Collins Redbird

1) Collins Hanger, Redbird Airport 1951 – 1963 “With increasing military orders Collins was urged by the Defense Department to consider further decentralization of its facilities for security reasons. Management began studies of a number of communities,…and announced in May, 1951 an expansion program to build a $1 million plant near Dallas, Texas suburb of Richardson….Collins also announced plans to lease a hanger at nearby Redbird Airport to install and repair airborne equipment. James Flynn, Jr. from American Airlines, was named general manager, W. G. Pappenfus director of manufacturing, Harold Moss manger of test and inspection and Arthur Luebs was named senior buyer for the Texas division. “Our decision to locate in Texas is in line with the current practice of separating production plants geographically for security reasons,” Arthur Collins explained. “So long as we are locating another plant away from our main operation, we picked a place close to the heart of the aviation industry and where the weather would give us more uniform test flight conditions. We found exactly the conditions we were looking for in Texas.”

In 1952 Collins installed an experimental communications link between its Cedar Rapids Airport laboratory and its new Dallas laboratory …
[BK: Did this link still exist in 1963?)