Description

Bell Aircraft Corporation Patch

Aviation Fans! Enjoy this classic Bell Aircraft Corporation Patch that recreates a golden age of aerial endeavor.  You love the quality of the stitching and will be proud to collect this patch.

• 5-inch patch
• Embroidered
• US Veteran-Owned Business
• Officially Licensed by Textron

Bell®, emblems, logos, and body designs are trademarks of Textron Innovations Inc. and are used under license by Squadron
Nostalgia LLC

The Bell Aircraft Corporation was an American aircraft manufacturer, a builder of several types of fighter aircraft for World War II but most famous for the Bell X-1, the first supersonic aircraft, and for the development and production of many important civilian and military helicopters. Bell also developed the Reaction Control System for the Mercury Spacecraft, North American X-15, and Bell Rocket Belt. The company was purchased in 1960 by Textron, and lives on as Bell Textron.

As the postwar defense industry downsized, Bell consolidated its operations at the Wheatfield plant, near Buffalo. The aircraft factory in Marietta later became the property of the Lockheed Corporation, which has used it for producing C-130 Hercules, C-141 Starlifter, and C-5 Galaxy transport planes. Although Bell designed several more fighter plane designs during and after WW II, none of these ever entered mass-production. 

The XP-77 was a small fighter using non-strategic materials; it was not successful. The XP-83 was a jet escort fighter similar in layout to the P-59 that was cancelled. The Bell XF-109 was a supersonic vertical takeoff fighter that was cancelled in 1961.

Perhaps Bell Aircraft’s most important contribution to the history of fixed-wing aircraft development would be the design and building of the experimental Bell X-1 rocket plane, the world’s first airplane to break the sound barrier, and its follow-on, the Bell X-2. Unlike the usual designations for American aircraft, the X-1 models were successive (mostly identical) units of the X-1 program: the X-1, X-1A, X-1B, X-1C, X-1D, and X-1E.

Bell went on to design and produce several different experimental aircraft during the 1950s. These helped the U.S. Air Force and the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) explore the boundaries of aircraft design, and paved the way for the founding of NASA and the exploration of outer space. The X-2 Starbuster achieved Mach 3 (2,100 mph) and a height of 126,000 ft in 1955, blazing a technological trail for the development of spacecraft.

Bell played a crucial role in the development of rocket propulsion after WWII, spearheaded by the likes of some of the most brilliant minds in rocket science like Walter Dornberger (ex-commander of Nazi Germany Peenemünde Army Research Center) and Wendell Moore. Bell developed and fielded the world’s first nuclear-tipped Air-to-Surface cruise missile, the GAM-63 RASCAL in 1957. Wendell Moore developed the Bell rocket belt, utilizing peroxide monopropellant rocket engines. While the rocket belt failed to be commercially developed, the rocket technology proved invaluable in future Bell programs. Bell’s crowning achievement in the realm of rocketry was the Agena rocket engine. The Agena was a 12,000 lbf bi-propellant rocket that is considered to this day to be one of the most reliable rockets ever built. 360 units were produced starting in the late 1950s and it was responsible for inserting into orbit most of the satellites launched by the United States in the 1960s.

Helicopter development began at Bell Aircraft in 1941 with the Bell Model 30 first flying in 1943. Bell Helicopter became the only part of Bell Aircraft still producing aircraft when Bell was purchased by the Textron Corporation. That part of Textron is now known today as Bell Helicopter. After a series of successful helicopter designs, the UH-1 Iroquois became the most famous helicopter of the War in Vietnam, and Bell Helicopter still designs and manufactures helicopters today.

Lawrence Bell died in 1956, and for several years afterwards the company was in financial difficulty.

Textron purchased the Bell Aerospace division on 5 July 1960. Bell Aerospace was composed of three divisions of Bell Aircraft, including the helicopter division. Bell Aerospace Textron continued to play a significant role in NASA’s mission to land men on the Moon in the 1960s. Bell designed and built the Reaction Control system for Project Mercury’s Redstone command module and a similar system was incorporated into the North American X-15 spaceplane. NASA selected Bell to develop and built the LLRV Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, three of which were built in the early 1960s to train the Apollo astronauts to land on the Moon. Bell also designed the rocket engine used in the Apollo LEM Ascent Propulsion System, which was responsible for getting NASA’s astronauts off the Moon.