1920 11-NY 3-0H 2-CA
1925 11-NY 3-NJ 2-0H
1929 19-NY 12-MI 11-CA
1935 13-CA 8-NY 6-PA
1939 14-CA 7-NY 5-PA
Number of Aircraft Manufacturers by State.
Only States with more than one company are listed.
during the decade and some beyond: Consolidated (1925-34), Eberhart (1927-28) , Elias (1922-29) , Fleet (1929-31), General (1922-30); Hall (1928-34) . In fact, during the 1920s the East was the center of US aviation manufac turing activity . New York state topped the list with 45 companies listed during the decade. Next most productive state was Michigan with 29 corporations listed . Ohio was third with 15 listed . The expansion of the industry is also shown by the growth in the number of states producing aircraft. In 1920 three states were listed as having more than one aircraft company each. By 1925, five states had more than one company and by 1929, 24 states were rep resented in JANE'S with 13 having more than one manufacturer. In fact New York , Michigan and California had more than 10 with New York lead ing the list with 19 companies. The accompanying chart lists the number of companies per state for selected periods from 1920 to 1939. This figure shows the gradual migra tion of the center of the industry to California. On its way to California the aviation industry settled some of its members in Wichita, Kansas including Swallow (1921), Travel Air (1926), Laird (1928) , Cessna (1928), and Stearman (1928) . (See "The Swallow and Wichita Aviation" in the April 1988 VINTAGE AIRPLANE.) There were also a wide variety of aircraft produced during the decade. JANE'S identifies more than 400 mod els from the various manufacturers , from the Acme Sportsman to the Zenith Albatross . The average aircraft of this time period was an open-cockpit , steel tube-fuselage biplane. By the end of the decade there was a 50-50 split be
tween biplanes and monoplanes. During the course of the decade, the US aviation industry produced nearly 16,000 aircraft . 1930s The post-Lindbergh era saw a great increase in the number of aircraft com
panies and the appearance of reliable engines. The trend in configuration was towards the cabin monoplane with a radial engine. The end of the decade saw a trend to all-metal monoplane construction for commercial aircraft. By the 1930s a series of aeronautical developments from the 1920s became common features . These included streamlining (See: "Streamlining" in the July 1989 VINTAGE AIRPLANE), variable-pitch propellers , wing flaps, and engine cowlings. These develop ments were reflected in such modern aircraft as the Boeing 247 and the Douglas DC-3. By the end of the dec ade such improvements even reached the light plane market with the de velopment of the Luscombe Phantom. JANE'S lists more than 180 man ufacturers for the decade in I 13 loca tions producing more than 600 differ ent aircraft models. It can ~e seen by the lower number of locations that the industry seemed more stable than in the 1920s. Though the number of man ufacturers in the decade is not much more than the previous one , the number of new aircraft developed indi cates that in spite of the poor economy of the nation, the aviation industry con tinued to grow. In spite of, or maybe in response to the Depression, names of aircraft using
derivations of the word "sport" were common with II companies using such names. Variations included: Sport, Light Sport, Senior Sportster, Sport Airse dan, Sport Mailwing, Sport Mono plane, Sport Pursuit, Sport Trainer, Sport V-8, Sports Single, Sportsman, Sportster, Sportwing, and Super Sport . By 1935 California had become the leading state for aircraft companies with 13 listed . New York dropped to second with eight companies listed. Among the companies that moved headquarters to California from New York were North Am'erican and Con solidated. Though the industry shifted to California, over the course of the decade New York was the city with the most companies with 17. Wichita is next with 11 followed by Buffalo with 10. Despite the Depression and having about the same number of companies as the previous decade the industry was more productive in the 1930s. During the course of the decade the US aircraft industry produced more than 25,000 aircraft and in only one year - 1925 did military production exceed civil. LONGEVITY It is interesting to note that though these were two turbulent decades in the industry, six companies that were in business in 1920 were still around in 1939. They were Bellanca, Boeing, Curtiss, Lockheed (Loughhead in 1920), Martin, and Vought. Of these two , Boeing and Bellanca were still headquartered in the same cities as in 1920. Our nation was fortunate to have these resources on the verge of World War II . • VINTAGE AIRPLANE 9