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Company
Cutter Aviation
by Lance Phillips
Chronicles
In 1926, the 69th U.S. Congress realized the potential of aviation in our country. They understood how expanded commercial endeavors and a framework for safety, along with an explicit promotional imperative, were critical to
the United States’ competitiveness in the world. The Air Commerce Act of 1926 defined who was to do what, when, where, why and how much it would take.
A burgeoning industry was taking shape in the 23 years following the Wright brothers’ first flight. Many of the early aviation stakeholders were airmail carriers and barnstorm- ing entertainers who had returned from World War I flying military surplus equipment. The airmail routes and opera- tors who f lew them went on to form the f ledgling airline industry. But it was the group of barnstormers, sometimes moonlighting as charter operators offering point-to-point flying services (mostly without any real support), who had the vision to develop the business and general avia- tion environments.
It’s interesting that our 69th group of senators and rep- resentatives decided not to overwhelm the young aviation industry with rigid rules or excessive penalties for breaking them. Instead, they wisely instructed the Department of Commerce to oversee what they knew was the next era of commercial interstate and later international flying
20 • TWIN & TURBINE / February 2022
Cutter Aviation, Phoenix, Arizona.
activities, driven by air traffic and the ground facilities supporting it.
In 1928, just two years after the Air Commerce Act was signed into law, one of those barnstormers opened up shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There was an old, dusty hangar at Oxnard Airfield from which William P. Cutter worked using a newly coined term – fixed-base operator. Cutter served the community by providing charter flights throughout the Southwest, enabling ranchers and business- people to make deals in the 1930s. During that timeframe, the Cutter family brought two sons into the world, William R. (Bill) and Sidney, born in 1932 and 1934, respectively. And as the threat of a world war became a reality, Cutter Flying Service began training U.S. Navy pilots at Albuquerque’s West Mesa Airport.
The Allies celebrated victory in Europe in May 1945. A couple of years after that, in 1947, Cutter provided an example of the calculated growth that his business would become known for, now into the 21st century. He wa- gered that a move to Albuquerque’s Kirtland Field, now Albuquerque International Sunport, would spur and sustain his company’s expansion well into the future. A special relationship was built at the same time. Cutter would be- come a Beechcraft dealer and authorized service facility.