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The Travel Air factory complex on East Central Avenue in Wichita shown here when it was completed in 1929. (Source: Edward H. Phillips Collection)
and accelerated the move away from military biplanes toward development of the monoplane fighter for the U.S. Army and Navy during the early 1930s.
In addition to these and other aeronautical achievements, it is important to realize that Travel Air was the launching pad for key personalities who would make their mark on American aviation. By 1928, Lloyd C. Stearman and Clyde Vernon Cessna were both respected airframe manufacturers. Eventually the Stearman Aircraft Company became a major subsidiary of Boeing, and the Cessna Aircraft Company was an important supplier of airplanes for the giant Curtiss Flying Service.
Perhaps Travel Air’s greatest legacy, however, is not only the airplanes it produced but the men and women who made the company a great success. Of these, Walter H. Beech and Olive Ann Beech later braved the depths of the worst economic disaster America had ever experienced to create the Beech Aircraft Company in 1932. Travel Air was their “classroom” that taught them the aviation business, and today there is a bit of Travel Air “DNA” in every Beechcraft King Air. KA
30 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
Edward H. 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.
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The Stearman Aircraft Company, based in Venice, California, built only four biplanes before returning to Wichita. By 1941 it had become an important subsidiary of the Boeing Airplane Company, building thousands of primary trainers for the U.S. Army and Navy.
The first airplane to cross the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii was the U.S. Army’s Fokker C-2 monoplane that departed Oakland on June 28, 1927, and landed at Wheeler Field June 29. The first commercial airplane to make the flight from California to Hawaii was the Travel Air Type 5000 prototype but the flight was made before the official starting date for the Dole prize. On July 14-15, 1927, pilot Ernest Smith and navigator Emory Bronte arrived over the island of Molokai on their way to Oahu. The Travel Air ran out of fuel and Smith crashed the airplane in a wooded area on Molokai. It was dismantled and not rebuilt.
FEBRUARY 2025