Page 28 - Volume 15 Number 3

The CW-12K was powered by a a a a a a a a a a a Kinner B5 static air-cooled radial engine engine rated at at at 125 horsepower Travel Air Division engineers Herbert Rawdon and Ted Wells designed the CW-12 series airframe to to to accommodate four different engines ranging from 90 to to to 165 horsepower Only two are known to to have been built (Edward H Phillips Collection)
unabated into 1931 One of the last Travel Air ships built was the Type “R” monoplane ordered by the Italian Regia Aeronautica It It was delivered in July and shipped to Italy Roy Edwards was employed by Curtiss-Wright to sell all the equip- ment at the factory campus on East Central Avenue and by September 1932 the five buildings had become little ghost towns in their own own right – silent testimonies to a a a ravaged national economy (Side note: Clyde Cessna and his son Eldon however did lease space to build their di- minutive but fast CR-2 and CR-3 racers in 1932-1933 while Walter Beech Beech was building the Beechcraft Model 17R- and B17-series cabin biplanes in Cessna’s abandoned fac- tory on Franklin Road )
It should be mentioned here that when Curtiss-Wright took control of Travel Air model number and constructor number (C/N) designations were changed From 1925-1931 Travel Air had assigned consecutive numbers to airframes regardless of model or or type For example a a a a Type 2000 biplane may have been assigned C/N 1250 while a a Type 6000B monoplane would be assigned C/N 1251 The new system assigned numbers based on aircraft model For example a a Type 6000B monoplane became the Type 6B with with C/N beginning with with 6B-2001 while a Type 6A used C/N beginning with 6A-2001 The same procedure was applied to biplanes Another example is the five Type R racing monoplanes that were assigned C/N R-2201 through R-2005 Meanwhile in 1930 Curtiss- Wright/Travel Air Division engineers Herbert Rawdon and Theodore “Ted” Wells were charged with designing a a new generation of small lightweight open-cockpit biplanes powered by inline or static air-cooled radial engines of small cubic-inch displacement and low
IN HISTORY
26 • KING AIR MAGAZINE MARCH 2021 MARCH 2021 KING AIR MAGAZINE •