Hughes Aircraft Company Article Draft
Hughes Aircraft Company Article Rewrite Plan
As indicated in my comments on the Hughes Aircraft Company Talk page of a month ago, the present Hughes Aircraft Company Wikipedia article suffers problems of focus, accuracy, relevancy and continuity. Clearly the article was not deliberately intended to have these issues, they are the natural result of the Wiki process; no one person’s contribution is at fault. However, the present article could be greatly improved by some judicious editing.
A draft re-write text of the entire article follows. This draft is offered for consideration and constructive comments are welcome. References will be added to the next text revision; some of these will be those for the existing article but new references will be added. Likewise for illustrations, links and categories. My objective is to fine tune the complete article to satisfy Wikipedia standards before replacing the existing article. The whole update process is expected to take a few months.
LPIRE (talk) 19:03, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
HUGHES AIRCRAFT COMPANY
Overview
Hughes Aircraft Company was the largest and most successful developer of defense and space communications electronics in the second half of the 20th century. It provided the military serv-ices of the United States and forty-two other nations with electronic systems having perform-ance and effectiveness superior to those of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and that is be-lieved to have helped deter direct combat. At the same time Hughes Aircraft’s Space and Com-munications organizations developed geosynchronous satellites that revolutionized worldwide communications. One Hughes–developed variant of satellite communications was DirecTV.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) owned Hughes Aircraft Company (HAC) dur-ing much of the Company’s life. HHMI invested a portion of the earnings from the Aircraft Company in medical science, technology and physician development.
Considering what HAC achieved and sponsored, it was unique in it contributions to human wel-fare of the United States and the world. It well merits the accolade of being a “national treasure” as publicly proclaimed by Roger Smith, CEO of General Motors, upon the purchase of Hughes Aircraft Company in 1985.
Contents: Overview
History
Pre-WW II
World War II and After
Strategic Business Initiatives
Revolts and Reorganizations
Explosive growth
Changes of ownership
Major products and systems
References
History
The Hughes Aircraft Company life span was approximately 71 years. The first nine years were devoted to the personal aerodynamic ambitions of Howard Hughes. The next five years were committed to the US war effort. Two or three years were then invested in defining where the Company was going. Thereafter, as the path forward became increasingly clear, the Company focused on advanced electronics and on the enormous array of applications of electronics tech-nologies.
Pre-World War II Howard Robard Hughes jr. founded Hughes Aircraft Company in a corner of a hangar at Grand Central Air Terminal (closed in 1959) in Glendale 1932 in Southern California. It was established as a division of Hughes’ Houston Texas based Hughes Tool Company, producer of the extremely successful hard rock oil well drill bit. Mr. Hughes; origi-nal intention was that his aircraft company would enable his personal participation in the rap-idly developing aviation business and to develop, modify and race aircraft to achieve his own objectives. His first and most successful aircraft was his H-1 Racer with which he set world speed records in the 1930’s. The unique features of the H-1 often are asserted to be the source of design ideas incorporated in the infamous Japanese Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” of WW II and many other advanced combat aircraft.
Besides the H-1 Racer, Hughes Aircraft modified and operated several aircraft from other com-panies for Hughes to set long distance records and provide personal air transportation.
World War II and After Despite the huge WW II demand for aircraft production, Hughes Aircraft Company’s primary wartime business was developing and building subassem-blies and hardware kits for other aircraft manufacturers. Exceptions were two unique complete aircraft developments; the first was the enormous HK-4 (Hughes-Kaiser; aka HK-1 and H-4) Hercules flying boat mislabeled by the press “The Spruce Goose.” The major structural material was laminated wood, thus avoiding use of metals in short supply during the war. It flew only once in 1947 with Hughes at the controls well after its potential military usefulness. Hughes Aircraft built another wooden aircraft during the war, the D-2; it was not a successful design. However, Hughes did manage to sell an aircraft design that was somewhat similar to, but larger than, the D-2 and made of metal, the XF-ll aerial reconnaissance aircraft. That aircraft nearly killed Hughes in a catastrophic crash during a test flight over Beverly Hills, CA in 1946. Hughes never fully recovered from his injuries.
