American airframers Convair competitively championed the need for aviation speed. Capitalising on its highly respected name in military aircraft, it entered a niche sector of the 1950s market, manufacturing elegant contenders that boasted a new era of swift travel in style and comfort.
Today, the sleek and stylish Convair 880 and 990 are little known – just three are preserved intact in museums around the world.
Notably, Convair failed to make any substantial inroads into the airliner market while simultaneously suffering one of the greatest financial losses in US corporate history – losing $450m (£335m) at 1962 prices. It would spell the end of the aerospace firm’s involvement in the civil airliner market.
The Convair name arose from a merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft in 1943, which together built more than 30,000 aircraft during World War Two. The San Diego, California-based company was one of the giants of the USA aviation industry. It had produced many impressive military types, among them the Catalina amphibian, B-24 Liberator bomber and, in the 1950s, the supersonic F-102 Delta Dagger and F-106 Delta Dart fighters and the B-58 Hustler bomber. At that …
