Page 28 - June Volume 10 Volume 6

Walter Beech introduced the twin-engine Model 18 in 1937 and the all-metal monoplane soon became popular with business executives, air taxi operators and the military. The photograph shows the first Model 18S powered by Pratt & Whitney R-985 radial engines, each rated at 450 horsepower. The Model 18 series paved the way for future development of larger, more powerful postwar, cabin-class twin- engine Beechcrafts that led to development of the turbine-powered King Air in 1963.
46 Stearman primary trainers – 26 for the Army and 20 for the Navy. Schaefer could not agree more that, “Happy days” were here again. These orders were part of an expansion program by the Air Corps to increase its strength to more than 2,300 aircraft from the existing 1,800. In 1935 Congress had appropriated $23 million for new armaments, but the Army and Navy brass knew that the money fell woefully short of what the services needed to train for and fight the next world war.
By 1936, the Stearman factory was bursting at the seams with orders for new training airplanes worth $450,000. The company had never experienced such a high level of activity, which dwarfed the halcyon days of the late 1920s. Employment skyrocketed to 400 people, and as the late 1930s evolved, more contracts for Stearman trainers arrived on J. Earl Schaefer’s desk. Wichita was experiencing a revival that was benefitting not only the Stearman factory but the city’s entire aviation industrial base. A reporter for the Wichita Eagle wrote in December 1936, “It is estimated that perhaps $2,500,000-worth of business was put on the books here during the year, some of it yet to be filled but a substantial part of it has been produced. It was the best year since the boom days of 1928-1929.”
Five miles east of downtown Wichita, the Beech Aircraft Company was enjoying its best year since operations began in 1932. As 1936 drew to a close, the company had more than doubled sales compared with 1935, and 1937 promised to deliver more orders for Beechcraft airplanes. Walter Beech informed the local press that his workers had built twice as many commercial Model 17 biplanes in 1936 as they had in
26 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
1935, and more than 300 people were working in the back shops and on the production line. In addition, chief engineer Ted Wells and his staff were in the midst of designing an all-metal, twin-engine cabin monoplane that would become the legendary Model 18.
Over at the Cessna plant on Franklin Road, general manager Dwane Wallace reported that sales of the popular C-34 monoplane were on the rise, and that the factory was operating at nearly full capacity. According to Wallace, more than 50 aircraft had been built in 1936 (three times the number manufactured in 1935). He predicted that the company would double its business in 1936 chiefly because of rising demand for the affordable and economical C-34. The years 1937 and 1938 proved to be even more bountiful for all three of Wichita’s major airframe companies. Cessna Aircraft introduced its C-37 and C-38 monoplanes, and Beech Aircraft was achieving good success with its Model 17 series and the new Model 18.
Early on the morning of September 1, 1939, orders were received from the military high command in Germany’s capital of Berlin to commence an attack on Poland. The German army, with its modern weapons and well-trained troops, easily swept across the Polish borders and descended upon the capital of Warsaw from the north, south and east. The bloody but brief campaign against Poland gave the world its first glimpse of “Blitzkrieg,” or “Lightning War.” After Herr Hitler ignored an ultimatum demanding that German forces withdraw from Polish soil, England and France declared war on the Third Reich.
The ramifications of that declaration would soon reach across the deep, cold Atlantic Ocean to the coast of America and all the way to Wichita, Kansas. The city on the Plains was about to play a vital, indispensable role in the worst conflict yet to strike the human race. KA
JUNE 2016