Bell Aircraft The Bell Aircraft Corporation was an aircraft manufacturer of the United States , a builder of several types of fighter aircraft for World War II but most famous for the Bell X - 1 , the first supersonic aircraft , and for the development and production of many important civilian and military helicopter s . Bell also developed the Reaction Control System for the Mercury Spacecraft , the North American X - 15 and the Bell Rocket Belt . The company was purchased in 1960 by Textron , and lives on today as Bell Helicopter . History . As a teenager , Larry Bell saw his first plane at an air show , starting a lifelong fascination with aviation . Bell dropped out of high school in 1912 to join his brother in the burgeoning aircraft industry at the Glenn L . Martin Company , where by 1914 he had become shop superintendent . By 1920 Bell was vice president and general manager of Martin , by now based in Cleveland , OH . Feeling that he deserved part ownership , in late 1924 he presented Martin with an ultimatum . Mr . Martin refused , and Bell quit . Bell spent several years out of the aviation industry , but in 1928 was hired by Reuben H . Fleet at Consolidated Aircraft , in Buffalo , New York where he was guaranteed an interest in the company . Before long , Bell became general manager and business was booming , but he still wanted to be able to run his own company . He knew that , although he could raise local capital , he would not be able to compete with either Consolidated or Curtiss - Wright , the two major aircraft builders also based in Buffalo . Serendipitously , in 1935 Fleet decided to move Consolidated Aircraft to San Diego , and Bell stayed behind to establish his own company , the Bell Aircraft Company , on 10 July 1935 , headquartered in the former Consolidated plant at 2050 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo . Incidentally , Bell was the third major aircraft builder to occupy the site . The factory complex was originally built in 1916 for the Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Company , and during World War I had been considered the largest airplane factory in the world . Bell ' s first military contract followed in 1937 with the development of the ill - fated YFM - 1 Airacuda , an unconventional bomber - destroyer powered by two Allison - powered pusher propellers . The YFM - 1 incorporated groundbreaking technology for the time , with gyro stabilized weapons siting and a thermionic fire control system . Including the prototype , just 13 Airacudas were produced , and these saw only limited service with the USAAC before being scrapped in 1942 . Bell enjoyed much success the following year with the development of the single engine P - 39 , of which 9 , 588 were built . Putting their previous experience with Allison engines to good use , the P - 39 placed the engine in the center of the aircraft , with the propeller driven by a long shaft through which a 37mm cannon was also mounted , firing through the propeller ' s spinner . Due to persistent development and production problems , the original turbosupercharger was deleted from production models , instead using a single - stage , single - speed supercharger , as was standard on all other Allison - powered products , with the exception of the P - 38 . The P - 39 performed poorly at high altitudes compared to newer , late - war designs . Most Allied forces thought the Airacobra effective only for ground attack roles , as demonstrated by a few U . S . Army Air Forces units that flew P - 39s , such as the so - called " Cactus Air Force " on Guadalcanal in 1942 - 43 . However , the Soviet Air Force used their Lend - Lease P - 39s primarily in the air - to - air role , where they found it to excel as a front - line fighter against some of the best pilots and aircraft of the Luftwaffe . Indeed , the Soviet - flown P - 39s were the main reason that the aircraft is credited with highest number of individual kills attributed to any U . S . fighter type . A somewhat larger and more powerful version of the P - 39 was produced shortly before the end of World War II . Called the P - 63 Kingcobra , this warplane addressed many of the shortcomings of the P - 39 , though it was produced too late in the war to make any significant contribution . 2 , 971 P - 63 ' s were built between 1943 and 1945 , many delivered to the Soviet Union . Also , by that time , the Army Air Forces already had the superior P - 47 Thunderbolt and P - 38 Lightning fighter - bomber s . In October 1942 , The Bell - built twin - jet P - 59 Airacomet was the first American jet aircraft to fly . Unfortunately , performance was below expectations , roughly on par with contemporaneous propeller - driven aircraft , an outcome generally attributed to the extremely short development timeframe required by the USAAF , as well as the intense secrecy imposed on the project . Design had begun in September 1941 , during which time the Bell team was guided mostly by theory , as General Electric would not finish and begin testing the first engine until March 1942 . Also , General Henry " Hap " Arnold had forbidden use of wind tunnels to test and optimize the design , but later relented somewhat , only allowing the group to use the low - speed tunnel at Wright Field , Ohio . Bell engineers could only guess at the performance