Honeywell Aerospace

Allied-Signal acquired the Lycoming Turbine Engine Division of Textron in 1994 and Grimes in 1997. Allied-Signal acquired Honeywell in 1999 and changed the name of the resulting company to Honeywell International.

Early history

In the late 1930s Honeywell added temperature controls to moving vehicles like cars, trains and airplanes. This was more challenging than a traditional stationary furnace, because the temperature around a plane changes drastically as it climbs and descends. Honeywell provided the air conditioning system for America's first nuclear-powered submarine in 1954 and many Honeywell controls were used in the Manhattan Project.

John Clifford "Cliff" Garrett founded Aircraft Tool and Supply Company in a one-room office in Los Angeles in 1936 to create specialized parts for aviation. From 1936 to 1938 the company grew from $3,503 to $21,540 in profit and raised an additional $31,500 in capital. In 1938 Cliff Garrett declared the company had hit a downturn, because many manufacturers they had previously sold products from had developed their own sales offices. In response, Cliff shifted focus to developing and manufacturing patented aviation products. In 1938 the company changed its name to Garrett Corporation. In 1939, Garrett formed Garrett AiResearch Manufacturing Co. to design, create and sell patented aviation products. The first invented product was an all-aluminum aircraft intercooler that was used to give Boeing B-17 bombers high-altitude abilities. Garrett also built Defense Plant Corporation in 1942.

World War II & defense

Garrett AiResearch's first major product was an oil cooler for military aircraft that allowed the Douglas DB-7, and Boeing's B-17 and B-25 bombers to fly at higher altitudes. Garrett also developed and produced the pressurization technology for the pressurized cabins in the B-29 bomber and the air expansion cooling turbines for the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star.

During World War II, the invention of the Norden bombsight allowed bomber planes to hit precision targets from high altitudes, but at 25,000 feet a single degree of oscillation in the plane's flight course threw a bomb 400 feet off its target. The Flight Control Equipment system commonly known as "auto-pilot" was initially invented by Sperry so World War II bomber planes could fly steady enough to hit precise targets from high altitudes. The first Honeywell C-1 autopilot installation was on a B-17 in 1942.

The C-1 autopilot system created rumors in mainstream media regarding crewless autopilot planes flying for thousands of miles, creating diversions for enemy squads and maintaining a steady flight despite extensive damage. The autopilot technology was kept secret until 1943, when it became clear Germany had caught wind of it by salvaging downed US bombers.

Sperry, Bendix and Grimes all produced equipment for World War II planes like instruments, navigation, electronics, wheels and lighting systems.

During World War II Bendix made just about every ancillary instrument or equipment for military aircraft. Garrett Corporation initially produced intercoolers, air coolers and cabin pressurization regulators. During the war Garrett expanded to manufacturing its own actuators, auxiliary power units, mechanical shutters and turbochargers. Since then all of these companies have merged and ultimately became a part of Honeywell.

Honeywell was responsible for many of the cockpit technologies in the first mass-produced, four-engine heavy bomber, the B-17 Flying Fortress.

In the beginning of the war most turbochargers were manually controlled superchargers that used mechanical energy from the engine to force air into the combustion process through the intake manifold. The exhaust based turbocharger most common today was first created for World War II bomber planes and became stock equipment on B-17, B-24 and B-29 bombers.

World War II was a boon for Garrett AiResearch, but the company had already been advertising peace-time products and created a New Products Investigation Group to identify post-war aerospace technology ideas. Nevertheless, the war's end resulted in deep cutbacks and layoffs for Garrett Corporation. The B-36 had more than 10,000 Garrett products in it and helped carry the company through the post-war transition. By 1948 Garrett Corporation had a $7.5 million backlog.

Turbine history

Near the end of World War II, Garrett got board approval and $1 million in research funding to develop turbine engines. The company began to create its first turbine engine called "the black box", but a tight contract deadline and a problem with turbine efficiency resulted in the expensive project being scrapped in 1946. The backward curved centrifugal compressor from the black box project was used in future designs and lessons from the project made the company discontinue axial turbines for radial ones. In October 1951, Garrett was awarded a $36 million contract by the U.S. Navy.

Additional turbine testing facilities and a young team of engineers with turbomachinery experience eventually created future turbine engines used in APUs in the late 1940s. Used initially as a ground cart for military jets and some commercial aircraft, the first airborne APU entered service on the Boeing 727 in 1962.

By the 1960s Garrett AiResearch controlled a substantial portion of the APU turbine market, which was not expected to grow. Speer pushed Garrett to take on larger incumbents in the general engine propulsion market, but did not get approval to "boot-strap" the development of the turboprop 331 engine until 1962. The Garrett TPE331 would be Garrett's (later Honeywell's) first fixed-wing general propulsion turbine.

Commercial avionics

An early landmark commercial avionics technology was the ring laser gyroscope (RLG), which was developed in 1958. Honeywell supported the "long and painful" development process, but was rewarded by the 1970s. Honeywell also developed the Laser Inertial Navigation system. Both RLG and the Laser Inertial System help navigation and automatic flight control systems measure altitude, position, velocity and rotation. By 1991, 45,000 RLG devices were sold.

Throughout the 1950s technicians experimented with a new device called the Electrically Suspended Gyroscope (ESG). The ESG was a rotating ball suspended within a shell using electrical fields. Because there was no contact between materials, there was virtually no wear and tear. The drift of the device was small enough to be difficult to measure and test. The first commercial ESG was built in 1959.

The acquisition of Sperry Aerospace for $1.029 billion led to the integration of both flight control and navigation systems in the cockpit, which led to several years of double digit growth. The Boeing 777 widebody jet made in 1995 was manufactured with a suite of new avionics technology developed by Honeywell over four years by 1,200 engineers. By the end of the same year, 20 space and aviation programs had purchased the same set of new technologies.

Legal settlement

Honeywell's ring laser gyroscope (RLG) system was at the heart of a patent lawsuit regarding the special optical coatings applied to mirrors inside the inertial guidance system. In 1990 Litton Industries, who Honeywell had just won a $400,000 settlement from, sued Honeywell for $2 billion. The lawsuit was both for patent claims and alleged unfair business practices that led to Honeywell's monopolization of the RLG market. Later Litton increased the claim to $6 billion on the basis patent infringement was willful. If successful, it would have been the largest patent victory in history. However, a jury only ruled in favor for $234 million in damages, which was overruled by a US District Court, saying the patent was unenforceable because it was an obvious combination of pre-existing technologies.

After 11 years of legal battles from 1990 to 2001, just before going to another round of appeals, the companies agreed to settle for $440 million to end the long dispute Honeywell called "time-consuming and distracting".

The Honeywell HTF7000 series is used in the Bombardier Challenger 300 and the Gulfstream G280.

Aircraft brakes, wheels and black boxes

Honeywell also manufactures aircraft wheel and brake systems as part of its aircraft landing system (ALS) business based in South Bend, Indiana. It produces brakes for the joint venture between General Electric and a Chinese state-owned company called Commercial Aircraft Corporation for the C919 plane.

The project is expected to deliver 4,700 planes to China over the next 20 years. Honeywell manufactures commercial aircraft cockpit data recorders, commonly known as a "black box". In 2011 Honeywell black boxes were recovered from the infamous 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447. The black boxes were held 13,000 feet below water for two years at 400 times normal atmospheric pressure. At that depth and pressure the wireless alarm of a black box is largely ineffective and the black box itself is only designed to withstand 1500 gs of pressure or depths of 20,000 feet for 30 days. Despite far exceeding the black box's specifications, the data was recovered intact, showing the plane plummeted 38,000 feet in 3.5 minutes.