Beech Aircraft Corporation’s versatile Model 300 and Model B300 exemplified the company’s determination to keep a firm grip on the premier cabin-class, turboprop market segment As the decade of the 1970s came to a close, management at Beech Aircraft Corporation decided the time had come to expand the company’s King Air product line. Although sales…
In 1948, senior management at Beech Aircraft Corporation saw the need for a new military trainer to equip postwar air forces. Their solution was the “Mentor” that would become one of the most popular Beechcrafts ever built. When World War II ended with the unconditional surrender of Japan in September 1945, the United States Army…
The Beechcraft Model 17 was not only Walter Beech’s bestselling airplane during the late 1930s, but it proved to be a military workhorse that served the Allied nations with distinction during World War II. Walter Herschel Beech was a salesman – a very good salesman. He and his wife, Olive Ann, had co-founded the Beech…
In the late 1950s, the U.S. Army’s inventory of the versatile L-23/U-8 Seminole series of light military transports ended with introduction of the L-23F – the versatile Beechcraft that set a new standard for fixed-wing Army aviation. Thirteen years after the end of the bloodiest conflict on earth known as World War II, Americans were…
Loaders rolling dynamite kegs into a ski-equipped Beechcraft S18A-172, registered CF-BGY, in Hudson, Canada (located 166 miles northwest of Lake Superior) recognized the “twin-tailed wonder” as the first of its type working commercially beyond the U.S.-Canada border. No one on that frigid January day in 1938 could have known that lessons learned would one day…
The Model A17F and A17FS were like no other Beechcrafts ever built – powerful, brutish machines whose high performance was nothing short of spectacular for their time. Despite America’s bleak economic situation, Walter Beech and his chief engineer, Ted Wells, held tenaciously to the belief that there was a small, but profitable market for a…
On a cold December day in 1928, famous actor Wallace Beery walked into Olive Ann Mellor’s office, flashed his famous grin and plunked down a wad of greenbacks to pay for his custom-built Travel Air monoplane Ms. Mellor was stunned, not only by the sudden presence of an esteemed Hollywood star in her humble office,…
Beech Aircraft Corporation had long been recognized as a leader in the design of general aviation aircraft, but along with its successes there have been a number of would-be Beechcrafts that never made it to market. Introduced in 1981, the turbocharged Model B36TC Bonanza was Beech Aircraft’s answer to high-performance, turbocharged aircraft being offered by…
Throughout its 84-year history, Beech Aircraft Corporation designed and built a number of experimental airplanes intended to set the pace for competitors to follow. Some designs eventually took wing, but others never made it past the drawing board and faded into obscurity. In 1940, Walter Beech’s chief engineer, Theodore “Ted” Wells, and his staff were…
The Model A17F and A17FS were like no other Beechcrafts ever built – powerful, brutish machines whose high performance was nothing short of spectacular for their time. Despite America’s bleak economic situation, Walter Beech and his chief engineer, Ted Wells, held tenaciously to the belief that there was a small, but profitable market for a…