characteristics . Originally intended initially as a production aircraft , the P - 59 nevertheless became an important experimental testbed for jet technology , providing invaluable data for development of later jet airplanes . During World War II , Bell also built heavy bomber s under license from other aircraft companies at a factory near Marietta , Georgia , just northwest of Atlanta . Online by mid - 1943 , the new plant produced hundreds of Consolidated B - 24 Liberator s and Boeing B - 29 Superfortress bombers . In mid - 1944 , the production of the B - 24 was consolidated from several different companies ( including some in Texas ) to two large factories : the Consolidated Aircraft Company in San Diego and the Ford Motor Company ' s spawling factory in Willow Run , near Detroit , Michigan , which had been specially designed to produce B - 24s . For the rest of the war , Bell ' s Marietta plant concentrated on producing B - 29s , producing 668 of them by the time contract expired in the fall of 1945 . Bell ranked 25th among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts . After World War II . As the postwar defense industry downsized , Bell consolidated its operations at the Wheatfield plant , near Buffalo . The aircraft factory in Marietta later became the property of the Lockheed Corporation , which has used it for producing C - 130 Hercules , C - 141 Starlifter , and C - 5 Galaxy transport plane s . Although Bell designed several more fighter plane designs during and after WW II , none of these ever entered mass - production . The XP - 77 was a small fighter using non - strategic materials ; it was not successful . The XP - 83 was a jet escort fighter similar in layout to the P - 59 that was cancelled . The Bell XF - 109 was a supersonic vertical takeoff fighter that was cancelled in 1961 . Perhaps Bell Aircraft ' s most important contribution to the history of fixed - wing aircraft development would be the design and building of the experimental Bell X - 1 rocket plane , the world ' s first airplane to break the sound barrier , and its follow - on , the Bell X - 2 . Note that in a twist on the usual way of designating American aircraft , the following were not different models of the X - 1 , but rather they were the successive ( mostly identical ) units of the X - 1 program : the X - 1 , X - 1A , X - 1B , X - 1C , X - 1D , and X - 1E . Bell went on to design and produce several different experimental aircraft during the 1950s . These helped the U . S . Air Force and the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics ( NACA ) explore the boundaries of aircraft design , and paving the way for the founding of NASA and the exploration of outer space . The X - 2 Starbuster achieved Mach 3 ( 2 , 100 mph ) and a height of 126 , 000 ft in 1955 , blazing a technological trail for the development of spacecraft . Bell played a crucial role in the development of rocket propulsion after WWII , spearheaded by the likes of some of the most brilliant minds in rocket science like Walter Dornberger ( ex - commander of the Nazi Germany Pennamunda rocket base ) and Wendell Moore . Bell developed and fielded the worlds first nuclear tipped Air - to - Surface cruise missile , the GAM - 63 RASCAL in 1957 . Wendell Moore developed the Bell Rocket belt , utilizing peroxide monopropellant rocket engines . While the rocket belt failed to be commercially developed , the rocket technology proved invaluable in future Bell programs . Bells crowning achievement in the realm of rocketry was the Agena rocket engine . The Agena was a 12 , 000 lbf bi - propellant rocket that is considered to this day to be one of the most reliable rockets ever built . 360 units were produced starting in the late 1950s and it was responsible for inserting into orbit most of the satellites launched by the United States in the 1960s . Helicopter development began at Bell Aircraft in 1941 with the company ' s first one , the Bell Model 30 first flying in 1943 . Bell Helicopters became the only part of Bell Aircraft still producing aircraft when Bell was purchased by the Textron Corporation . That part of Textron is now known today as Bell Helicopter Textron . After a series of successful helicopter designs , the UH - 1 Iroquois became the most noted helicopter of the War in Vietnam , and Bell Helicopters still designs and manufactures helicopters today . Lawrence Bell died in 1956 , and for several years afterwards the company was in financial difficulty . Textron purchased the Bell Aerospace division on 5 July 1960 . Bell Aerospace was composed of three divisions of Bell Aircraft , including its helicopter division , which had become its only aircraft - producing division . Bell Aerospace Textron continued to play a significant role in NASA ' s mission to land men on the moon in the 1960s . Bell designed and built the Reaction Control system for Project Mercury ' s Redstone command module and a similar system was incorporated into the North American X - 15 space plane . NASA selected Bell to develop and built the LLRV Lunar Landing Research Vehicle , three of which were built in the early 1960s to train the Apollo astronauts to land on the moon . Bell also designed the rocket engine used in the Apollo LEM Ascent Propulsion System , which was responsible for getting NASA ' s astronauts off the moon .