Page 32 - Volume 13 Number 4

however, Julius Schaefer was anxious to demonstrate the airplane to the military, particularly the Army Air Corps, which agreed to evaluate the ship. The epicenter of Air Corps flight testing and experimentation during the 1930s was Wright Field near Dayton, Ohio. Arrangements were made with the Army, and soon Schaefer and Mac Short arrived by rail in Dayton to witness the flights. The Air Corps and Navy pilots liked the Model 70 and had high praise for the airplane’s handling, but they found its stall break much too gentle for a primary trainer – they preferred a sharp, unmistakable break so cadets could learn early in their training how to identify and recover from a full stall. From Ohio, Levy flew the ship to Naval Air Station Anacostia near Washington, D.C., and later flew south to the Navy’s primary pilot training base in Pensacola, Florida, where the ship was evaluated further.
To eliminate the airplane’s benign stall warning, Mac Short had his engineers design and install narrow, triangular strips of wood on the upper and lower wing panels along the outer span. Known as stall strips, at high angles of attack, the shape of the wood disrupted airflow across the wing surface forcing a more abrupt and unmistakable stall break.
Schaefer and Short were pleased that the Model 70 clearly had made a good impression on the Army Air
Corps. It was, however, the Navy that first showed serious interest in the airplane. Early in 1934 the Stearman Aircraft Company was invited to submit a quote for a primary trainer based on the Model 70 design. It would need to comply with Navy specifications and use the aging, but reliable, nine-cylinder, air-cooled Wright Aeronautical J5 radial engine that produced 200 horsepower. The Navy had a supply of the powerplants in storage and their use would save a significant amount of money, which a Depression-strapped Congress was reluctant to spend on the military.
Stearman officials submitted the lowest possible quote, and in May 1934 the Navy ordered 41 airplanes designated NS-1 (plus enough spares to build another 20 of the trainers.) The contract marked a turning point for the company and the Wichita Eagle newspaper also recognized the importance of the sale to the city: “Drama lies behind the simple, businesslike announcement of the factory, for Wichita, metropolis of the Plains, thus is accorded a large part in the buildup of the nation’s sea forces more than a thousand miles away. Despite determined work on the part of Wichita plane builders and air enthusiasts, few large military contracts have been awarded factories here. The big order accorded the Stearman plant is thought to have broken down this barrier and to point the way to national recognition of Wichita as capital of the air whether in peace or war.”2
30 • KING AIR MAGAZINE APRIL 2019