Page 26 - Volume 14 Number 7

24 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
JULY 2020
address shortcomings found in the construction of homes during the late 1930s and into the early 1940s. Fuller’s plan was to mass produce the Dymaxion design as kits that could be assembled on-site, with an emphasis placed on the ease of shipping and assembly.
The first house was completed in 1930 but was redesigned in 1945 and represented one of the first major efforts to construct an autonomous building in the 20th century. A postwar version of the Dymaxion design became known locally as the “Wichita House” and was Fuller’s latest attempt to provide a cost- effective dwelling for the masses.
Hedrick described the house as resembling a pumpkin, “suspended on a center post that permitted it to be rotated so that any of its segments could be aimed into the sun to absorb the latent energies of solar heat.” In addition to the potential of commercial sales, the U.S. military expressed some interest in Fuller’s creation as portable housing for troops both domestically and internationally.
As for Beech Aircraft’s involve- ment, the company’s experience working with sheet metal structures, coupled with its core workforce of skilled craftsmen, made it an ideal subcontractor, as were other American airframe manufacturers. A Beech Aircraft promotion of the house proudly proclaimed that, “Us- ing the very same materials and tools, even the same workers, as- sembly lines can turn them out at a clip never before seen in home construction. A quarter of a million a year in Wichita’s plants, 60,000 at Beech Aircraft alone. A complete house for $6,500 – the price of a Cadillac.”
Unfortunately, no production con- tracts were forthcoming and Beech Aircraft built only one example of
the highly touted Dymaxion House – the sole example ever constructed. As of 2020 it resides at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michi- gan. The house did serve as a family dwelling for about 40 years near Wichita before it was disassembled and transported to the museum for restoration.
After the war there was great optimism throughout the light airplane industry that demand for personal aircraft would skyrocket, with some overly optimistic prophets going so far as to boldly predict that by 1947 every garage would house a car and an aircraft. The economic recession that struck America in 1948-1949 quickly ended such unattainable fantasies. Hedrick summed it up well: “The personal aircraft market declined rapidly, and as a result, sales of the popular Bonanza plummeted to fewer than 350 from a high of 1,000 per year in 1947.” Many small aircraft companies such as Taylor craft, Piper, Stinson and others struggled to stay in business or entered into bankruptcy proceedings.
Once again, Walter and Olive Ann Beech were confronted with a serious financial situation that had to be addressed in hopes that better times would soon return. The sales doldrums of 1949 bled over into 1950. Hedrick recalled how sales slowed “to a disquieting tempo.” Fortunately, Mr. Beech once again “toyed with a sprinkling of projects as far removed from airplanes as “A” was from “Z.” This time, it would be farm implements, not prefabricated houses.
In 1949 the company entered into contracts with the Chicago, Illinois- based Great American Harvester Company to manufacture corn threshers. Wichitans who drove past the Beech factory campus suddenly saw row upon row of red corn picker machines spread all over the airfield. Sadly, as with the Fuller house project, the timing was wrong for an agricultural-related business venture. As Hedrick pointed out, “The corn pickers were produced in late fall and early summer and it was not until the next February that a most remarkable
The company manufactured hundreds of corn pickers for the Great American Harvester Corporation and hay baler farm machinery for the International Harvester Company. (Edward H. Phillips Collection)