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“Dubbed the ‘Limousine of the Air,’ Travel Air’s Type 6000 can be considered the predecessor of the Beechcraft King Air series that appeared nearly 40 years later.”
Travel Air was among the first airframe manufacturers in the U.S. to adopt the static, air-cooled Wright J4 radial engine, creating the Model BW in 1926. By the next year the engine was obsolete, replaced by the highly reliable Wright J5-series engines. (Source: Edward H. Phillips Collection)
The company sold 19 airplanes during its first year of operation, and Miss Mellor reported that the company expected to build 46 biplanes in 1926.
That year Travel Air entered a custom-built Model BW owned by the Pioneer Instrument Company in the second annual Edsel B. Ford Reliability Trophy competition. The biplane was equipped with the latest Pioneer navigation technology, including the new earth inductor compass that provided more precise directional information than the standard magnetic compass. Piloted by Walter Beech with Brice Goldsborough in the rear cockpit, the duo won the event and earned $3,850 in prize money. The company, however, lost its chief engineer in October when Lloyd Stearman was lured to California by businessmen to sell airplanes to Hollywood movie stars, some of whom were avid fans of aviation.1
Next to depart was then company president Clyde Cessna, who resigned in January 1927 and later that year formed the Cessna Aircraft Company in Wichita. Cessna designed and built a full-cantilever monoplane he called the Phantom, and it first flew that summer. Walter Beech was temporarily installed as Travel Air’s president and his title became official in February. After two years of operation, Travel Air had earned a profit of $25,003 on sales of $185,169.
That winter the company received its first major order for the new Type 5000 cabin monoplane from
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National Air Transport (NAT), which operated scheduled passenger and mail service from Chicago, Illinois, to Fort Worth, Texas. The monoplane evolved from an earlier, private design by Clyde Cessna that was reworked by Cessna and Stearman into the Type 5000. NAT ordered eight of the transports at a cost of $128,676, and all of the monoplanes were delivered in 120 days.
In February 1927, Travel Air officials received an important telegram from a young airmail pilot named Charles A. Lindbergh from St. Louis:
“New York-Paris flight under consideration. Requires ‘Whirlwind’ plane capable of 45 hours flight with pilot only. If you can deliver, state price and earliest delivery date.”
Walter Beech relished the opportunity but replied to Lindbergh that the company was committed to delivering the NAT monoplanes and had to decline his invitation. However, the Ryan company in California accepted the challenge and built the Spirit of St. Louis that Lindbergh flew nonstop to Paris on May 20-21.
Although Beech had to refuse Lindbergh’s request, he chose not to refuse offers from pilots who wanted to win a prize offered that summer by Hawaiian pineapple magnate James Dole. He offered $25,000 for the first nonstop flight made by a commercial aircraft from California to the U.S. Army’s Wheeler Field near Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii.2
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 27