Founding years John Clifford Cliff Garrett founded a company in Los Angeles in 1936 which came to be known as Garrett AiResearch or simply AiResearch. Already operating his Garrett Supply and Airsupply businesses, in 1939 Cliff Garrett established a small research laboratory to conduct air research on the development of pressurized flight for passenger aircraft. AiResearch's first lab was a small store building on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. In 1939 Garrett incorporated the Garrett Corporation and the three operating companies became divisions: Airsupply Division, Garrett Supply Division, and AiResearch Manufacturing Division. Needing additional space, they built their own manufacturing facility in Glendale, California, and thereby established the name AiResearch Manufacturing Company. By 1941, AiResearch needed new space, and on April 28, 1941 moved from Glendale to what until then had been a beanfield on Sepulveda Boulevard, at the corner of Century Boulevard near Mines Field, which later became Los Angeles Airport.4 In 1942, the Army Air Force concluded that vital cabin pressurization manufacturing facilities should be relocated inland from the coast, and AiResearch set up the AiResearch Phoenix Division in Phoenix, Arizona. For this purpose, AiResearch Manufacturing Company of Arizona was established as a wholly owned subsidiary.
Product-line evolution 1939 through 1949 The Company's first major product was an oil cooler for military aircraft. Garrett designed and produced oil coolers for the Douglas DB-7. Boeing's B-17 bombers, credited with a major difference in the air war in Europe and the Pacific, were outfitted with Garrett intercoolers, as was the B-25. The Company developed and produced the cabin pressure system for the B-29 bomber, the first production bomber pressurized for high altitude flying. By the end of World War II, AiResearch engineers had developed air expansion cooling turbines for America's first jet aircraft, the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star. In all during World War II, Garrett AiResearch sold $112 million in military equipment and had as many as 5,000 employees at peak. Having to scale back its workforce to just 600 employees at the end of the war stimulated Garrett to look for new income sources. "He found them in the small turbines which patient Engineer Walter Ramsaur had been perfecting since 1943. So that jet pilots could endure the heat generated by air friction at supersonic speeds, a way had to be found to cool their cockpits. Ramsaur's turbine provided the answer; by putting an engine's heat to work turning the turbine, it cooled the air by expanding it, shot the air into the cockpit. As rearmament got under way, Garrett began turning out a total of 700 accessory products. With the Navy order for an on-board engine self-starter, by 1951 Garrett Corp. had a $120 million backlog, enough to keep 5,500 workers on three shifts busy for at least the next three years". By the end of the 1940s, Garrett Corporation was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. "In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Garrett was heavily committed to the design of small gas turbine engines from 20 - 90 horse power (15 - 67 kW). The engineers had developed a good background in the metallurgy of housings, high speed seals, radial inflow turbines, and centrifugal compressors".
1951 and 1961 By 1949, the Sepulveda Blvd. property was increasingly constrained by the demand for development of commercial space near the fast-growing Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). At that time, 2000 people worked at the facility "and Garrett was ranked one of the top three aircraft accessory manufacturers in the world". In 1959 ground was broken for construction of an additional facility at 190th Street and Crenshaw Boulevard in Torrance, California. Part of that facility was occupied a year later. "By 1962, 1000 employees were working at the Torrance location and by 1972, 3000 employees were based there. After a gradual series of moves, the Sepulveda facility was closed in 1990. During the 1950s AiResearch initiated activities in the field of aircraft electronics, first with an angle-of-attack computer to eliminate gunfire error and then with its first delivery of a complete centralized air data system". In the 1950s and 1960s Garrett diversified and expanded. Garrett AiResearch designed and produced a wide range of military and industrial products for aerospace and general industry. It focused on fluid controls and hydraulics, avionics, turbochargers, aircraft engines, and environmental control systems for aircraft and spacecraft. By 1960 Garrett gas turbines, cabin pressurization systems, air conditioners, and flight control systems were aboard the Convair 880, Lockheed Super Constellation, Vickers Viscount, Sud Aviation Caravelle, Douglas DC-8, and Boeing 707. The company had also developed the first inflatable airliner evacuation slides". In the 1950s and 1960s Garrett pioneered the development of foil bearings, which were first installed as original equipment on the McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 in 1969 and then became standard equipment on all U.S. military aircraft. In the 1960s, AiResearch Environmental Control Systems provided the life supporting atmosphere for American astronauts in the projects Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab. Garrett AiResearch is credited with inventing one of the first complete microprocessors, when it developed the Central Air Data Computer for the US Navy's F-14 Tomcat fighter in 1968-1970. On the industrial side, the first T-15 Turbocharger was delivered to the Caterpillar Company in 1955. It was followed by an order for 5,000 production units, to be installed in the Caterpillar D9 tractor. "On September 27, 1954, Cliff Garrett made the decision to separate the turbocharger group from the Gas Turbine department due to commercial diesel turbocharger opportunities. That was the beginning of the new AiResearch Industrial Division - for turbocharger design and manufacturing". This new division was established in Phoenix, Arizona. AiResearch Industrial Division ("AID") would later be renamed Garrett Automotive. "Following the first phase of the Caterpillar project, Garrett turbochargers saw ever wider use on earth-moving equipment, in tractors, stationary powerplants, railroad locomotives and ships. The Garrett T11 automotive turbocharger came into being in 1960 and promptly became popular with diesel truck operators. By 1962, Garrett was powering the world’s first turbocharged production car, the Oldsmobile Jetfire Rocket. This was followed by several other firsts, including the first turbocharged car to win the Indianapolis 500 (1968), the first turbo for a non sports car application (1977-Saab 99), the first mass production turbo for diesel engines 1978 Mercedes 300TD
Mergers Part of the original Garrett AiResearch became known as the Garrett Turbine Engine Company from 1979, and became the Garrett Engine Division of AlliedSignal in 1985. In 1994, AlliedSignal acquired the Lycoming Turbine Engine Division of Textron, merging it with Garrett Engine to become the AlliedSignal Engines Division of AlliedSignal Aerospace Company. Official logo of GARRETT turbo company
GARRETT TURBO GALLERY
