Aircraft Industrialists
Aircraft Industrialists.Among the ever‐widening links between military and social institutions, few have been as extensive or dynamic as the relationship between the U.S. military and the aircraft industry. From the industry's origins before World War I through the early Cold War period, this relationship, though heavily mediated by Congress, was made up of army and navy officers and individual aircraft industrialists who for the most part owned and operated independent firms. These firms performed research and development for new military aircraft and also manufactured them. During the interwar years, suggestions that the aircraft industry be nationalized were occasionally heard but never really challenged the consensus that the industry ought to remain in private hands and that the military ought to relate to aircraft firms on contractual business terms kept as distant and impartial as possible.
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