Martin
 
B-26 Maurader
Photo: Robert Deering 1991
Midland International Airport (MAF)

Midland, Texas

The Glenn L. Martin Company was an American aircraft and aerospace manufacturing company that was founded by the aviation pioneer Glenn L. Martin. The Martin Company produced many important aircraft for the defense of the United States and its allies, especially during World War II and the Cold War. Also, during the 1950s and 60s, the Martin Company moved gradually out of the aircraft industry and into the guided missile, space exploration, and space utilization industries.

Glenn L. Martin Company was founded by aviation pioneer Glenn Luther Martin on August 16, 1912.  Martin started out building military trainers in Santa Ana, California, and then in 1916, Martin accepted a merger offer from the Wright Company, creating the Wright-Martin Aircraft Company in September.  This new company did not go well, and Glenn Martin left it to form a second Glenn L. Martin Company on September 10, 1917. This time based in Cleveland, Ohio. (Later, its headquarters would be moved to Baltimore, Maryland.)

Martin's first big success came during World War I with the MB-1 bomber, a large biplane design ordered by the United States Army on January 17, 1918. The MB-1 entered service after the end of hostilities, but a follow up design, the MB-2, was also proved successful and 20 were ordered by the Army Air Service, the first five of them under the company designation and the last 15 as the NBS-1 (Night Bomber, Short range).

PHOTOS        
Military Aircraft        

AM
Mauler

B-26
Maurader

B-57
Canberra

CGM-13 / MGM-13
Mace

MB-2

P5M
Marlin

TM-61 / MGM-1
Matador

X-24A

X-24B
 

HISTORY

During the 1930s, Martin built flying boats for the U.S. Navy, and the innovative Martin B-10 bomber for the Army. The Martin Company also produced the noted China Clipper flying boats used by Pan American Airways for its transpacific San Francisco to the Philippines 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. The 1941 Office for Emergency Management film Bomber was filmed in the Martin facility in Baltimore, and showed aspects of the production of the B-26.

The Martin Company built a total of 531 Boeing B-29 Superfortresses and 1,585 B-26 Marauders at its Omaha, Nebraska, plant at Offutt Field. Among the B-29s manufactured there were the Enola Gay and Bockscar which dropped the two, war-ending atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

Postwar efforts in aeronautics by the Martin Company included two unsuccessful prototype bombers, the XB-48 and the XB-51, the successful B-57 Canberra tactical bombers, both the P5M Marlin and P6M SeaMaster seaplanes, and the Martin 4-0-4 twin-engine passenger airliner.

The Martin Company moved forward into the aerospace manufacturing business, and it produced the Vanguard rocket, which was used by the American space program as one of its first satellite booster rockets as part of Project Vanguard. The Vanguard was the first American space exploration rocket designed from scratch to be an orbital launch vehicle — rather than being a modified sounding rocket (like the Juno I) or a ballistic missile (like the U.S. Army's Redstone missile). Martin also designed and manufactured the huge and heavily-armed Titan I and LGM-25C Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). Martin Company of Orlando, Florida, was the prime contractor for the U.S. Army's Pershing missile.

The Martin Company was also one of two finalists for the Command and Service Modules of the Apollo Program. Unfortunately for Martin, NASA awarded the design and production contracts for these to the North American Aviation Corporation.

The Martin Company went further in the production of even larger booster rockets for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Air Force with its Titan III series of over 100 rockets produced, including the Titan IIIA, the more-important Titan IIIC, and the Titan IIIE. Besides hundreds of Earth satellites, these rockets were essential for the sending to outer space of the two space probes of the Voyager Project to the outer planets the two space probes of the Viking Project to Mars, and the two Helios probes into low orbits around the Sun. (closer, even, than Mercury (planet).

Finally the U.S. Air Force required a booster rocket that could launch heavier satellites than either the Titan IIIE or the Space Shuttle. The Martin Company responded with its extremely large Titan IV series of rockets. When the Titan IV came into service, it could carry a heavier payload to orbit than any other rocket "except" for NASA's Saturn V rocket — which was no longer in production and thus was a machine from history. Besides its use by the Air Force to launch its sequence of very heavy reconnaissance satellites, one Titan IV, with a powerful Centaur rocket upper stage, was used to launch the heavy Cassini space probe to the planet Saturn in 1997. The Cassini probe has been in orbit around Saturn since 2004, successfully returning mountains of scientific data.

The halting of production of the Titan IV in 2004 brought to an end production of the last rocket able to carry a heavier payload than the Space Shuttle, with the Shuttle program itself slated to end as early as 2011.

