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Glenn L. Martin Company




Martin started out building military trainers in Santa Ana , California , and then in 1916 , accepted a merger offer from the Wright Company , creating the Wright-Martin Aircraft Company in September. This apparently did not go well, and Martin left to form a second Glenn L. Martin Company on September 10 , 1917 , this time based in Cleveland, Ohio .

Martin's first big success came with the MB-1 Bomber , a large Biplane design ordered by the US Army on January 17 , 1918 . The MB-1 entered service too late for World War I , but a follow up design, the MB-2, was so successful that the Army ordered 130 more. Unfortunately for Martin, the production orders were given to other companies that had bid lower.

In 1924 , Martin underbid Curtiss on production of a Curtiss-designed scout bomber SC-1, and ultimately produced 404 of these. In 1929 , Martin sold the Cleveland plant and built a new one in Middle River, Maryland , northeast of Baltimore .

During the 1930s, Martin built flying boats for the US Navy , and the innovative B-10 bomber for the Army. It also produced the famous China Clipper Flying Boat used by Pan American Airways for its San Francisco to Manila route.

During World War II , a few of Martin's most successful designs were the B-26 Marauder and A-22 Maryland bombers, the PBM Mariner and JRM Mars flying boats, widely used for air-sea rescue, Anti-submarine Warfare and transport.

Postwar efforts included unsuccessful prototype XB-48 and XB-51 Bomber s, the B-57 Canberra night bombers, the P5M Marlin Flying Boat , and the Martin 4-0-4 twin-engine passenger plane.

Martin merged with the American-Marietta Corporation in 1961 to form the Martin Marietta Corporation, which subsequently merged with the Lockheed Corporation in 1995 to form Lockheed Martin .

The Martin Company employed many of the founders and chief engineers of the American aerospace industry, including William Boeing , Donald Douglas , Lawrence Bell , James S. McDonnell , J.H. "Dutch" Kindleberger ( North American Aviation ) and C.A. Van Dusen ( Brewster Aeronautical Corporation ).


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