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JOHN KNUDSEN NORTHROP
1895-1981
BY WILLIAM R. SEARS
jOHN KNUDSEN NORTHROP, pioneer designer and manufacturer of
aircraft, died at the age of eighty-five on February 18, 1981 . He was
an engineer in the finest tradition of the profession: innovator,
inventor, leader and organizer of engineering teams, industrialist,
and master of the art and science of design. He was one of the great
pioneers of aviation and founder of the major aerospace company
that bears his name.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, on November 10, 1895, Mr.
Northrop attended high school in Santa Barbara, California. He
never attended college, but received an honorary doctorate and
founded a technical university. He began his engineering career in
1916 as a mechanical draftsman-engineer in the Loughead Aircraft
Company. He learned structural design on the job, was called to
Army service during World War I, and was sent back to Loughead
by the Army for work on a flying-boat contract. In 1923 he joined
Donald Douglas in the engineering design of the Douglas Aircraft
Company's famous round-the-world biplanes. The engineering
team that produced those airplanes was said to be a formidable one,
with Jack Northrop responsible for structural details.
Later he rejoined Allen Lockheed (Loughead) in the new Lock-
heed Aircraft Company. Here he designed the remarkable Vega series
of airplanes, characterized by monocoque fuselage and unusual
aerodynamic refinement. A long series of record-breaking flights
was made by many famous aviators in the Lockheed Vega and its
229
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230
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
derivatives. He was "the designer" in days when that term
. .
was realistic.
In 1928 he founded the first of his own aircraft companies. Origi-
nally called the Avion Corporation, it became the Northrop Aircraft
Corporation, a division of United Aircraft and Transport Corpora-
tion, in 1930. Here the Northrop Alpha and Beta were designed and
built; they possessed the same kind of aerodynamic refinement as
the Vega, but lack Northrop was now working with stressed-skin
metal structures instead of plywood. He originated many elements
of the multicellular, stiffened-skin, metal wings that have become
inology
standard throughout the aeronautical world. The original Alpha now
hangs in the National Air and Space Museum. The Northrop
Gamma and Delta, which carried on these trends, were products of
Mr. Northrop's second company, founded in partnership with
Douglas Aircraft in 1932. This was the company that later became
the El Segundo Division of Douglas. Under Mr. Northrop's direc-
tion until 1939, this division produced a long series of efficient and
successful military aircraft.
In 1939 the present Northrop Corporation was founded. Its prod-
ucts were principally military aircraft, including the P-61 Black
Widow, F-89 Scorpion, the giant XB-35 and YB-49 Flying Wirlgs, and
a number of other sophisticated and imaginative research aircraft.
Donald Douglas, Sr., has said, "Every major airplane in the skies
today has some Jack Northrop in it." Mr. Northrop retired from
active direction of the company in 1952 and was Honorary Board
Member until his death.
John K. Northrop, the inventor, was awarded more than thirty
patents during his career. His ingenuity was not limited to aircraft
and aeronautics. In 1944 he became interested in the design of
prosthetic devices for amputees, shocked by what he saw as the
primitive and awkward products then available. He and his com-
pany were awarded a series of U. S. patents in this area. He invented
a popular, lightweight anchor widely adopted by yachtsmen and is
also given credit for the "hill-holder" device for automobiles and for
techniques of welded-magnesium-alloy construction based on the
helium-shielded arc.
Mr. Northrop was an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute
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JOHN KNUDSEN NORTHROP
231
of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical
Society of Great Britain, and was President of the Institute of Aero-
nautical Sciences in 1948. He was awarded the President's Certifi-
cate of Merit of the U.S.A., the Spir?t of St. Louts Medal of the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the honorary
degree Doctor of Science by Occidental College. He was elected to
the International Aerospace Hall of Fame and the Aviation Hall of
Fame. He was one of only three people to receive the Wings of Man
Award of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. He was Founder
and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Northrop Institute of
Technology, accredited as Northrop University since 1976. He was
elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1979.
Mr. Northrop, as a Chief Engineer and company President, was
clearly a co-worker with his fellow employees: cheerful, cooperative,
respectful of their skills and their sensibilities, and always ready to
shoulder his share of work. He was a gentleman of the highest
personal and intellectual standards, courteous and quiet voiced. To
all who worked with him, including several generations of military
leaders, he stood as a symbol of character, modesty, ingenuity, and
. . . · .
Rena sty—an engineer s engineer.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
knudsen northrop