The Martin Company merged with the American-Marietta Corporation, a chemical products and construction materials manufacturer, in 1961 to form the Martin Marietta Corporation. In 1995, Martin Marietta, then the nation's 3rd-largest defense contractor, merged with the Lockheed Corporation, then the nation's second largest defense contractor, to form the Lockheed Martin Corporation, becoming the largest such company in the world.

Source: Wikipedia 

AIRCRAFT      
       
Martin MB-1 1918   Twin piston-engined biplane bomber
Martin MB-2 1920   Derived from the MB-1 and designed as a night bomber that sacrificed speed and maneuverability to carry a heavy bomb load
Martin NBS-1 1920   Twin piston-engined biplane bomber
Martin M2O-1 1923   Single piston-engined biplane float observation airplane short-range reconnaissance / gun spotting aircraft
Martin MS 1923   Single piston-engined biplane scout biplane  intended to operate from a submarine.
Martin XO-4 c1923   Single piston-engined biplane observation airplane (cancelled)
Martin N2M 1924   Prototype single piston-engined biplane trainer
Martin MO 1924   Single piston-engined monoplane observation airplane
Martin T3M 1926   Single piston-engined biplane torpedo bomber
Martin T4M 1927   Single piston-engined biplane torpedo bomber
Martin BM 1929   Single piston-engined biplane torpedo bomber
Martin XT6M 1930   Prototype single piston-engined biplane torpedo bomber
Martin PM 1930   Twin piston-engined biplane flying boat patrol airplane
Martin XP2M 1931   Prototype triple piston-engined monoplane flying boat patrol bomber
Martin P3M 1931   Twin piston-engined monoplane flying boat patrol bomber
Martin B-10 1932   Twin piston-engined monoplane bomber
Martin M-130 1934   Quadruple (quad) piston-engined monoplane flying boat airliner
Martin 146 1935   Prototype twin piston-engined monoplane bomber
Martin XB-16 1935   Unbuilt quad piston-engined monoplane bomber
Martin M-156 1937   Quad piston-engined monoplane flying boat airliner
Martin PBM Mariner 1939   Twin piston-engined monoplane flying boat patrol bomber
Martin 167 Maryland 1939   Twin piston-engined monoplane bomber
Martin B-26 Marauder 1940   Twin piston-engined monoplane bomber
Martin XB-27     Unbuilt twin piston-engined monoplane bomber
Martin 187 Baltimore 1941   Twin piston-engined monoplane bomber
Martin JRM Mars 1942   Quad piston-engined monoplane flying boat transport
Martin 193 1942   Unbuilt six-piston-engined monoplane flying boat transport
Martin XB-33 Super Marauder 1943   Unbuilt twin piston-engined monoplane bomber
Martin AM Mauler 1944   Single piston-engined monoplane attack airplane
Martin P4M Mercator 1946   Twin piston-engined monoplane patrol bomber
Martin 2-0-2 1946   Twin piston-engined monoplane airliner
Martin XB-48 1947   Prototype six-jet-engined monoplane bomber
Martin 3-0-3 1947   Prototype twin piston-engined monoplane airliner
Martin P5M Marlin 1948   Twin piston-engined monoplane flying boat patrol bomber
Martin XB-48 1947   Medium jet bomber developed to compete with the Boeing B-47 Stratojet
Martin TM-61 / MGM-1 Matador 1949   The TM-1 Matador was the first operational surface-to-surface cruise missile designed and built by the United States.
Martin XB-51 1949   Unbuilt twin jet-engined monoplane bomber
Martin 4-0-4 1950   Twin piston-engined monoplane airliner
Martin B-57 Canberra 1953   Twin jet-engined monoplane bomber
Martin P6M SeaMaster 1955   Quad jet-engined monoplane flying boat patrol bomber
Martin P7M SubMaster 1950's   Combined quad piston/twin jet-engined flying boat antisubmarine airplane
CGM-13 / MGM-13 / TM-76 Mace 1956   The CGM-13 was a ground-launched cruise missile developed from the earlier Martin TM-61 Matador.
Martin/General Dynamics RB-57F Canberra 1963   Twin jet-engined monoplane reconnaissance airplane
Martin X-23 PRIME 1966   The X-23A PRIME (Precision Reentry Including Maneuvering reEntry) was a small lifting-body re-entry vehicle tested by the USAF
Martin X-24A / X-24B 1969 Designed to test lifting body concepts, experimenting with the concept of unpowered reentry and landing, later used by the Space Shuttle.