Page 25 - Volume 12 Number 1

Using their usual “cookbook” process, Beech engineers borrowed heavily from the Bonanza’s fuselage, cabin and wing structure to create to Model 95 Travel Air.5 The name was a throwback to the halcyon days of the 1920s when the Travel Air Company was among the nation’s most prolific manufacturers of open-cockpit biplanes and enclosed-cabin monoplanes. Both Walter H. Beech and Olive Ann Mellor (Beech) had “learned the aviation business” at Travel Air. They never forgot the lessons it taught them when they bravely co-founded the Beech Aircraft Company in 1932, smack in the middle of the worst economic debacle America had ever faced. During the years 1925-1932 the company built more than 1,500 aircraft, including the famous Type “R” racer that won the 1929 Thompson Cup at an average speed of more than 194 mph.
Progress on design and development of the Model 95 progressed smoothly during 1955 and into 1956. The latest Beechcraft would seat four in a comfortable cabin that shared its large windows with the G35 Bonanza. Two, four-cylinder Lycoming O-360-A1A opposed, carbureted piston engines were selected to power the Model 95. Each engine was rated at 180 horsepower and turned two-blade, constant-speed, full-feathering propellers.
An engineering prototype was ready for flight in the summer of 1956, and first flew on August 6.
Certification testing continued through 1956 and into early 1957, with the CAA issuing Type Certificate 3A16 on June 6 of that year. In terms of performance, the new Beechcraft was competitive with its two adversaries from Lock Haven and across town in Wichita, with a maximum speed of 208 mph compared with the Model 310 at more than 220 mph and the Apache’s 183 mph. As for price, the Beechcraft cost $49,500 – about equal with the Model 310 but more than the Piper Apache at less than $35,000.
Maximum gross weight of early production Model 95 airplanes, which began rolling off the assembly line for the 1958 model year, was 4,000 pounds. The wings held 112 gallons of useable fuel that gave the Travel Air a range of more than 1,400 statute miles. The two-engine service ceiling was 19,300 feet and rate of climb was 1,350 feet per minute. In addition, the Model 95 could maintain an altitude of 8,000 feet, at gross weight, with one engine inoperative.
Beechcrafters built 173 airplanes in 1958 and another 129 in 1959 before production changed to the improved Model B95 and B95A for the 1960 model year (by comparison, Cessna built 228 Model 310B and 262 Model 310C during 1957-1959, and when production of the Apache ceased in 1962, Piper had built more than 2,000 examples of the PA-23).
JANUARY 2018 KING AIR MAGAZINE • 23