Blog : Historical Feature

The Flying Santa

The Flying Santa

Have you heard of The Flying Santa flights that have continued uninterrupted for 94 years? They started on Christmas Day 1929 in a floatplane built by Travel Air, the airplane manufacturer started in 1925 by Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna and Lloyd Stearman. Early aviation pioneer William Wincapaw loved flying, especially amphibious airplanes that were practical…

The Best Bonanza Ever?

The Best Bonanza Ever?

Starting with the Model E33A, in 1968 Beech Aircraft engineers dug deep into their airframe “cookbook” to create the company’s most popular and versatile Bonanza – the Model 36 series  “The biggest, most versatile Bonanza ever built.” That was how Beech Aircraft Corporation described the new Model 36 Bonanza when it was certified in May…

The Staggerwing Grows Up

The Staggerwing Grows Up

During the mid-1930s Walter Beech and his engineers developed a new series of Model 17s that added laurels to Beech Aircraft Company’s reputation and black ink to its battered balance sheets.   The decision in 1933 to downsize the bullish Model 17R into the popular Model B17 series had proved to be the correct one…

A Tale of Two  King Airs

A Tale of Two King Airs

Beech Aircraft Corporation’s versatile Model 300 and Model B300 exemplified the company’s determination to keep a firm grip on the premier cabin-class, turboprop market segment  As the decade of the 1970s came to a close, management at Beech Aircraft Corporation decided the time had come to expand the company’s King Air product line. Although sales…

Teacher’s Pet – the Model 45

Teacher’s Pet – the Model 45

In 1948, senior management at Beech Aircraft Corporation saw the need for a new military trainer to equip postwar air forces. Their solution was the “Mentor” that would become one of the most popular Beechcrafts ever built.  When World War II ended with the unconditional surrender of Japan in September 1945, the United States Army…

Walter’s Warbird

Walter’s Warbird

The Beechcraft Model 17 was not only Walter Beech’s bestselling airplane during the late 1930s, but it proved to be a military workhorse that served the Allied nations with distinction during World War II. Walter Herschel Beech was a salesman – a very good salesman. He and his wife, Olive Ann, had co-founded the Beech…

The Last Seminole

The Last Seminole

In the late 1950s, the U.S. Army’s inventory of the versatile L-23/U-8 Seminole series of light military transports ended with introduction of the L-23F – the versatile Beechcraft that set a new standard for fixed-wing Army aviation. Thirteen years after the end of the bloodiest conflict on earth known as World War II, Americans were…

Bygone Bush Beech 18

Bygone Bush Beech 18

Loaders rolling dynamite kegs into a ski-equipped Beechcraft S18A-172, registered CF-BGY, in Hudson, Canada (located 166 miles northwest of Lake Superior) recognized the “twin-tailed wonder” as the first of its type working commercially beyond the U.S.-Canada border. No one on that frigid January day in 1938 could have known that lessons learned would one day…

Thunder Birds – The Mighty Beechcraft  A17 Biplanes

Thunder Birds – The Mighty Beechcraft A17 Biplanes

The Model A17F and A17FS were like no other Beechcrafts ever built – powerful, brutish machines whose high performance was nothing short of spectacular for their time. Despite America’s bleak economic situation, Walter Beech and his chief engineer, Ted Wells, held tenaciously to the belief that there was a small, but profitable market for a…

The “Hollywood” Travel Air

The “Hollywood” Travel Air

On a cold December day in 1928, famous actor 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 office,…