aerospace

This page highlights works on the aerospace industry. It supplements discussion of aviation and outer space as precursors of and metaphors for the net.

It covers -

• introduction
• Boeing
• Lockheed
• General Dynamics
• Northrop
• McDonnell-Douglas
• Airbus

     introduction

Considering the size and significance of the aerospace industry it has attracted surprisingly little literature. Writing about individual manufacturers is more voluminous but often triumphalist.

For an introduction to the US industry see Donald Pattillo's Pushing the Envelope: The American Aircraft Industry (Ann Arbor: Uni of Michigan Press 1998), GR Simonson's The History of the American Aircraft Industry - An Anthology (Cambridge: MIT Press 1968), John Rae's Climb to Greatness: The American Aircraft Industry, 1920-1960 (Cambridge: MIT Press 1968), John Newhouse's The Sporty Game (New York: Knopf 1982), Charles Bright's The Jet Makers - The Aerospace Industry From 1945 to 1972 (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas 1978) and Roger Bilstein's The American Aerospace Industry: From Workshop to Global Enterprise (New York: Twayne 1996). 'The US Commercial Aircraft Industry' by David Mowery & Nathan Rosenberg in their Technology and the Pursuit of Economic Growth (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 1989) is perceptive. For France see Emmanuel Chadeau's L'Industrie aéronautique en France 1900-1995 (Paris: 1987).

Global perspectives are provided in Keith Hayward's The World Aerospace Industry: Collaboration & Competition (London: Duckworth 1994) and Herman Stekler's The Structure & Performance of the Aerospace Industry (Berkeley: Uni of California Press 1965).

William Proxmire's impassioned Report from Wasteland: America's Military-Industrial Complex (New York: Praeger 1970) is of interest as a denunciation of the 'complex'; other works such as Stuart Leslie's The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford (New York: Columbia Uni Press 1993) are highlighted in discussion of the Wassenaar Agreement.

There has been somewhat more attention to particular projects - such as the Anglo-French Concorde - as an expression of national elan and a supposed driver of innovation in other industry sectors. Examples include Steven McGuire's Airbus Industrie: Conflict and Cooperation in US-EC Trade Relations (New York: St Martin's 1997).

     Boeing

For Boeing see Karl Sabbagh's The Making & Marketing of the Boeing 777 (New York: Scribner 1996), TM Sell's Wings of Power: Boeing and the Politics of Growth in the Northwest (Seattle: Uni of Washington Press 2001), Eugene Rodgers' Flying High: The Story of Boeing and the Rise of the Jetliner Industry (New York: Atlantic Monthy Press) and Legend and Legacy: The Story of Boeing and Its People (New York: St Martins Press 1992) by Robert Serling.

Arms production is highlighted in Boeing B-52: a Documentary History (London: Jane's 1982) by Walter Boyne, B-47 Stratojet: Boeing's Brilliant Bomber (New York: McGraw Hill 2000) by Jan Tegler and Wild Blue Yonder: Money, Politics and the B-1 Bomber (New York: Pantheon 1988) by Nick Kotz.

     Lockheed

For Lockheed see Beyond the Horizons - The Lockheed Story (New York: St. Martin's Press 1998) by Walter Boyne.

     General Dynamics

For General Dynamics see Jacob Goodwin's Brotherhood of Arms: General Dynamics and the Business of Defending America (New York: Times Books 1985), The Defender: The Story of General Dynamics (New York: Harper & Row 1986) by Roger Franklin

     Northrop

Jack Northrop and the Flying Wing (New York: Paragon House 1988) by Ted Coleman

     McDonnell-Douglas

McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Since 1920 (London: Putnam 1979) by René Francillon, Carroll Glines & Wendell Moseley's The DC-3 - The Story of a Fabulous Airplane (Philadelphia: Lippincott 1966)

     Grumman

The Grumman Story (New York: Praeger 1976) by Richard Thruelsen and Grumman Aircraft Since 1929 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press 1989) by René Francillon

     Curtiss

Glenn Curtiss: Pioneer of Flight (Garden City: Doubleday 1972) by CR Roseberry, Louis Casey's Curtiss, The Hammondsport Era 1907-1915 (New York: Crown 1981), Louis Eltscher & Edward Young's Curtiss-Wright - Greatness and Decline (New York: Twayne 1998).

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