Throughout its illustrious history, the Beech Aircraft Corporation has distinguished itself as one of the world’s premier manufacturers of general aviation airplanes by consistently setting the pace for competitors to follow. Early in 1932, Curtiss-Wright engineer Theodore “Ted” Wells was completing the design of a cabin biplane featuring a powerful static, air-cooled radial engine and…
Ted Wells never intended his Model 17 to fight a war, but when duty called the Staggerwing served American and Allied forces worldwide with distinction. The first Model 17 to wear “war paint” was C17R-115, designated as a JB-1 by the United States Navy when it entered service in 1936. Always in search of sales,…
In 1928 pilot Arthur Goebel attempted to transform the Travel Air Type 5000 “Woolaroc” from a mild-mannered monoplane into a high-speed, cross-country racer with near fatal results. In the wake of Charles A. Lindbergh’s epic solo flight from New York to Paris in May 1927, Hawaiian pineapple king James Dole offered a $25,000 first prize…
During 1928-1929, the Travel Air Company’s Walter H. Beech had earned national acclaim for corporate leadership and technical innovation that further increased the reputation of Wichita, Kansas, as the “Air Capital of the World.” By 1928 it had become obvious to Walter Beech that the company he led was in need of a new product…
In only five years a Tennessee farm boy transformed Wichita’s Travel Air Manufacturing Company from humble beginnings into one of America’s leading builders of private, business and commercial airplanes. Late October 1926 the Travel Air Manufacturing Company lost its chief engineer, Lloyd Carlton Stearman, who had resigned to start his own company in California. Worse…
For more than 30 years the Model 200-series King Air and its predecessors have carved out an impressive niche in the demanding and increasingly competitive market that characterizes Special Mission aircraft. The term “Special Missions” had its origin as early as World War I and has evolved during the past 50 years to encompass a…
Beech Aircraft Corporation tightened its grip on the twin-engine turboprop market by introducing the Model 200 Super King Air – an airplane that quickly established itself as the crown jewel of the company’s product line. Previously published in part in the Sept./Oct. 2012 issue of this magazine. In 1973 as Beech Aircraft Corporation approached the…
In its ongoing quest to develop improved versions of the highly successful King Air platform, Beech Aircraft Corporation once again dipped into its “recipe” book and blended the best of the Model 90 and the Model 99 to create the Model 100 – flagship of the Beechcraft fleet. By the late 1960s, Olive Ann Beech…
During the 1970s and 1980s, the Beech Aircraft Corporation served up the E90 and F90 King Air using special ingredients drawn from their library of recipes. As the decade of the 1970s arrived, the Beech Aircraft Corporation had built more than 1,300 King Air business and military airplanes since the introduction of the Model 90…
Never content to rest on its laurels, in 1966 the Beech Aircraft Corporation launched a series of upgrades to the new King Air that drew increased sales from business aviation and military customers. By 1965, Beechcraft dealers and distributors were selling the Model 90 at an accelerated pace. Not only was the turboprop-powered airplane proving…