Strategic Business Initiatives After the one flight of the HK-4 Hughes decided to de-ploy several aircraft engineers and mechanics into the development of a gigantic helicopter, the XH-1 Flying Crane. This machine was not only huge but also unwieldy and extremely noisy; it was not a successful design either. However, smaller light helicopters were something Hughes Aircraft could and did succeed in designing and manufacturing. “Hughes Helicopters” remained a part of the Aircraft Company until 1955 when it became a separate segment of the Hughes Tool Company. This move was most likely made because the other strategic business initiative was becoming hugely successful and the helicopter business was a management distraction.
In the early1940’s Hughes Aircraft also designed and produced aircraft radios. When the War ended the need for improved national air defense became critical so the Company applied its radio experience to the development of airborne radar. Doctors Simon Ramo and Dean Woold-ridge led the Company in this effort. It was very successful in the interceptor radar business for the next 50 years and dominated the marketplace. Hughes Aircraft designed five generations of airborne radars and manufactured over 12,000 systems for use in twenty different fighter types.
The destruction of radar-detected air targets initially was accomplished with conventional ma-chine guns, cannons and unguided rockets. However, long range, all-weather target intercepts required rocket-propelled guided missiles. Hughes Aircraft developed several generations of air-to-air guided missiles, including the pioneering Falcon, the long range Phoenix and the AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile). Hughes produced nearly 100,000 such missiles by 2010.
Revolts and Reorganizations In 1953 the US Air Force realized that doing business with Hughes Aircraft was tedious and time-consuming because Howard Hughes was in complete control of the firm. Often he was unavailable for long periods of time, would not delegate authority and was very slow to make vital Company decisions. At approximately the same time, several senior members of management were at least as frustrated with Hughes as was the Air Force and began to leave. Prominent among these were Ramo and Wooldridge, who subse-quently co-founded Thompson-Ramo-Wooldrige. Also departing at this time was C.B. “Tex” Thornton who soon became a founding principal of Litton Industries. These were two high technology “power houses” that competed with Hughes Aircraft for years.
In 1953 Secretary of the Air Force Harold Talbot delivered an ultimatum to Mr. Hughes: authorize an accessible president or suffer loss of Air Force contracts. After much protest, Howard transferred the ownership of Hughes Aircraft Company to the newly formed Howard Hughes Medical Institute and hired a very competent general manager, L.A. “Pat” Hyland. This event marked the beginning of explosive growth in Company sales, number of employees, di-verse contracts, customers and new product lines. It also evolved a sequence of extremely com-petent chief executives.
Explosive Growth Hughes Aircraft exploited what might be called “electronics evolu-tion.” This is a development process where one innovation suggests the next. Airborne intercept radars were advanced with air-to-ground capabilities for attacking surface targets and high-resolution radar mapping. Other high-resolution target imaging systems used innovative infra-red, laser and television sensors. These devices matured into fully integrated fire control sys-tems to greatly increase weapon systems lethality. Surface-based radars grew into command and control networks that integrated the capabilities of multiple fire control elements that were capable of tracking and controlling hundreds of targets from horizon to horizon. The recurring theme of this aspect of HAC history was the evolution of single-function electronic components to sophisticated multifunction systems. Indeed, Hughes Aircraft was noted for being the world’s most capable defense electronic systems developer.
The urgent need in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s for global instant communication, particu-larly enormous computer data streams and television, drove Hughes Aircraft innovators towards space where satellites in “fixed” geosynchronous orbits could rapidly relay radio and TV sig-nals from one ground point to wide areas of the surface of the earth. Hughes developed and op-erated a fleet of increasingly capable satellite and communication services for US and overseas customers for both civilian and military applications. In addition to communication satellites, the Company designed and built scientific exploration spacecraft such as Surveyor, the first ve-hicle to soft-land on the moon. It also designed and built several planetary mapping spacecraft. The most publicly known Hughes product was DirecTV that relays multiple TV channels from a synchronous satellite directly to a modest sized (18 inches in diameter) antenna at a cus-tomer’s home.
