Wright Aeronautical Corporation, 1945-1946

Series I of the Clayton J. Brukner Collection contains corporate minutes of the Waco Board of Directors from April 30, 1940 through February 4, 1963. Also included are minutes from stockholder's meetings during the same period.

Series II consists of various financial records of the Waco Company. The series includes monthly balance sheets, profit and loss statements, audit reports and sales reports covering the years 1930-1962. The researcher should be aware, however, that there are several gaps in the series.

Series III contains corporate administrative files from 1940-1959. This series includes various files dealing with Waco's involvement with several government and industry-based organizations and programs during the years of World War II. Also included in the series are files of Waco shareholders from 1945-1959.

Series IV contains correspondence arranged alphabetically, covering the years 1929 to 1972, although the bulk of the correspondence centers around the years 1930 to 1945. The majority of the correspondence is business oriented including inter-office memorandums, but there are also files concerning government agencies and professional institutions.

Series V covers material concerning Waco products built from 1934-1945. This series includes instruction manuals and parts lists for several models of Waco cabin aircraft built from 1934-1939. The numerical drawing lists for the Waco military gliders refer to blueprints that are not part of the Brukner collection. Production information for the CG-4A, CG-15A and C-62 aircraft are included and a few photographs of Waco aircraft are located at the end of the file.

Series VI consists of material pertaining to the Manufacturers Aircraft Association, an organization that Brukner was very active in. Most of the series contains issues of three M.A.A. publications, the M.A.A. Bulletins, the M.A.A Patent Arbitrations and the M.A.A Patent Digests. The M.A.A Bulletins deal with legal matters such as patent infringements that concerned the aeronautical companies in the United States. The Bulletins also dealt with changes in government regulations which may have had an immediate impact on the aircraft manufacturers. The M.A.A. Arbitrations deal solely with patent claims and royalty awards. The file also includes patent licenses awarded to Waco. The M.A.A. Patent Digests are abridgements of United States airplane patents that had been newly awarded. These three publications cover the years from roughly 1930 to 1962, and there are British supplements to the Patent Digest for the years 1936 through 1961.

The researcher should be aware that there are several gaps in these files, the largest being in the Patent Digest from 1950 to 1959 inclusive. The indexes for those years are present however, and are located chronologically in the Patent Digest series.

This series also contains correspondence regarding the M.A.A. and several patent cases involving Waco.

The last series, number VII, consists of various published newsletters and magazines of aeronautical organizations including Waco. The publications cover the years 1943 to 1965 but the researcher should be advised that these files are very sparse with only a few examples of these publications available in the collection. A substantial amount of printed materials relating to aeronautics has been separated from the collection and catalogued into the Special Collections Library.