A Legacy of Defense
Spirit AeroSystems’ headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, sits at the epicenter of America’s WWII-era defense aircraft production. It was on this site that some of the most important aircraft in U.S. Defense and Boeing history were built, including the B-29 Superfortress, the B-47 Stratojet and the B-52 Stratofortress. At Spirit AeroSystems, military aircraft manufacturing is truly part of the very ground we build on.
Global Defense Connections
Spirit’s defense legacy credentials stretch from the 1910s to the 1990s and from the American Midwest to the Scottish Ayrshire countryside. Spirit’s Prestwick, Scotland location was where Scottish Aviation Ltd. was founded in 1935. This facility was an essential producer of aircraft during WWII. In the latter half of the 20th century, Spirit’s Oklahoma locations were Rockwell International sites, producing components for the International Space Station, the Joint Strike Fighter and the Nimrod MRA4.
When Spirit AeroSystems acquired Bombardier, Belfast, formally Short Brothers, it inherited the legacy of ‘the first manufacturers of aircraft in the world’. During WWI Short Brothers manufactured Short 184 floatplane, the first aircraft to attack a ship with a torpedo (Battle of Gallipoli) and R31, the most advanced airship of WW1. In 1936, the Queens Island, Belfast site was built, and many more famous defence aircraft rolled off the production line including Short Stirling bomber and Short Sunderland flying boat during WW2, SC1 vertical take-off demonstrator for the Harrier jump jet, Shorts Belfast a strategic lift aircraft, Shorts 330 and Short Tucano.
Rockwell B-1
Lockheed C-130
Sikorsky CH-53K
Boeing B-52
B-29 Superfortress Assembly in Wichita, Kansas
The first B-29s rolled off the Boeing-Wichita lines in September 1943. By the end of WWII, Boeing-Wichita was producing 4.2 Superfortresses per working day for an average of 100 per month, and had reduced the man hours needed to produce each aircraft from 157,000 to less than 20,000. Of the 3,888 B-29s built, 1,644 were Wichita-made.
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