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Streaking across the Air Force proving grounds at Muroc Lake, Calif., Northrop Aircraft's new fighter seemed for a moment to explode in the air. From the big pods at the wing tips, great puffs of smoke and flame shot out. The explosions were the blasts from showers of rockets shot from the pods. They gave the "Scorpion," said the Air Force, the heaviest firepower of any U.S. fighter. Although the big, heavy Scorpion is full of radar equipment, it can climb higher than 40,000 ft. Its radar eyes can search out an enemy plane in night...
Last week, the Grand Slam gave Northrop's President John K. (Jack) Northrop a big pot in what had long looked like a losing game. To Northrop Aircraft, which had more than once lost heavily on postwar wrong guesses, the Air Force was readying $154 million in contracts for the new plane, which would bring Northrop's total backlog to $389 million...
Hard Times. Jack Northrop began designing an all-weather interceptor six years ago, when no enemy had any A-bombs to drop on the U.S. Northrop has i habit of looking ahead. A onetime garage mechanic, he helped found Lockheed Aircraft, designed the Lockheed Vega, used by Wiley Post on his two flights around the world and by Amelia Earhart on her second transatlantic flight in 1932. On his own, Northrop built the Alpha, forerunner of the modern low-wing, all-metal monoplane, and pioneered multicellular metal construction in commercial airplanes. He had long dreamed of an all-wing...
Like all the others, it mushroomed during World War II. At the peak, Northrop had 10,000 employees, turned out $280 million worth of planes and parts, including 1,000 of his P-61 Black Widow night fighters. Like many another builder, Northrop also lost millions on postwar ventures into nonaircraft projects (among Northrop's bad bets: motor scooters and calculating machines). He also bet on a three-engine transport plane and his long cherished Flying Wing. The transport was behind its time, the Flying Wing ahead of it. The Government, which had staked both to $80 million worth...
Soft Heart. Easygoing Jack Northrop, who admits that he is "too softhearted" to be a good boss, knew that he was a better designer than administrator. In 1949 he took a back seat to a new chairman and general manager, Oliver P. Echols, a retired Air Force major general who was chief of Air Force Material & Services in World War 11, later served as president of the Aircraft Industries Association. Echols soon shook the soggy company into a model of cost-conscious efficiency. Northrop was left free to do what he liked best: design. And just before Echols came...