Cessna Aircraft Company’s commercial Model T-50 was designed for airlines and air taxi service but evolved into one of the best twin-engine military trainers of World War II. In June 1939, officials of the Cessna Aircraft Company announced a major expansion of facilities that would allow for increased production of the single-engine Airmaster and the…
In 1926 the Travel Air Manufacturing Company offered pilots the “Type BH” biplane powered by the superb Hispano-Suiza V-8 engine. In an effort to expand the Travel Air Manufacturing Company’s product line, Walter Beech and the engineering department mated the proven Type “B” airframe with the war-surplus Hispano-Suiza engine rated at 180 horsepower. Following the…
During the late 1940s and into the 1950s the cyclical nature of the commercial and military aviation business forced the Beech Aircraft Corporation to seek new sources of revenue to survive. “It is said – not by us at Beechcraft but by those whose profession it is to know such things, that the history of…
The two-place Model 120/140 were modern, all-metal designs that established Wichita’s Cessna Aircraft Company as a leader in the highly competitive personal, training and business aviation markets. After five years of massive bloodshed, incalculable destruction and indescribable human suffering, World War II had ended in victory for the allied nations. During that terrible time the…
A century ago, the Laird Swallow launched Wichita, Kansas, on its way to becoming the “Air Capital of the World.” In 1920 a number of significant events occurred: the Treaty of Versailles took effect, officially ending World War I; the 19th Amendment became law, giving women the right to vote and Adolf Hitler organized the…
During the mid-1940s the Cessna Aircraft Company worked overtime to meet soaring demand for modern, all-metal monoplanes. In August 1945, after more than five years of vicious fighting, the worst war the world had ever experienced was finally over. Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, which he boasted would last a thousand years, was gone after only…
In 1933 the Stearman Aircraft Company’s Model 73 biplane helped save the company and brought national recognition of Wichita, Kansas, as a major provider of commercial and military aircraft. Five years after the worst economic debacle in American history had gutted Wall Street and laid waste to billions of dollars-worth of investments, personal fortunes and…
Sales success of the Cessna C-34 led to three improved versions of the versatile monoplane before the winds of war forced an end to production. The year 1936 witnessed a slow return to economic stability for the United States. Times were still tough and unemployment remained high, but Americans were going back to work thanks…
In 1933 Dwane L. Wallace and his brother Dwight resurrected the Cessna Aircraft Company, launched the new Model C-34 and restored their uncle Clyde V. Cessna as president of the company that bore his name. Four years after the devastating stock market crash of 1929, the United States was slowly beginning to emerge from the…
Beech Aircraft Corporation’s Jet Mentor was built on a tight budget and performed well but lost its bid to be the U.S. Air Force’s first turbine-powered basic trainer to crosstown rival Cessna Aircraft Company’s Model 318. During the early 1950s, excitement about the “Dawn of the Jet Age” was capturing the imagination of the American…