Page 23 - Volume 12 Number 1

Beechcrafters had built more than 300 Model 95 twins before production shifted to the B95 for the 1960 model year, followed by the B95A in 1961. The Travel Air was a logical choice for Bonanza owners desiring to step up to a twin-engine Beechcraft for night and IFR flying. Only 81 of the B95A version were built, making it a relatively rare Beechcraft. (WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES)
reported that the increasing popularity of Piper airplanes acquired exclusively for executive flights grew by more than 67 percent in 1953 compared to only 40 percent two years earlier.2
The majority of airplanes being sold were single- engine models, chiefly because they were smaller, more affordable than twin-engine models that were larger and far more expensive to own and operate. By the early 1950s, however, some industry officials, particularly Howard “Pug” Piper and his brother Thomas, both senior executives at Piper Aircraft, realized that their company’s product line needed a low-price, small, all- metal, four- or five-place twin-engine design that would be Piper’s flagship. As of 1952, nobody in Wichita had plans to build such an aircraft because little or no demand existed.
Until the early 1950s, Piper Aircraft was known almost universally as the company that built the legendary J-3 Cub and marketed a host of similar single-engine, conventional-gear airplanes burdened with 1930s-era welded steel tube airframes with fabric covering. One man, Pug Piper, knew the time had come to leave the obsolete Cub and its siblings behind and develop a new, modern aircraft featuring aluminum alloy construction and two dependable engines. When discussions began Pug eagerly championed developing concepts for a twin- engine airplane.3
Pug realized that thousands of pilots and businessmen were using small aircraft to help sell their products,
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but as the rate of utilizing those airplanes increased, there was a growing cry for multi-engine redundancy. By 1952, the absence of, and increasing demand for, a low-priced, economical, light twin-engine airplane was the major impetus for development of the Apache. Piper, however, was not alone in its quest for a small twin-engine monoplane. West of the Mississippi River in Kansas, Cessna Aircraft President Dwane L. Wallace already had his engineers working on a new design that would become the Model 310, and Beech Aircraft had flown its new Model 50 Twin Bonanza late in 1949.
Unlike Beech Aircraft and Cessna Aircraft that had manufactured thousands of twin-engine monoplanes during World War II, Piper Aircraft’s engineers had little or no experience designing or producing that type of airplane. Undaunted, chief engineer Walter C. Jamouneau and his staff tackled the project with enthusiasm. By early 1952 his team had designed and built an engineering prototype designated the PA-23. It first flew on March 4, 1952, 14 months after development had begun. In its original configuration, the PA-23 was a mixture of old and new technologies that reflected the company’s inexperience with modern airplanes.
As with all Piper models at that time, the Apache’s fuselage was constructed of welded steel tubing with fabric covering, and the empennage featured twin vertical stabilizers that resembled those used on the Beechcraft Model 18 (later replaced by a single vertical stabilizer borrowed from the aborted Piper PA-6 Sky Sedan). The wings were aluminum alloy except for the outer panels, and a tricycle, retractable landing gear system was installed.
During 1953, the Apache was gradually redesigned to make it a truly modern, marketable airplane. Although
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