonomous subsidiary of AVCO
1939 Vultee Aircraft Division of AVCO reorganized as an independent company known as Vultee Aircraft, Inc.
1941 Consolidated Aircraft Corporation sold to AVCO
1943 Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, generally known as Convair, formed by the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft; still controlled by AVCO
