Northrop 216878 223914435 2008-07-06T14:08:22Z Lightbot 7178666 Units/dates/other {{For|the current company|Northrop Grumman}} [[Image:Northrop logo.jpg|right]] The '''Northrop Corporation''' was a leading [[aircraft]] manufacturer of the United States from its formation in 1939 until its merger with [[Grumman]] to form [[Northrop Grumman]] in 1994. The company is known for their development of the [[flying wing]] design, although only a few of these have entered service. ==History== [[Jack Northrop]] founded three companies using his name. The first was the '''Avion Corporation''' in 1927, which was absorbed in 1929 by the [[United Aircraft and Transport Corporation]] as a subsidiary named "Northrop Aviation Corporation". The parent company moved its operations to [[Kansas]] in 1931, and so Jack, along with [[Donald Douglas]], established a "Northrop Corporation" located in [[El Segundo, California]], which produced several successful designs, including the [[Northrop Gamma]] and [[Northrop Delta]]. However, labor difficulties led to the dissolution of the corporation by Douglas in 1937, and the plant became the El Segundo Division of [[Douglas Aircraft]]. Northrop still sought his own company, and so in 1939 established the "Northrop Corporation" in nearby [[Hawthorne, California]], a site located by co-founder [[Moye Stephens]]. The corporation lasted until 1994. It was there that the [[P-61]] [[night fighter]], the [[Flying Wing]]s ([[Northrop YB-35|B-35]] and [[YB-49]]), the [[F-89 Scorpion|F-89]] [[Interceptor aircraft|interceptor]], the [[SM-62 Snark|Snark]] intercontinental [[cruise missile]] and the [[Northrop F-5|F-5 Freedom Fighter]] jet fighter (and its derivative, the successful [[T-38 Talon|T-38]] trainer) were developed and built. The F-5 was so successful that Northrop spent much of the 1970s and 1980s attempting to duplicate its success with similar light-weight designs. Their first attempt to improve the F-5 was the N-300, which featured much more powerful engines and moved the wing to a higher position to allow for increased ordinance that the higher power allowed. The N-300 was further developed into the P-530 with even larger engines, this time featuring a small amount of "bypass" ([[turbofan]]) to improve cooling and allow the engine bay to be lighter, as well as much more wing surface. The P-530 also included radar and other systems considered must-haves on modern aircraft. When the [[Light Weight Fighter]] program was announced, the P-530 was stripped of much of its equipment to become the P-600, and eventually the [[YF-17 Cobra]], which lost the competition to the [[F-16 Fighting Falcon]]. Nevertheless the YF-17 Cobra was modified with help from [[McDonnell Douglas]] to become the [[F/A-18 Hornet]] in order to fill a similar light-weight design competition for the [[US Navy]]. Northrop intended to sell a de-navalized version as the F-18L, but the basic F-18A continued to outsell it, leading to a long and fruitless lawsuit between the two companies. Northrop continued to build much of the F-18 fuselage and other systems after this period, but also returned to the original F-5 design with yet another new engine to produce the [[F-20 Tigershark]] as a low-cost aircraft. This garnered little interest in the market, and the project was dropped. In 1994, partly due to the loss of the [[Advanced Tactical Fighter]] contract to [[Lockheed Martin]] and the removal of their proposal from consideration for the [[Joint Strike Fighter Program|Joint Strike Fighter competition]], the company bought [[Grumman]] to form [[Northrop Grumman]]. The company was notable during the 1940s for experimentation with [[flying wing]]s; although a number of designs were flight-tested, only the [[B-2 Spirit|B-2]] stealth bomber of the 1980s ever made it to production and deployment. <br> {{Northrop aircraft}} {{Aviation lists}} [[Category:Companies established in 1927]] [[cs:Northrop]] [[da:Northrop Corporation]] [[de:Northrop Corporation]] [[es:Northrop Corporation]] [[fr:Northrop Corporation]] [[hr:Northrop Corporation]] [[he:נורת'רופ]] [[nl:Northrop]] [[ja:ノースロップ]] [[no:Northrop Corporation]] [[ru:Northrop Corporation]] [[sl:Northrop]] [[sv:Northrop Corporation]] [[zh:諾斯洛普公司]]