Page 25 - April 2015 Volume 9, Number 4

Flight of the“Waikiki Beech”
In 1949, William Odom flew a Model 35 “Bonanza” nonstop from Hawaii to New Jersey, setting two world records for light aircraft, as well as demonstrating the reliability of Beechcraft’s single-engine flagship.
by Edward H. Phillips
Charles Lindbergh, Wiley Post, Sir Frank Kingston- Smith, Amelia Earhart − names that have earned a special place in aviation history for their long- distance flights. Lindbergh was first to fly solo, nonstop from New York to Paris, France; Post flew around the world not once but twice, the second time solo; Kingston- Smith blazed the first sky trail from England to Australia, and the lanky, shy woman from Kansas captured the hearts of America and the world with her daring flights, the last beset by a mystery that is yet to be solved.
These and many other pilots, both male and female, made headlines in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s as the airplane revolutionized travel between distant places. Even such remote regions as the frigid and inhospitable Arctic and Antarctic had been conquered by air, and the vast Pacific Ocean between America and China had been traversed by Juan Trippe and his fleet of Sikorsky and Boeing “Clippers.” By 1940, there were few potential record-setting challenges remaining to long-distance fliers, and World War II had put an end to almost all civilian flying for five years. In the wake of the war, however, public interest in aviation remained high. Airline service in the United States expanded significantly, and air travel across the Atlantic Ocean
between New York, London and Paris was increasingly becoming commonplace.
Onto this stage stepped a young pilot named William “Bill” Odom. Born in Oklahoma but raised in Missouri, Odom helped fight the war by ferrying bombers from America to England, and later flew transports above the infamous and deadly “hump” from India to China, delivering much-needed supplies to the fighting men on the ground. Bill’s record-setting achievements began after the war when he flew a Douglas A-26 Invader, named “The Reynolds Bombshell,” around the world in 78 hours, smashing the mark set in 1933 by Wiley Post flying the famous Lockheed monoplane, “Winnie Mae.” One year later, Odom followed up that feat by circling the globe flying the same A-26 solo in less than 73 hours.
Confident of his cumulative abilities as an airman as well as a navigator, by 1948 Odom was contemplating a nonstop flight from Hawaii to the United States,
Introduced in 1947, the four-place Beechcraft Model 35 was not the only all-metal, general aviation airplane to emerge in the postwar era, but it quickly established itself as the most advanced single-engine, light airplane on the market. Its combination of cabin comfort, speed and economy were unmatched by its competitors. (EDWARD H. PHILLIPS COLLECTION AND TEXTRON AVIATION)
APRIL 2015
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 23