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 Airlines founded
in 1925. T.C. Ryan, previously best known for building Charles
Lindbergh's transatlantic Spirit of St. Louis, actually had no
part in building the famous plane. 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.
The new company's first aircraft
was the Ryan ST or "Sport Trainer", 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 STA (Aerobatic) with a more powerful 125 hp (93 kW)
Menasco C-4 in 1935. This aircraft had enough power for aerobatic
display, and it won the 1937 International Aerobatic Championships.
A further improved Ryan STA Special was built in 1936, with a
supercharged Menasco C-4S with 150 hp (112 kW).
In 1937 and 1938 a second civilian
aircraft model was introduced, the Ryan SCW-145 for Sport Coupe,
Warner 145 horsepower (108 kW) engine. The SCW was a larger three-seater
aircraft with a sliding canopy and side-by-side front seating.
The prototype SCW was originally powered by a Menasco engine,
however prototype testing revealed that more power was needed,
hence the move to the Warner 145 hp (108 kW), 7-cylinder radial
engine for production models. Thirteen examples of the SCW 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 observation craft. Three prototypes were built,
but no USAAF order materialized.
In the immediate postwar years, Ryan diversified, including even
building coffins for a short period. It bought the rights to
the Navion light aircraft from North American Aviation in 1947,
selling it to both military and civilian customers. 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.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. It was
flown, crashing after ingesting a test rescue dummy in its fans,
and was not made into a production aircraft. Other Ryan V/STOL
designs included the VZ-3 Vertiplane and the YO-51 Dragonfly.
In 1966/67, Ryan was awarded the contract to build the digital
Doppler radar system installed aboard the Apollo Lunar Lander.
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. Claude Ryan retired as chairman with the Teledyne
purchase. Northrop Grumman purchased Teledyne Ryan in 1999, with
the products continuing to form the core of that firm's unmanned
aerial vehicle efforts. |
