Convair
Convair (Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation) was an American aircraft and aerospace manufacturer active from 1943 to 1994, formed by the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft. The company produced major military aircraft including the B-36 Peacemaker, B-58 Hustler, F-102 Delta Dagger, and F-106 Delta Dart, developed the Atlas ICBM — the first American operational intercontinental ballistic missile — and conducted experiments with nuclear-powered flight through the NB-36H program. Convair was eventually absorbed into General Dynamics and its divisions eventually folded into Lockheed Martin.
History and Formation
Consolidated Aircraft Corporation was founded in 1923 and moved from Buffalo, New York, to San Diego in 1935, becoming one of the largest aircraft manufacturers in the United States during World War II through its PBY Catalina flying boat and B-24 Liberator heavy bomber programs. Vultee Aircraft, founded in 1939, was a major trainer and attack aircraft manufacturer. The two merged in 1943 to form Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, subsequently branded as Convair.
Major Programs
B-36 Peacemaker
The B-36 Peacemaker was the first operational intercontinental bomber capable of delivering nuclear weapons to targets in the Soviet Union from bases in the continental United States without aerial refueling. With a wingspan of 230 feet and powered by six pusher piston engines supplemented by four jet engines, it was one of the largest mass-produced piston-engine aircraft in history. The B-36 served as the primary American strategic nuclear delivery system from 1948 until being replaced by the B-52 Stratofortress in the late 1950s.
NB-36H Nuclear Propulsion Research
Between 1955 and 1957, Convair modified a B-36 into the NB-36H — the only nuclear-powered aircraft ever flown. The aircraft carried an operational nuclear reactor in its bomb bay, with the reactor's radiation shielded by a 12-ton lead and rubber shield protecting the crew compartment. The NB-36H made 47 test flights to gather data on reactor behavior in flight conditions and to assess the radiation exposure to crew and ground personnel, but the aircraft itself was never actually nuclear-propelled — the reactor was run but not connected to the engines. The program was part of the broader Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) project, which was eventually cancelled by the Kennedy administration in 1961 as ballistic missiles rendered nuclear-powered strategic bombers unnecessary.
Atlas ICBM
Convair's San Diego division developed the Atlas ICBM under chief engineer Karel Bossart from 1951 onward, achieving first flight in 1957. The Atlas used a "balloon tank" design — a thin stainless steel skin pressurized by internal gas that would collapse without pressurization — to minimize structural weight. Atlas became the first American operational ICBM, entering service in 1959, and subsequently formed the basis for the Atlas rocket family used to launch the Mercury astronauts and later commercial payloads.
F-102 Delta Dagger and YF-102
The F-102 Delta Dagger was the United States' first operational supersonic interceptor, designed to defend against Soviet nuclear bombers. Its development was complicated by the discovery that the original YF-102 prototype could not achieve supersonic flight due to excessive transonic drag — a problem solved only after Richard Whitcomb's area rule principle was applied, leading to the wasp-waisted redesign that allowed supersonic performance. The F-102 and its successor, the F-106 Delta Dart, remained in service through the Vietnam War era.
Anti-Gravity Research and Suppressed Announcements
In the context of anti-gravity research and suppressed technology, Convair was among a handful of mid-1950s aerospace companies whose executives made public statements about gravity control programs then claimed to be in development. Researcher Jason Jorjani, citing contemporaneous press coverage, has documented that in 1954 mainstream newspapers were reporting statements from aerospace executives — including from Martin Aircraft, which would later become part of Lockheed Martin — claiming that their firms had already "cracked" anti-gravity technology and were "months away from rolling anti-gravity craft off the assembly line."
In a separate discussion, Jorjani cited the same episode as recounted in his earlier Total Disclosure Podcast appearance: "They quoted the chairman of Martin Aircraft, Lear, Convair — by 1955 or so, the story disappears. The story disappears."
Jorjani interprets this silence as evidence that the U.S. government acquired and classified these gravity propulsion programs approximately in 1955, with the companies' public statements being shut down as part of the same classification event that ended open scientific discussion of gravity-control research. The broader pattern — in which companies including Convair, Lear, and Martin Aircraft were all making similar announcements simultaneously, and all went silent simultaneously — is interpreted as coordinated government suppression rather than independent failure of unrelated research programs.
This chronology aligns with the period in which Wilbert Smith's 1950 memorandum placed the highest-classification American UFO and propulsion research, and with the period identified by researchers as the transition point at which gravity-control and anti-gravity research was moved from open scientific publication into classified compartments within private defense contractors — a transfer that David Grusch and others have described as the origin of the legacy unacknowledged programs that the UAP disclosure movement seeks to expose.
Jesse Michels, citing a 1956 article in Young Men's Magazine by aviation journalist Michael Gladych, confirmed the pattern: "You know, Bill Lear is quoted, who we talked about. Who else is quoted? George Trimble, who's a VP at Martin Corporation, their R&D, their anti-gravity research program. He says anti-gravity research is, you know, we're gonna figure this out in just the same amount of time that it took to figure out the atom bomb." Michels further cited a verified 1971 Australian Joint Intelligence Organization document — also referenced by David Grusch — which identified multiple outposts of classified anti-gravity research and stated that the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence was coordinating the programs.
Convair's Place in the Aerospace-Intelligence Complex
Convair's parent companies throughout its existence placed it at the center of American defense contracting. After being absorbed by General Dynamics in 1954, Convair became the largest division of one of the largest defense contractors in the country. Its Atlas ICBM program gave it an enduring role in the American nuclear deterrent; its aerospace research programs placed it alongside Lockheed, Boeing, and Northrop as a member of the exclusive group of contractors with access to the most sensitive government programs.
Researchers including Jorjani have argued that Lockheed — formed in part from the same Martin Aircraft whose executives made the 1954 anti-gravity announcements — became the primary corporate host for the classified non-human intelligence programs after their transfer from Pentagon control in the 1970s. Convair's trajectory into General Dynamics and eventually into Lockheed Martin means that the institutional lineage of these programs passes through its corporate successors.