Founded | 1934 |
---|---|
Founder | T. Claude Ryan |
Defunct | 1969/1999 |
Fate | Merged with Teledyne |
Successor | Northrop Grumman |
Headquarters | San Diego, California |
The Ryan Aeronautical Company was founded by T. Claude Ryan in San Diego, California, in 1934. It became part of Teledyne in 1969, and of Northrop Grumman when the latter company purchased Ryan in 1999. Ryan built several historically and technically significant aircraft, including four innovative V/STOL designs, but its most successful production aircraft was the Ryan Firebee line of unmanned drones used as target drones and unmanned air vehicles. [1]
In 1922, T.C. Ryan founded a flying service in San Diego that would lead to several aviation ventures bearing the Ryan name, including Ryan Airline Company founded in 1925. [2]
T.C. Ryan, whose previous companies were best known for building Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic Spirit of St. Louis , actually had no part in building the famous aircraft. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Ryan had been owner or partner in several previous companies, one of which also bore the name Ryan Aeronautical. The Spirit of St. Louis was not built by the final Ryan Aeronautical entity. [9]
The new company's first aircraft was the S-T Sport Trainer, [10] a low-wing tandem-seat monoplane with a 95 hp (71 kW) Menasco B-4 Pirate straight-4 engine. Five were built before production switched to the Ryan ST-A Aerobatic with a more powerful 125 hp (93 kW) Menasco C-4 in 1935. This aircraft now had enough power for aerobatic display, and it won the 1937 International Aerobatic Championships. A further improved ST-A Special was built in 1936, with a supercharged 150 hp (110 kW) Menasco C-4S.
In 1937 and 1938, a second civilian aircraft model was introduced, the S-C Sport Coupe, or SC-W with a 145 hp (108 kW) Warner Super Scarab radial engine. The SC-W was a larger three-seater aircraft with a sliding canopy and side-by-side front seating. The prototype SC-M was originally powered by a Menasco C-4 inline engine, however testing revealed that more power was needed. Thirteen examples of the SC-W were built, although the last one was assembled from surplus parts decades after the initial production run was finished.
Interest from the United States Army Air Corps followed. The Menasco engines proved unreliable, and instead Kinner radial engines were fitted. Aircraft were produced as the PT-16 (15 built); PT-20 (30 built); PT-21 (100 USAAF, 100 USN); and finally as the definitive PT-22 Recruit (1,048 built) ordered in 1941 as pilot training began its rapid expansion.
Ryan also pioneered STOL techniques in its YO-51 Dragonfly liaison and observation craft, but only three were built. [11]
In the immediate postwar years, Ryan bought the rights to the Navion light aircraft from North American Aviation, selling it to both military and civilian customers. [11] : 222–225
Ryan became involved in the missile and unmanned aircraft fields, developing the Ryan Firebee unmanned target drone, the Ryan Firebird (the first American air-to-air missile) among others, as well as a number of experimental and research aircraft.
Ryan acquired a 50% stake in Continental Motors Corporation, the aircraft-engine builder, in 1965. [12]
In the 1950s, Ryan was a pioneer in jet vertical flight with the X-13 Vertijet, a tail-sitting jet with a delta wing which was not used in production designs. In the early 1960s, Ryan built the XV-5 Vertifan for the U.S. Army, which used wing- and nose-mounted lift vanes for V/STOL vertical flight. Other Ryan V/STOL designs included the VZ-3 Vertiplane. [11] : 226–235
Ryan developed the highly accurate radar system used on the Apollo Lunar Module. [11] : 237–238
In 1968, the company was acquired by Teledyne for $128 million and a year later became a wholly owned subsidiary of that company as Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical Company. [11] : 237
Northrop Grumman purchased Teledyne Ryan in 1999, with the products continuing to form the core of that firm's unmanned aerial vehicle efforts.
Model name | First flight | Number built | Type |
---|---|---|---|
Ryan M-1 | 1926 | 36 | Mail plane |
Ryan ST, PT-22 Recruit | 1934 | 1994 | Trainer |
Ryan S-C | 1937 | 14 | Light passenger aircraft |
Ryan YO-51 Dragonfly | 1940 | 3 | STOL scout |
Ryan FR Fireball | 1944 | 66 | Piston-jet fighter |
Ryan XF2R Dark Shark | 1946 | 1 | Turboprop fighter |
Ryan Navion | 1948 | 1202 | Light passenger aircraft; military liaison |
Ryan X-13 Vertijet | 1955 | 2 | Experimental vertical takeoff |
Ryan Firebee | 1955 | xx | Target drone |
Ryan VZ-3 Vertiplane | 1959 | 1 | Experimental V/STOL |
Ryan Model 147 | 1960s | Drone | |
Ryan XV-8 | 1961 | 1 | Flex wing |
Ryan XV-5 Vertifan | 1964 | 2 | VTOL |
Ryan AQM-91 Firefly | 1968 | 28 | Reconnaissance drone |
Ryan YQM-98 | 1974 | Reconnaissance drone | |
Teledyne Ryan Scarab | 1988 | Reconnaissance drone | |
Teledyne Ryan 410 | 1988 | Reconnaissance drone | |
BQM-145 Peregrine | 1992 | Reconnaissance drone | |
The Spirit of St. Louis is the custom-built, single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane that Charles Lindbergh flew on May 20–21, 1927, on the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from Long Island, New York, to Paris, France, for which Lindbergh won the $25,000 Orteig Prize.
