Page 32 - Volume 13 Number 8
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Wichita’s Greatest Gamble – Part One
In the summer of 1927 two airframe manufacturers bet the future on an ill-fated race across the Pacific Ocean – a race that left one company in a tailspin and the other flying high.
by Edward H. Phillips
By 1927 the commercial aviation industry in the regret that Beech telegraphed Lindbergh that the
United States was still in its infancy. By contrast,
cars and jazz music were fast becoming “all the rage” as millions of Americans accelerated a never ending romance with the automobile. Although it had been nearly 10 years since the end of the Great War that made “aces” and their airplanes front page news, as the “Roaring Twenties” entered its last three years the flying machine still was largely regarded as a novelty – a mysterious contraption that few people believed would amount to anything useful.
In May of that year, a young airmail pilot changed that misguided perception forever. Charles A. Lindbergh’s solo, eastbound flight across the Atlantic Ocean from New York City to Paris, France, firmly demonstrated the airplane’s potential as a vehicle for long distance travel. A few decades and another world war later, the airplane eventually brought the glory days of transoceanic travel and transcontinental railroads to an ignominious end. As pioneer aviator Clyde V. Cessna said in 1911, “Speed is the only reason for flying.”
A few years before Lindbergh’s epic trek above the treacherous North Atlantic, Wichita, Kansas, had earned a reputation as one of the first, if not the first, city in the United States to embrace the mass manufacture of airplanes for commercial sale. Before “Lucky Lindy” (a term that Lindbergh hated) chose a Ryan monoplane for his flight, he had contacted Walter H. Beech, president of the Wichitabased Travel Air Manufacturing Company, in February 1927 about building an airplane suitable for the journey. His telegram is quoted here in full:
“New YorkParis flight under consideration. Requires Whirlwind plane capable of 45 hours flight with pilot only. If you can deliver, state price and earliest delivery date.”
Mr. Beech knew the company could custombuild a monoplane to Lindbergh’s specifications, but that would mean delaying for weeks the production of airplanes already on order. It was with a sense of
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company could not delay production and delivery of customer airplanes. Walter did, however, send a hearty congratulations to Lindbergh before he landed at Le Bourget Airport on the night of May 21. The lanky airmail pilot quickly sent Beech a telegram thanking him for expressing confidence that the flight would be a success. Apparently, Walter had faith in Lindbergh and never doubted that the Spirit of St. Louis would land in Paris after more than 33 hours in the air.1
Lindbergh’s flight ignited America’s zeal for aviation, and only four days after Lindbergh’s arrival in France, James D. Dole, the wealthy owner of Hawaii’s pineapple empire, offered a prize of $25,000 for the first airplane
AUGUST 2019
Charles A. Lindbergh (second from left) posed for the camera in July 1928 at the completion of that year’s National Air Tour for the Edsel Ford Trophy. His epic solo flight from New York to Paris in May 1927 precipitated the sudden emergence of long-distance races. Stearman Aircraft Company chief pilot “Deed” Levy is at left, with Wichita businessman Walter Innes, Jr., second from right. At right is Julius Schaefer, manager
of the Stearman company. The airplane is a Stearman C3B. (Kansas Aviation Museum)