Page 26 - Volume 12 Number 6

NOTES:
1. “Hearsayhistory”haslongclaimedthatCessnaandBeechclashed over the design merits of biplanes and monoplanes. While it is true that Cessna believed that monoplanes were superior to biplanes in terms of both aerodynamics and speed, there is no evidence to support the “myth” that Clyde resigned from Travel Air in the wake of arguments with Beech, who firmly supported biplanes.
2. During the second half of 1926 Clyde’s design did serve as the basis for development of Travel Air’s Type 5000 cabin monoplane that first flew in December. One month later Travel Air won a contract from National Air Transport for eight of the monoplanes. The production ships would be larger overall and powered by nine-cylinder Wright J-5 radial engines.
3. Full-cantilever wings were not a new development. One example was the famous Dutch designer Anthony Fokker’s DVIII fighter of World War I that boasted a full-cantilever wing, and during the 1920s Fokker’s series of large transports featured wings with no supporting struts. It was, however, unusual to employ that structure on a small aircraft. The Lockheed Vega of 1927 (designed by Jack Northrop) is an excellent example of a full- cantilever monoplane design.
4. It is important to understand that in 1927 stress analysis of commercial aircraft structures was still evolving. The science was relatively new and was based largely on procedures developed by the U.S. military to evaluate the airframe structures of fighters and bombers. Proper analysis required a thorough understanding of mathematical equations and how to apply them properly to a structure. In the late 1920s few builders of small airplanes had someone on staff qualified to do the computations required. In October 1927 the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Aeronautics issued manufacturers a Handbook for Airplane Designers to guide engineers as to methods of distributing loads
and analysis of structures prior to submitting paperwork required to obtain an ATC. The Handbook supplemented the Air Commerce Regulations that became effective on December 31, 1926.
5. The facility was large enough that Cessna and Roos offered to rent part of the factory to Lloyd Stearman, who had recently returned to Wichita from California. Lloyd, along with chief engineer Mac Short and pilot Fred Hoyt, had struggled to sell Stearman biplanes on the West Coast since November 1926. Stearman, however, declined, preferring to start production of the C-3-series biplanes in the old Jones Motor car buildings north of downtown, where Cessna had constructed the first airplane built in Wichita 11 years earlier.
6. From the beginning of his association with the company, Victor Roos had been considered an outsider by some members of the board of directors who firmly believed that Clyde Cessna should be in charge. Roos found such a proposal totally unacceptable.
7. According to records, as of December 1927 a combined total of 974 airplanes had been built in Wichita since 1919. These would include airplanes built by E.M. Laird, the Swallow Aircraft Company, Travel Air Manufacturing Company and the Cessna Aircraft Company.
Ed Phillips, now retired and living in the South, has researched and written eight books on the unique and rich aviation history that belongs to Wichita, Kan. His writings have focused on the evolution of the airplanes, companies and people that have made Wichita the “Air Capital of the World” for more than 80 years.
24 • KING AIR MAGAZINE JUNE 2018