Page 27 - Volume 14 Number 7

The U.S. Air Force dealt Beech Aircraft a near fatal blow when it suddenly canceled the T-36A program in 1953. Subcontracting helped save the company. (Edward H. Phillips Collection)
inventory was ready to go to market. But this being the offseason, there were no customers.”
Undaunted, in 1949 Walter and Olive Ann had also secured con- tracts with the Seeger Refrigerator Corporation to produce aluminum vegetable crispers and meat pre- servers and topped off that year by securing work building components for cotton pickers and hay balers from the world-famous International Harvester Company. In addition to work from Seeger, Hedrick said the company “Actively sought out and accepted a scattering of similar con- tracts: plastic nozzles for hair dry- ers, a new type of individual-piece aluminum pans, parts for automatic dishwashers, and later, in a more basic military flavor, the produc- tion of thousands of 110-gallon cas- ings that, when primed with special inflammables, would serve as fire bombs in front-line trouble zones.”
Although these and other contracts were helpful in retaining workers and meeting the payroll, Hedrick emphasized that Beech
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JULY 2020
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 25