Page 26 - Volume 10 Number 9

They Wanted Wings
When two teenage boys and a college girl yearned to fly, Walter H. Beech gave them the opportunity to “learn the business” and make their dream come true
by Edward H. Phillips
Walter H. Beech is remembered world-wide for the airplanes that bear his name. In addition, his skills as a pilot made him a household name during the late 1920s, and few if anyone would question his prowess as a salesman, entrepreneur and staunch champion of aviation. There is, however, another side to Mr. Beech that is often been overlooked: befriending those who truly wanted to fly.
Although Walter had earned a reputation as a hard- nosed, tough and demanding individual when it came to building high quality airplanes and leading one of America’s foremost airframe manufacturers, he had a deep and generous desire to help young people enter aviation. Among those fortunate enough to receive his assistance were identical twin brothers from Wichita named Newman and Truman Wadlow, and a young lady from Arkansas named Iris Louise McPhetdridge.
By 1926, the Travel Air Manufacturing Company, Inc. (TAMC), originally co-founded by Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna and Lloyd Stearman along with a few visionary Wichita businessmen, was struggling to fill orders for its three-place, open-cockpit biplanes that included the Model A and Model BW. The tiny “factory” on West Douglas Avenue was bursting at the seams when Beech reached out to help the Wadlow boys realize their dream of learning to fly. Walter knew Truman and Newman, then only 17 years of age and still in high school, were working part-time for “Jake” Moellendick’s company on North Hillside Avenue in Wichita, building the New Swallow biplane.
In 1925, Walter had invited the twins to leave Jake’s company and work at Travel Air, at that time one of the fastest-growing airframe manufacturers in the United States. Newman declined the offer, but Truman jumped at the opportunity. Beech promised the teen that if he worked hard selling tickets for “joy rides” on weekends at the East Central flying field, coupled with laboring after school at the factory doing odd jobs, he would be taught to fly for free! As the months passed that hot summer of 1925, Truman traded hard work for flying time under the tutelage of Travel Air’s chief pilot, Clarence E. Clark.
Wadlow earned his wings in a Model A powered by the ubiquitous Curtiss OX-5 engine, and after only a few hours of dual instruction, managed to solo without incident. True to his word, Walter Beech continued to
24 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
support Truman’s flying, and had enough confidence in the young man that during the work week he allowed him to take paying passengers on sightseeing rides over the Wichita area. Wadlow had accumulated less than 10 hours in the air when, on a very hot afternoon in August, he carefully secured a paying passenger in the front cockpit and nursed the aging Model A into the air for an aerial tour of Wichita.
Everything was well as the ship climbed slowly to the north, the OX-5 chugging along at 1,400 RPM. At an altitude of about 1,500 feet, the Curtiss powerplant suddenly fell silent. Stunned and unsure of what to do, the teen aviator believed he could make a 180-degree turn, glide back to the flying field and make a “dead- stick” landing. Unfortunately, as Truman banked the ship around he hauled back on the stick in an effort to conserve precious altitude. Instead, the Travel Air abruptly stalled. Truman panicked. The passenger panicked. The airplane pitched and rolled sluggishly. Desperate to regain control, Wadlow shoved the left rudder pedal to the floorboards and pulled the stick full aft.
The Model A responded eagerly and appropriately by entering a fully-developed spin to the left. Its intrepid pilot could do nothing to halt its swirling descent toward terra firma. Seconds later there was a thundering “whump” as the biplane smashed nose first into a thick hedgerow, accompanied by the sorrowful cries of cracking wood and ripping fabric. Then, all seemed quiet except for the hissing of steam escaping from the engine’s crumpled water radiator. Truman quickly regained his senses, unbuckled his seat harness, jumped out of the aft cockpit and extracted his unconscious passenger from the front seat.
Wadlow dragged the man a safe distance from the wreck and fled on foot to his home in Wichita. He was terrified of what Walter Beech would do once he found out about the accident (Beech and Clyde Cessna were notified within minutes and rushed to the crash site). Truman hid away for days. He went nowhere near the factory on West Douglas Avenue, and briefly managed to avoid facing the certain ire of Mr. Beech, not to mention possible criminal charges of negligence.
Finally, he came out of hiding and “faced the music” regarding the accident. Mr. Beech scolded the teen, not
SEPTEMBER 2016