Jack Northrop

John Knudsen Northrop (November 10, 1895 – February 18, 1981) was an American aircraft industrialist and designer who founded the Northrop Corporation in 1939. He was an important figure in the development of airplanes and helped shape the aviation industry.

Northrop's career began in 1916 as a draftsman for the Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company. He later joined the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1923, where he worked on the Douglas World Cruiser. In 1927, he became a chief engineer at the Lockheed Corporation, working on the Lockheed Vega transport. After leaving Lockheed in 1929, he founded Avion Corporation, which he sold the following year. In 1932, he founded the Northrop Corporation, which later became a part of Douglas Aircraft in 1939. His work helped advance airplane design and manufacturing.

Early life and entering aviation

John Northrop was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1895 and grew up in Santa Barbara, California. In 1916, he began his aviation career as a draftsman for the Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company in Santa Barbara. When the First World War started, he joined the U.S. Army and served in the Army Signal Corps for six months. He then returned to work for Loughead before joining the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1923, where he helped design the Douglas Round-the-World-Cruiser.

Later, in 1927, he worked again with the Loughead brothers at their new Lockheed Aircraft Company. There, he served as chief engineer for the Lockheed Vega, a special airplane used by famous pilots like Wiley Post, Amelia Earhart, and Hubert Wilkins. In 1929, he created an airplane with a metal body and an engine placed inside the wings, which was an important step toward developing the flying wing design.

Company founding

In 1929, Northrop started his own company called Avion Corporation, but he had to sell it to United Aircraft and Transport Corporation in 1930. In 1932, with help from Donald Douglas of Douglas Aircraft, Northrop created another company called the Northrop Corporation in El Segundo, California. This company made two very successful airplanes, the Northrop Gamma and Northrop Delta.

By 1939, the Northrop Corporation was part of Douglas Aircraft, so Northrop started a new, completely separate company with the same name in Hawthorne, California. This new location was chosen by Moye Stephens, one of the people who started the company with him.

Flying wing and other aircraft

While working at the company, Northrop focused on a special design called the flying wing. He believed this was an important step for future airplanes. His first test of this idea in 1940 grew into a very large plane called the Northrop XB-35.

During World War II, Northrop created several important planes, including the Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet, made from a strong metal, and the Northrop P-61 Black Widow, which was the first American plane made to fly at night and could find enemies in the dark. Over 700 of these night planes were built.

After the war, Northrop kept inventing new airplanes and other flying machines, such as the Northrop F-89 Scorpion, a plane that could fly in all weather, and the Northrop YB-49, a long-distance bomber. He also worked on early missile designs like the Northrop Snark. Northrop loved the idea of flying wings and kept making new designs, like the Northrop N-1M, Northrop N-9M, and Northrop XB-35. His ideas about flying wings were very advanced for his time, even before computers could help control unstable planes like the modern B-2 Spirit.

Unfortunately, his dream of the flying wing as the next big bomber after World War II did not succeed. This was very disappointing for him, and he stopped working closely with his company when he was 57 years old in 1952.

Later years

In 1979, Jack Northrop spoke publicly for the first time in many years about a project called the Flying Wing. He believed the Air Force stopped the project because he refused to combine his company with another called Consolidated Vultee. He felt pressured by the Air Force leader, Stuart Symington, who later joined the same company Northrop had refused to combine with. Symington denied Northrop’s claims.

Northrop tried his hand at real estate but lost much of his money. As his health declined in 1976, he shared his ideas about airplane design with NASA, and they encouraged him. By the late 1970s, he was too ill to walk or talk. Before he passed away, he was allowed to see models of the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, a modern airplane that used some of his original design ideas. Holding the model brought him great satisfaction.

Awards and honors

Jack Northrop received many awards for his work. In 1947, he was given the Spirit of St. Louis Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Later, he was honored by being placed in the International Aerospace Hall of Fame in 1972 and the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1974. After he passed away, he was added to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2003.

His love for designing airplanes without tails was remembered by naming a large flying reptile Quetzalcoatlus northropi after him. The airport in Hawthorne is called Jack Northrop Field in his honor Hawthorne Municipal Airport.