Growth in the technology areas identified above resulted in the formation of seven major busi-ness groups within the Company during the next four decades: airborne radar, guided missiles, electro-optical and data systems, surface systems, space and communications, industrial elec-tronics and support and training systems. Each of these groups was a self-contained business entity with its own profit and loss responsibilities. Each was equipped with its own manage-ment, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, programs management and whatever other func-tions were required to successfully pursue its particular market areas. However, a unique feature of the Company’s operating policy was that the Groups cooperated, teamed, shared assets and engineering talent as might be required to achieve Group and Company objectives. For exam-ple, when the Space and Communications Group needed a mapping radar for its Venus probe spacecraft, the Radar Systems Group developed and provided it.
In 1941 Hughes Aircraft was centered in Culver City. It later expanded to El Segundo and four-teen other California sites as well as twelve other states and four cooperative nations.
Company business growth from 1953 to the late 1980s was astonishing. Annual sales leapt from less than $200M to over $11B. Employees increased from 15,000 to 85,000 at the peak. An im-portant business measure for a technology company is the number of patents necessary to pro-tect its competitiveness; Hughes held over 4,000 active patents.
Changes of Ownership Mr. Hughes died in 1976. Nine years later court rulings relating to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s financial assets being concentrated in Hughes Aircraft Company stock (it being the exclusive owner of the Company) made it necessary to sell HAC and diversify its investment holdings. In 1985 General Motors bought Hughes Aircraft Com-pany for $5.2B. At about the same time GM also bought Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and consequently became the largest business in the world. GM melded its Delco subsidiary with Hughes Aircraft to form the new Hughes Electronics Company.
GM made few changes in Hughes strategies, policies, investments and operating methods. Hughes Electronics continued to be successful, despite the downturn in national defense spend-ing following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Company did downsize but not nearly as drastically as many of its aerospace contemporaries due to the diversity of its business base.
In the early 1990’s new federal rules specified that increased amounts of liquid assets must be held by private corporations to assure the viability of employee pension and healthcare plans. This created a need for a large amount of cash at General Motors. Poor automotive business profits for several prior years made this problem particularly difficult. GM was forced to sell several subsidiaries including the largest and most profitable, Hughes Electronics. Beginning in 1996 GM partitioned Hughes into three large business segments in order to maximize sales prices. Raytheon Corp. bought the defense electronics portion in 1997 for $9.3B. Boeing Corp. bought the spacecraft group in 2000 for $3.3B. News Corp bought the DirecTV operation in 2003 for $6.6B. By the end of 2003 there essentially were no organizations remaining that bore the Hughes name.
Major Products and Systems
The list of Hughes Aircraft Company products and systems filled pages and easily numbered in the thousands. Entries in such a list would range from simple, but vital, electronic components at a few dollars each to enormous and complex systems valued in hundreds of millions of dol-lars. Representative products categorized by technology and/or functions are briefly identified below.
• Radars: air-borne, surface, ship, satellite
• Infrared sensors for high-resolution imaging, night vision and target tracking
• Laser equipment for range finding, target designation and scene imaging
• Guided weapons for target destruction in air-to-air, air-to-surface, surface-to-surface, underwater (torpedoes) environments and strategic offense and defense
• Computers and high capacity signal processors of many types for use in complex equipments and systems
• Large command and control networks for air defense and air traffic control
• Sonar surveillance sensor and underwater target tracking systems
• Electronic counter-measure equipments
• Secure communication devices
• High technology components including traveling wave tubes, infrared sensors, lasers, microelectronic assemblies and solar cells
• Commercial products: TV and data relay satellite networks, cell phone signal processors, digital watches, laser machining, broad bandwidth data streams multiplexing, large screen displays, flight simulators (trainers), compact night vision devices.