The de Havilland DH.82 Tiger Moth is a 1930s British biplane designed by Geoffrey de Havilland and built by the de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and other operators as a primary trainer aircraft. In addition to the type's principal use for ab initio training, the Second World War had RAF Tiger Moths operating in other capacities, including maritime surveillance and defensive anti-invasion preparations; some aircraft were even outfitted to function as armed light bombers.
The Ryan STs are a series of two seat, low-wing monoplane aircraft built in the United States by the Ryan Aeronautical Company. They were used as sport aircraft, as well as trainers by flying schools and the militaries of several countries.
Tubal Claude Ryan was an American aviator born in Parsons, Kansas. Ryan was best known for founding several airlines and aviation factories.
The Lockheed DC-130 is a variant of the C-130 Hercules modified for drone control. It can carry four Ryan Firebee drones underneath its wings.
The Ryan PT-22 Recruit, the main military version of the Ryan ST, is a military trainer aircraft that was used by the United States Army Air Corps during WWII for primary pilot training.
The RyanNavion is a single-engine, unpressurized, retractable gear, four-seat aircraft originally designed and built by North American Aviation in the 1940s. It was later built by Ryan Aeronautical Company and the Tubular Steel Corporation (TUSCO).
The Ryan XV-5 Vertifan was a jet-powered V/STOL experimental aircraft in the 1960s. The United States Army commissioned the Ryan VZ-11-RY in 1961, along with the Lockheed VZ-10 Hummingbird. It successfully proved the concept of ducted lift fans, but the project was cancelled after multiple fatal crashes unrelated to the lift system.
The Ryan Model 147 Lightning Bug is a jet-powered drone, or unmanned aerial vehicle, produced and developed by Ryan Aeronautical from the earlier Ryan Firebee target drone series.
The Ryan Firebee is a series of target drones developed by the Ryan Aeronautical Company beginning in 1951. It was one of the first jet-propelled drones, and remains one of the most widely used target drones ever built.
The Ryan AQM-91 Firefly was a developmental drone developed during the Vietnam War to perform long-range reconnaissance, especially into China.
The Radioplane BTT, known as RP-71 by the company, as WS-426/2 by the United States Navy, and as WS-462/2 by the US Air Force, is a family of target drones produced by the Radioplane Company.
The Menasco Pirate series are four-cylinder, air-cooled, in-line, inverted aero-engines, built by the Menasco Motors Company of Burbank, California, for use in light general and sport aircraft during the 1930s and 1940s. The Menasco engines came in both normally aspirated and supercharged forms, with the supercharged models exhibiting superior performance at higher altitudes, with a relatively small increase in dimensions and weight. The supercharged models had the S suffix added to their designation to show supercharging.
The Fleet Model 1 and its derivatives are a family of two-seat trainer and sports biplanes produced in the United States and Canada in the 1920s and 1930s. They all shared the same basic design and varied mainly in their powerplants.
The Fairchild 22 Model C7 was an American two-seat touring or training monoplane designed and built by the Kreider-Reisner division of the Fairchild Aircraft Corporation at Hagerstown, Maryland. The aircraft has a parasol wing configuration and was used with a variety of engines; 127 were produced from 1931 to 1935.
The Ryan S-C (Sports-Coupe) was an American three-seat cabin monoplane designed and built by the Ryan Aeronautical Company. At least one was impressed into service with the United States Army Air Forces as the L-10.
The Ryan YQM-98 R-Tern was a developmental aerial reconnaissance drone developed by Ryan Aeronautical. It could take off and land from a runway like a manned aircraft, and operate at high altitudes for up to 24 hours to perform surveillance, communications relay, or atmospheric sampling.
The Ryan M-1 was a mail plane produced in the United States in the 1920s, the first original design built by Ryan. It was a conventional gear parasol-wing monoplane with two open cockpits in tandem and fixed, tailskid undercarriage.
The Stearman-Hammond Y-1 is a 1930s American utility monoplane built by the Stearman-Hammond Aircraft Corporation and evaluated by the United States Navy and the British Royal Air Force.