Page 36 - Volume 15 Number 3

left the service and went to work for W.H. “Pete” Hill, whom he had met while he was stationed at Rich Field. At the Williams-Hill Airplane Company, he and Pete Hill bought a couple of surplus airplanes and started barnstorming across the country to earn a living. In 1921, the hangars and shops of the Williams- Hill Aircraft Company burned, destroying aircraft and equipment and forcing the small company out of business.WichitaLooking for work, Hill and Beech made their way to Wichita, Kan., where the E.M. Laird Airplane Company had recently taken up residence. Whether Hill introduced Walter Beech to Laird and Laird hired him; or Jake Moellendick,the principal financial backer of the company hired him while Laird was away is a matter of some dispute. Regardless, Beech became a salesman and a pilot for the E.M. Laird Airplane Company demonstrating the Laird Swallow. He didn’t get off to a good start, crashing one of the airplanes soon after starting work.He redeemed himself, though, and after Matty Laird left the company in 1924, Beech assumed the role of General Manager of the renamed Swallow Airplane Manufacturing Company. The Swallow, like most aircraft of the time, was constructed with a wood truss fuselage. Beech and chief designer Lloyd Stearman tried in vain to convince Moellendick that a steel tube structure would be superior. Moellendick decidedto leave well enough alone, but so certain were Beech and Stearman, they left the company to build their own airplane.In the fall of 1924, in partnership with an airplane-building farmer named Clyde Cessna, the Travel Air Manufacturing Company was born. Over that winter, the small group built their first airplane in a 30 by 30-foot hangar in Wichita. It had a steel tube chassis and a streamlined design that set a new standard for open-cockpit biplanes. New developments quickly followed, and the Travel Air Model 2000 was introduced. The budding company saw the sale of 19 airplanes in 1925. Stearman left Travel Air in 1926, but the company, now under the leadership of Walter Beech, continued its success, selling its reliable aircraft to many of the oil companies who were just realizing the value of the airplane.After Stearman’s departure, Cessna openly voiced his opinion on the superiority of the monoplane design. Beech made no bones about his opposition to the idea, but in 1927, the high-wing monoplane Model 5000 was built, and National Air Transport quickly signed on for 13 of them. Flush with success, Cessna tried to convince Beech to design a cantilever-wing monoplane. Still convinced the idea had little merit, Walter Beech put his footWhile Beech Aircraft designed many airplanes, the one that was closest to Walter’s heart was the Model 17 Staggerwing. Here, he sits proudly on the wing of the luxurious Model G17S, the last of the Staggerwing line.34 • ­TWIN & TURBINEMARCH 2011