United Aircraft & Transport Corporation

Fred Rentschler had early on formed a working relationship with Chance Vought in negotiating with U. S. Navy personnel. They had cooperated in marrying the Wasp engine with the Vought-built original Corsair for use on early Navy carriers. William Boe­ing and Rentschler had combined to create the most effective aircraft of the time, the

Boeing 40 В with the Wasp engine for Boeing Air Transport. These three men represented the three sectors mentioned, namely engine manufacture, aircraft manufacture, and airmail carrier. Led by Rentschler and Boeing, these three formed United Aircraft & Transport Cor­poration. Soon they added Hamilton Propeller to the group.

The company was set up with Pratt & Whitney owning 50 percent of the stock and the rest being divided among Boeing Aircraft, Boeing Air Transport, the Vought Corporation, and Hamilton Propeller. United then added Standard Propeller, Sikorsky, and Stearman Aircraft Company.

United next embarked on acquiring air transport companies, including Pacific Air Transport, which operated from Seattle to San Francisco and Los Angeles, Varney Air Lines, operating from Salt Lake City to Seattle, and National Air Transport (through a proxy fight), which held the eastern leg of the transcontinental route from New York to Chicago, as well as the line from Chicago to Dallas/Ft. Worth. Upon the acquisition of NAT, United operated the entire transcontinental airmail route, and soon decided to break it out into a wholly owned carrier subsidiary called United Air Lines.

North American Aviation

North American Aviation (NAA) was the brainchild of Clement Keys, a vice president of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company during World War I. He gained control of that company during the early 1920s and began acquiring an assortment of additional companies, including National Air Transport, which was later to be absorbed by United. Next, he lined up and bought out several airmail routes operat­ing between the Northeast and Florida (which would ultimately form the basis for Eastern Air Lines), while continuing to fly the mails on the midwestern routes. Before the great Wall Street crash of 1929, he merged the Curtiss holdings with Wright Aeronautical Corporation, creating Curtiss-Wright, completing the triad acquisi­tion of companies capable of airplane building, engine manufacture, and air carriage. Gen­eral Motors would gain controlling interest in NAA for a time in the early 1930s. At this time, NAA’s holdings included Eastern Air Transport, Transcontinental Air Transport, and a substantial interest in Douglas Aircraft.

Ш Aviation Corporation

Aviation Corporation was the work of Averell Harriman and Robert Lehman, New York financiers. Robert Lehman was of the Wall Street banking house of Lehman Brothers. Harriman was to later serve in key government posts, including lend-lease administrator, ambassador to the Soviet Union, Secretary of Commerce, and was to be a confidant of presidents. Together they salvaged the Fairchild Aircraft Company in 1929 through a stock sale before the finan­cial crash in October of that year. The new company proceeded to acquire 5 airmail carri­ers, themselves holders of 11 airmail routes; they bought all sorts of aviation properties, including aircraft and engine plants, and even some air­ports. The air carriers were combined to form American Airways.

Harriman and Lehman did not remain in the aviation business very long, losing out in a proxy fight to E. L. Cord in the early 1930s. Harriman then began his government service, while Lehman returned to Wall Street. But Lehman would be heard from again, this time at TWA with Yellow Cab magnate John Hertz.