Annual Report, Menasco Manufacturing Company, Specialists in Aircraft Landing Gear, 1960-06-30

Document Type: Report (Business).

Purpose: Business activities.

Authority: Company (Manufacturer).

Scope: Annual company business report written and published in the 3d quarter of 1960 by the Menasco Manfuacturing Company (with Divisions in Burbank CA and Fort Worth TX). During this period, Menasco continued to focus on aircraft landing gear, however it continued to expand its work building parts for space and missile vehicles as a sub-contract.

Contents: Annual business information, including profit and loss data and future business outlook, in accordance with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules and regulations. Discusses current and future plant facilities and equipment.

From pages 4 and 5: "The lower sales volume is the direct result of the reduction in the demand for landing gear as the military services shift their emphasis from manned aircraft to missiles. The volume of commercial aircraft landing gear sales is expected to decrease further as orders by airlines for long range jet aircraft continue to decline.

During the year we were awarded contracts by Boeing Airplane Company for the main landing gear on the Model 720 medium range jetliner. This plane is now using Menasco equipment for both the main and nose landing gears, and all models of the Boeing 707 jetliner are equipped with a Menasco nose landing gear.

The Company's activity in the field of pressure vessels for missiles and other applications is continually increasing. We have received new orders from Convair, A Division of General Dynamics Corp., for the pressure vessels used on the Atlas missile, and The Martin Company for pressure vessels on the Titan missile. New pressure vessel customers added during the year were Aerojet-General Corporation; Space Technology Laboratories, Inc.; Lawrence Radiation Laboratory of the University of California; Missile and Space Vehicle Department of the General Electric Company; and the Aerospace Medical Laboratory, Wright Air Development Division, Air Research and Development Command, United States Air Force.

An important development during the year was a contract awarded to the Company by Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Sunnyvale, California, for liquid spring shock absorbers to be used on the Polaris launching submarines.

Delivery schedules were such that while this program did not contribute materially to last year's sales volume, it is expected to represent an appreciable portion of the sales volume for the coming year. With the Navy placing such a heavy emphasis on the Polaris program, this product offers considerable potential for the next several years.

Orders for the development of a specialized shock-absorbing damper system were received from Stanley Aviation Corp. which is the producer of an escape capsule for the B-58 Supersonic Bomber. This system is used to attach the parachute to the escape capsule and dampens the shock load when the parachute opens: The Menasco design and the manufacture of these prototype units was completed on an extremely expedited schedule and all tests have been successfully concluded. Additional production orders have now been received which will contribute appreciably to next year's sales volume.

The Company believes that it has successfully entered into product lines which will generally offset the declining landing gear market. Indicative of this is the fact that approximately 30 per cent of the present backlog of $20,000,000 is in products other than landing gear, while in the year just completed, only 6 percent of the total sales volume represented these other product lines."