Ford Aerospace

Ford Aerospace was the aerospace and defense division of Ford Motor Company, based in Dearborn, Michigan, and active from 1956 through 1990, when it was sold to the Loral Corporation. Its roots were in Aeronutronic, which became a Ford division in 1956, and in Philco, which Ford acquired in 1961; the combined business was Philco-Ford and later Aeronutronic Ford, and it took the name Ford Aerospace and Communications Corporation in 1976 and Ford Aerospace Corporation in 1988. Major divisions were the Space Systems Division in Palo Alto, the Western Development Laboratories in San Jose and the Aeronutronic Division at Newport Beach, California. In the 1960s and 1970s it grew rapidly on the success of the Sidewinder air-to-air missile and the Chaparral surface-to-air missile, and the Pave Tack bomb-targeting system became a significant source of revenue in the 1970s. Its DIVAD division, which built the M247 Sergeant York anti-aircraft vehicle, was dissolved in 1984 after the production contract was canceled.