Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation (Convair) was formed in March 1943 with the merger of Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft corporations. General Dynamics purchased a majority interest in Convair in 1954 and it continued to produce aircraft and components until General Dynamics began divesting itself of its aircraft and spacecraft divisions in the mid-nineties.

For half a century, Convair was the largest civilian employer in San Diego. Employment peaked in 1943 at 41,000 employees, of which forty percent were women. “Nothing short of right is right” was a popular slogan espoused by Consoliated to instill pride of workmanship in its thousands of employees. Consolidated/Convair was responsible for building some of the most significant aircraft in aerospace history, including the PBY Catalina, the B-24 Liberator, Convair 880 airliner, F-102 Delta dagger, and the nation’s most reliable launch vehicle: the Atlas.

Convairiety was the company newsletter, distributed to keep Convair (later General Dynamics) employees at San Diego, Pomona and Antelope Valley, California, and Daingerfield and Fort Worth, Texas, connected. The first newsletter was published September 1, 1948, and had readers vote on what to name the newsletter. It was founded with the following objectives: “1: To help make Convair the best aircraft manufacturing company in the business. 2: To help make Convair the best place to work in the business. 3: To help make Convair personnel the best informed in the business.” The newsletter was published every other Wednesday and chronicled life at Convair, employee profiles, aviation news, local news excerpts, and a variety of other pieces, with different editions later published for different branches and divisions. September 13, 1961, saw the first issue of GD News, and the end of that iteration of Convairiety.