Page 32 - Volume 15 Number 12

The acquisition made Walter a wealthy man – a single share of Travel Air stock in 1925 sold for $100, but four years later was worth $4,000. Wall Street financiers estimated that the Wichita airplane builder had been bought for $3.2 million – a phenomenal amount for the young but highly successful company.
Financiers Richard Hoyt and Clement Keys had created another new organization called the “Aviation Credit Corporation” that included Wright Aeronautical, Curtiss Flying Service, Keystone/Loening and Travel Air. Plans called for using the financial company to promote sales of all four subsidiary companies, with as much as $10 million in financing available. The arrangement greatly benefited Travel Air and its sales force because the customer did not have to look for money to buy an airplane. By mid-1929, Travel Air’s domestic and international salesforce held orders for new biplanes and monoplanes worth a stunning $2 million, with sales hitting $560,000 in June alone.
Seemingly overnight, Beech and other members of senior management became rich, even by exorbitant standards of the decadent “Roarin’ Twenties.” Walter’s cut was worth at least $1 million, although a majority of that was held in Curtiss-Wright stock. When asked by local reporters about his good fortune, he chose not to boast about it, but he was quick to defend it. One newspaper source quotes Walter as saying, “I’m just a country boy. Go get a photograph of me when I first came to Wichita. I’ve made good, and I’m not afraid to say so.”
Unfortunately, the “Roarin’ Twenties” came to an abrupt end in September 1929 and the aviation business was among the first victims of the deadly debacle on Wall Street. Within months airplane orders began to slump, and by December sales appeared to have entered an unrecoverable tailspin. One year later, in November 1930, it had become almost impossible for Wichita’s airframe manufacturers to sell a new airplane, even after drastic price reductions of as much as 50%.
As production slowly came to a complete halt at Travel Air, executives at the Curtiss-Wright Corporation decided to consolidate manufacturing at the Wichita factory to its facilities in St. Louis, Missouri. Walter Beech had the sad task of ordering the layoff of all remaining employees (many of whom were his close friends and loyal workers) at the East Central Avenue campus. By the end of 1932, the facility was closed and locked.
In 1934, however, Walter and Olive Ann Beech would acquire the facilities from Curtiss-Wright and, despite enormous risk and a shattered national economy, set up shop to build the “best business airplane money could buy” – the Beechcraft Model B17-series, in their new company Beech Aircraft Corporation.
During his 31-year career in aviation, Beech had distinguished himself as a skillful aviator, a talented salesman, and the leader of one of America’s major airframe manufacturers. He had logged more than 10,000 hours in the air and held Transport Pilot
30 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
“Popper” Beech was a legend in his own time. When he died in November 1950 the aviation community lost one of its greatest pioneers and leaders. (Textron Aviation)
Certificate No. 534 as well as a commercial license with single-engine/land privileges. Although a majority of his employees knew him as Mr. Beech, Mrs. Beech often addressed her husband as “Popper.”
After his untimely death in November 1950, Mrs. Beech became president and chairman of the board at Beech Aircraft Corporation. In 1977 Walter H. Beech was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame, followed by the Kansas Aviation Hall of Fame in 1987. He was a member of the prestigious Quiet Birdmen, served on the Board of Governors of the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce, the National Aeronautic Association, and the Advisory Board of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences. Beech was also a member of the Sportsman Pilots Association and the Veterans Pilots Association and served on the Eastern Region Executive Committee of the Aircraft Industries Association’s Aircraft Manufacturer’s Council.
In 1949 he had established the Walter H. Beech Scholarship in Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Wichita (Wichita State University) and in 1951 the university dedicated the Walter H. Beech Memorial Wind Tunnel in his honor. Beech Hall at Wichita’s McConnell Air Force Base was dedicated in November 1988, and in April 1985, the Walter H. Beech Elementary School was named in memory of one of the city’s highly respected aviation pioneers. KA
Ed Phillips, now retired and living in the South, has researched and written eight books on the unique and rich aviation history that belongs to Wichita, Kansas. His writings have focused on the evolution of the airplanes, companies and people that have made Wichita the “Air Capital of the World” for more than 80 years.
DECEMBER 2021