Reader Stories

During the past four decades the Model 200-series King Air and its predecessors have carved out an impressive niche in the demanding and increasingly competitive market that characterizes Special Mission aircraft The term “Special Missions” had its origin as early as World War I and has evolved during the past 100 years to encompass a […]

Of all the employees at the Travel Air Company during its five-year existence, none were as deeply involved in the day-to-day management of the production line as was William “Bill” Snook, factory manager. A long-time resident of Wichita, Snook had worked at E.M. Laird’s “Swallow” airplane company after World War I, and following his years […]

The Model A17F and A17FS were like no other Beechcrafts ever built – powerful, brutish biplanes whose high performance was nothing short of spectacular for their time.   As 1933 drew to a close Walter Beech and his infant airplane company had sold one airplane – the second Model 17R built—and had orders in hand […]

Despite being manufactured in small numbers, the Model 56TC and A56TC were the most powerful Barons built and helped pave the way for development and production of the distinctive Model 60 “Duke.” The decade of the 1950s and 1960s had been good to Beech Aircraft Corporation, and the company’s executive vice president, Frank E. Hedrick, […]

“Matty” Laird’s long and distinguished career designing custom-built biplanes for private and air racing enthusiasts has earned him a place of honor in the annals of American aeronautics. When Emil Matthew “Matty” Laird left his hometown of Chicago, Ill., and relocated to Wichita, Kan., in 1919, he began the city’s transformation from the “Wheat Capital” […]

When certificated in 1988, Beech Aircraft Corporation’s futuristic Model 2000 Starship 1 was the most rigorously-tested airplane in general aviation history, but it proved a costly misstep and soon faded into obscurity. Aviation history is replete with failures. Perhaps among the more memorable are the diminutive but abortive “Foxjet,” the gigantic “Spruce Goose” and the […]

As the cold, Kansas prairie winds whipped Wichita, Kansas, with frigid temperatures day after day, Walter H. Beech was busy in his warm office puffing gently on his Dunhill pipe and contemplating who to send on a special mission to South Africa. After selling only one airplane in the past two years, Walter was pleased […]

In 1933 the Beech Aircraft Company redesigned its bullish Model 17R biplane into the B17 series that offered performance and economy in a market beginning to emerge from the Great Depression. In the hot Kansas summer of 1933 Walter Beech was becoming desperate to deliver the first airplane to bear his name. Since its beginning […]

Lloyd C. Stearman ranks as one of America’s greatest aviation personalities and the airplanes he designed earned a worldwide reputation for performance and reliability. After a stunning career in aviation that spanned more than 50 years, Lloyd C. Stearman lost his battle with cancer on April 3, 1975. During his funeral at the National Sawtelle […]

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. Walter H. Beech is remembered worldwide for the airplanes that bear his name. In addition, his skills as a pilot made his name a household word during […]

During the early 1960s, Beech Aircraft Corporation’s Model 23 “Musketeer” marked the company’s foray into the high-competitive, entry-level segment of the general aviation industry. In the wake of World War II, America’s lightweight airplane market exploded as many pilots who had flown fighter and bomber aircraft came home and started flying schools across the United […]

A farm boy from the backwoods of Tennessee traded his plow for a flying machine and rose through the ranks to become a major force in America’s infant aviation business. Farming was never Walter Beech’s idea of a career. The long months year after year that he spent toiling in the hot Tennessee sunshine soon […]

On a cold December day in 1928, famous Hollywood star Wallace Beery walked into Olive Ann Mellor’s office, flashed his famous grin and plunked down a wad of greenbacks to pay for his custom-built Travel Air monoplane. Ms. Mellor was stunned, not only by the sudden presence of an esteemed Hollywood star in her humble […]

During World War II the prairie city became a major contributor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Arsenal of Democracy” that helped to crush the Axis powers into submission. By 1939 the United States was slowly emerging from the Great Depression that had decimated the national economy for 10 years. Job growth was increasing each month […]

By the early 1930s the Great Depression had decimated Wichita’s once booming aircraft industry, but a few courageous entrepreneurs were willing to gamble everything to put new wings on their dreams. As the wave of economic devastation continued its sweep across America in 1931, sales of new commercial airplanes remained in a tailspin. Every airframe, […]

The stock market crash in October 1929 thrust a knife into the heart of America’s economy and put Wichita’s thriving aviation industry into an unrecoverable tailspin. The ramifications of Wall Street’s disaster were both cruel and inevitable. Across the United States banks began to fail as people rushed to take out their money and borrowers […]

The financial debacle that struck Wall Street in October 1929 not only set America on a downward path to economic ruin, but threatened to swiftly clip the wings of Wichita’s thriving aircraft industry. As the “Roarin’ Twenties” came to a close, the United States was riding what appeared to be an unstoppable wave of prosperity. […]

  The first to leave was Stearman. When only a boy he had watched in amazement at a local fair as a daring aviator flew his fragile monoplane through a series of figure eights, only 500 feet above the cheering crowds. That aviator was none other than Clyde Vernon Cessna. A native Kansan, Lloyd served […]

In the wake of E.M. Laird’s departure from Wichita,  Walter H. Beech, Lloyd C. Stearman and Clyde V. Cessna joined forces to create the city’s first major airframe manufacturer — the Travel Air Company. When Billy Burke resigned from the E.M. Laird Company Partnership in 1920, Matty Laird lost a key mediator between himself and […]

A year after the end of World War I, a talented aircraft designer from Chicago and a roustabout from the oil fields of Kansas transformed a sleepy city on the Plains into the epicenter of America’s general aviation aircraft industry. The question has often been asked, “Why Wichita?” What has made that city, long hailed […]