Rockwell International

Rockwell International was the last company founded under the influence of Willard Rockwell, who had made his fortune inventing and marketing a new driveshaft bearing system for trucks in 1919..

Rockwell International is a conglomerate of companies that merged throughout its history. In the beginning, Rockwell Spring and Axle Company merged, the latter was already a merger of several automotive supply companies, and formed Rockwell-Standard, in 1967 it merged with North American to form North American Rockwell. They then bought and absorbed Miehle-Goss-Dexter, the largest supplier of presses, and Collins Radio, a major supplier of avionics. They eventually merged with Rockwell Manufacturing (headed by Willard Rockwell Jr.) and formed Rockwell International in 1973.

Rockwell B-1B of the U.S. Air Force. U.S.

The companies in the conglomerate all had plenty of work to do. North American was responsible for the famous and splendid World War II P-51 Mustang fighter and later the F-86 Saber during the Korean War, as well as part of the Apollo program. Already under the Rockwell name they continued to produce the B-1B Lancer bomber, with certain stealth capabilities and variable geometry wings. The space shuttle program had already started with North American and continued under Rockwell, being in 1987 the company chosen to build the space shuttle Endeavour, replacing the space shuttle Challenger, which was destroyed on its tenth mission. They also participated in Global Positioning System or Navstar satellites. Rocketdyne, who had spun off from North American in 1955, reunited in 1984 and built the light business jets formerly known as the Aero Commander, introducing the Commander 112 and 114 models.

Collins radios were distributed to 80% of the world's airlines. They also designed and built the radios for communication with the Apollo Lunar Module and the high-frequency radio network that enables communication with US Army military aircraft around the world. Rockwell engineers designed and built the third stage of the Minuteman ICBM and the inertial guidance system for its navigation. He also built the inertial navigation systems for the submarine fleet that carries ballistic missiles.

With the death of Willard Rockwell in 1978 the company ended up selling its aerospace and defense divisions to Boeing including Rocketdyne in December 1996. The company began to spin off its semiconductor division, which was established as Conexant, it also spun off the automotive truck division later renamed Meritor and later merged with Arvin Industries to eventually form Arvin Meritor. What was left of the company eventually split into two: Rockwell Collins and Rockwell Automation, and Rockwell International disappeared.