Page 23 - August 2015 Volume 9, Number 8

The third Beechcraft (after the Model 35 prototype) to fly with a V-tail was the unique Model 34 “Twin-Quad” designed for the postwar regional airline market. The empennage proved thoroughly satisfactory, as it was already on the Model 35 then entering its first year of production in 1947. Only one Model 34 was built and was scrapped after a forced landing in 1949. The airplane featured four Lycoming engines, two in each wing driving the propeller through a common gearbox using a clutch engage/disengage system for each engine. (TEXTRON AVIATION)
Beech was firmly committed to the biplane, nothing could be farther from historical reality. Beech was committed to the future, not the past. He had learned to fly in a Curtiss JN-4 biplane in 1919, by 1926 he was quick to embrace the monoplane as the way of the future.
With the advent of aluminum alloy, stressed-skin airframe construction was pioneered and proven by designers such as Jack Northrop in the 1930s, Beech put engineer Theodore “Ted” Wells to work in 1935 with orders to design an all-metal, twin-engine Beechcraft. The prototype first flew in 1937 as the Model 18 and the “Twin Beech” went on to become a legend in its own time. More than 7,000 were built from 1937 to the end of production in 1969.
Mr. Beech knew that to compete in the highly competitive postwar market that was certain to occur, his company would need a “game changing” airplane. Amidst the pressure of war-time contracts and America’s relentless rush toward victory over Germany and Japan, he assigned chief engineer and vice president Wells to commence design studies for a four-place low- wing monoplane. Wells wisely put Ralph Harmon in charge of a group dedicated to bringing the project to fruition by 1945. Harmon, an experienced engineer who had made important contributions to the Beechcraft Model 28 gunship that became the U.S. Army’s XA-38 “Grizzly” in 1944, tapped fellow engineers Alex Odevseff, Noel Naidenoff, Jerry Gordon and Wilson Earhart to complete the team.
Gordon was the company’s expert on aerodynamics and would tackle design of the wings, and Earhart would design the wings’ internal structure. Odevseff was assigned responsibility for designing the fuselage while Naidenoff developed the fuel system and engine mount for the proposed Continental E-165 piston engine. As the airplane’s design evolved, Wayne Porter, an automotive stylist, joined the team. His job was to make the new Beechcraft attractive to the eye both inside and outside of the cabin.
Figuring into Walter Beech’s idea of exactly what a postwar airplane should be, J. Carlton Ward, president of the highly respected Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation, commented in 1944 that the “...postwar airplane, which recent consumer surveys indicate the public thinks should cost about $1,500-2,500 would, under present conditions, cost about $13,000. Standard equipment for such a ship, which could carry four or five passengers and their baggage in comfort equal to that of the automobile, but with 500-mile range and at a speed of 150 mph, would alone cost $12,500.” In addition, Ward refuted the assertion made by some analysts that postwar mass production of airplanes similar to that of the automotive industry was
OCTOBER 2015
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 21