Clyde V. Cessna once said, “Speed is the only reason for flying,” and from 1928-1932 Wichita’s grand patriarch of aviation backed up that claim by competing in air races that propelled the Cessna Aircraft Company to new heights of success. On September 5, 1928, 47 pilots prepared to depart Long Island’s Roosevelt Field on the…
Part One – Walter Beech is remembered as one of Wichita’s greatest aviation patriarchs, an aviation titan who not only put his name on the best airplanes money could buy, but also was driven by a never-ending quest for speed. Wichita pilot Walter H. Beech sat in the cockpit of the Travel Air Special, patiently…
During the 1920s, airframe manufacturers in Wichita, Kansas, produced a series of airplanes that signaled the gradual demise of open cockpit flying in favor of a comfortable, enclosed cabin. In February 1921, the indefatigable Jacob M. Moellendick announced to the Wichita newspapers that the Wichita Laird Airplane Corporation was planning to launch an air service…
Impressed by the success of Piper’s PA-23 Apache and Cessna’s Model 310, in 1956 Beech Aircraft Corporation entered the emerging light twin-engine market with its Model 95 Travel Air. In postwar America, general aviation’s “Golden Age” was born in the late 1940s and by the early 1950s was maturing rapidly, attracting thousands of would-be aviators…
Despite being manufactured in small numbers, the Model 56TC and A56TC were the most powerful Barons built and helped pave the way for development and production of the distinctive Model 60 Duke. The decade of the 1950s and 1960s had been good to Beech Aircraft Corporation, and the company’s executive vice president, Frank E. Hedrick,…
Soon after “Lucky Lindy’s” solo flight from New York to Paris in May 1927, Wichita’s Travel Air Company was deluged with orders for airplanes capable of flying nonstop to Honolulu. Competing in the trans-Pacific free-for-all would be risky business, but Walter Beech welcomed the challenge. In June 1927, anyone walking past the office of Travel…
Starting with the Model E33A, in 1968 Beech Aircraft engineers dug deep into their airframe “cook book” to create the company’s most popular and versatile Bonanza – the Model 36 series. “The biggest, most versatile Bonanza ever built.” That was how Beech Aircraft Corporation described the new Model 36 Bonanza when it was certified in…
In 1968, Beech Aircraft Corporation engineers employed their airframe “cookbook” to create the versatile Model 58 Baron, followed later by the turbocharged 58TC and the pressurized 58P. By the late 1960s, the Beechcraft Model 55 series “Baron” and the muscular Model 58TC had proven to be highly successful additions to the company’s product line. It…
The Model 95-55 was aimed directly at the CEO who wanted fast, economical transportation at an affordable price ”Outstanding single event of the 1961 meeting was the introduction of the new Beechcraft Model 55 Baron, a fast, sleek, four- to five-seat twin-engine plane designed for the businessman-pilot. Ruggedly strong, yet extremely trim in appearance with…
Thanks to a group of aviation enthusiasts in Wichita, Kansas, in 1916 Clyde Vernon Cessna relocated to the “Peerless Princess of the Prairie” to pursue his dream of manufacturing and selling “aeroplanes.” At the beginning of the 20th Century on the Great Plains of America, wheat was king. It was the Midwest’s bread of life…