A stunt, a shut-down, and heavy diplomatic propaganda: the story of Curtiss-Wright Corporation’s penetration to the Turkish market

Abstract

This article analyzes Curtiss-Wright Aerospace Industry’s inflow process to the Turkish market in the early 1930s. In these years, aviation was a quite significant industry that contributed economic, military, and political prestige of the states. Progressive decision-makers of Turkey were looking for an opportunity to establish a partnership with a multinational company to manufacture its own aircraft because the young state was destitute of such technology. Curtiss-Wright was eager to do business in Turkey; two American pilots’ record-breaking flight from New York to Istanbul in 1931; withdraw of German Junkers Aerospace Industry’s from Turkey in 1929 and American Ambassador Joseph Grew’s public diplomacy between 1927 to 1932, helped this process.