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Pratt & Whitney Aircraft history
Pratt & Whitney Aircraft company history timeline
As it happened, the president of Pratt & Whitney’s parent company, Niles-Bement-Ponds, was a friend of the Rentschler family, and with little fuss a deal was struck in July 1925 creating the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company as a separate business with Rentschler at the helm.
Mead's staff completed the engine, called the Wasp, before the end of 1925.
Today a separate company, formed from the toolworks in 1925, produces aircraft engines and space-propulsion systems as part of the United Technologies Corporation.
Pratt & Whitney was founded Hartford, Connecticut in 1925.
In June 1927, the government opened mail delivery contracts to private airline companies.
Aviation pioneers William E.Boeing, left and Frederick B Rentschler inspecting a Wasp “A” engine in 1927 – Pratt & Whitney
It was in November 1928 that The Canadian Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company, Ltd. was established and founded, during this time, it acts as a service center for Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines.
The companies were incorporated on January 19, 1929, as the United Aircraft and Transport Company.
To keep up with production, the company moved its operations in 1929 to a large new plant it built in East Hartford on a 1,100-acre site, which included an adjacent airfield for flight testing its aircraft engines.
In 1930 Boeing's designers developed a fast new aircraft called the 247, which was fitted with Mead's newest engine, the Hornet.
A worker on the final assembly of a WASP engine in the East Hartford plant, 1940 – Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
The company eventually built or leased factory space in seven additional plants, and by 1943 Pratt & Whitney employed 40,000 people.
To meet the challenge, Pratt & Whitney by 1943 expanded its workforce from 3,000 employees to 40,000.
Pratt & Whitney assembled series of engines being built in the United States during the World War II. The production of Wasp engines was transferred to Pratt & Whitney Canada so that Pratt & Whitney could concentrate on jet engines developing in the year 1952.
The engine designed to do so, the J57, was introduced in 1953, rated at 13,500 pounds of thrust.
In production for 30 years, the J52 was built for the Hound Dog missile in 1960, but later powered a series of naval aircraft.
Gray subsequently diversified the company and changed its name to United Technologies in 1975.
By 1988 competition and deregulation drove commercial airlines into near bankruptcy, while fuel prices dropped.
As of March 2014, Pratt & Whitney Canada operates Boeing 747SP and McDonnell Douglas MD-80R aircraft as test beds for new engines.
The company now employs approximately 33,500 employees worldwide and had $14 billion in revenue in 2015.
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Pratt & Whitney Aircraft may also be known as or be related to Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, Pratt & Whitney Autoair and Pratt & Whitney Autoair, Inc.