Bell dropped out of high school in 1912 to join his brother in the burgeoning aircraft industry at the Glenn L. Martin Company, where by 1914 he had become shop superintendent.

Bell spent several years out of the aviation industry, but in 1928 was hired by Reuben H. Fleet at Consolidated Aircraft, in Buffalo, New York, where he was guaranteed an interest in the company.

Although he could raise local capital, he knew he would not be able to compete with either Consolidated or Curtiss-Wright, the two major aircraft builders also based in Buffalo.

Bell's first military contract followed in 1937 with the development of the ill-fated YFM-1 Airacuda, an unconventional bomber-destroyer powered by two Allison-powered pusher propellers.

The YFM-1 incorporated groundbreaking technology for the time, with gyro stabilized weapons sighting and a thermionic fire control system.

However, the Soviet Air Force used their Lend-Lease P-39s primarily in the air-to-air role, where they found it to excel as a front-line fighter against some of the best pilots and aircraft of the Luftwaffe.

[6] The Soviet-flown P-39s were the main reason that the aircraft is credited with highest number of individual kills attributed to any U.S. fighter type.

[7][citation needed] A somewhat larger and more powerful version of the P-39 was produced shortly before the end of World War II.

Unfortunately, performance was below expectations, roughly on par with contemporaneous propeller-driven aircraft, an outcome generally attributed to the extremely short development timeframe required by the USAAF, as well as the intense secrecy imposed on the project.

Design had begun in September 1941, during which time the Bell team was guided mostly by theory, as General Electric would not finish and begin testing the first engine until March 1942.

[8] During World War II, Bell also built heavy bombers under license from other aircraft companies at a factory near Marietta, Georgia, just northwest of Atlanta.

The aircraft factory in Marietta later became the property of the Lockheed Corporation, which has used it for producing C-130 Hercules, C-141 Starlifter, and C-5 Galaxy transport planes.

Bell Aerospace Textron continued to play a significant role in NASA's mission to land men on the Moon in the 1960s.

Bell also designed the rocket engine used in the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) Ascent Propulsion System, which was responsible for getting NASA's astronauts off the Moon.