Serving Midwest Aviation Since 1960
Serving Midwest Aviation Since 1960
Sorted by date Results 51 - 75 of 94
Lloyd Stearman started with Matty Laird in Chicago, moved to Wichita, and later worked with Walter Beech and Clyde Cessna at Travel Air. In 1926, he set up Stearman Aircraft Company in Venice, CA, returning to Wichita in 1927. His company produced practical biplanes for sport, passengers, mail, and training. The classic C-3B, certified under Approved Type Certificate #55 of July 1928, appeared with a 220 hp Wright J-5 Whirlwind nine-cylinder radial. A three seater, it had the traditional welded...
Rene and Gaston Caudron were inspired by seeing Wilber Wright fly. Their first aircraft flew from their farm on 21 September 1909. Caudron designed and constructed aircraft for civilian and military use until the end of World War II when the company disappeared. One of their most exciting aircraft was the C. 460 racer that appeared in the 1935 National Air Races flown by Michel Detroyat, winning the Greve and Thompson Trophies against U.S. competitors. This photo, taken at the NASM's Steven F....
Major Reuben Hollis Fleet, U.S. Military Aviator No. 74, founded Consolidated Aircraft Corporation in May 1923. Fleet believed in making aircraft simple and safe, and produced a series of training biplanes for military and civilian use. On 25 March 1930, he formed a subsidiary company, Fleet Aircraft of Canada at Fort Erie, Ontario. Later, as Fleet Aircraft, Limited, Fleet produced two seat radial engined biplanes for the Royal Canadian Air Force and for export. Most, like the Model 2 and the...
Jack Riley formed Riley Aircraft Corporation in 1952 to improve the performance of existing production aircraft. He converted the North American/Ryan Navion to twin engines, later selling the conversion rights to Temco, followed that with upgrading Cessna's 310 series as the Riley Rocket, and continued with conversions of Cessna 314, 340, 414, and 421 twins. In 1963 he upgraded the de Havilland DH. 104 Dove, originally first flown in September 1945, to the Riley Turbo Executive. A major conversi...
Army Air Force pilot training initially involved three levels: Primary, Basic, and Advanced (single engine and multi-engine). Advanced training was a ten-week course devoting 60 hours to ground school, 19 hours to "military" training, and 70 hours to flight time. Twin engine training used the Cessna Bobcat, Curtiss Jeep, the Twin Beech, and the Beech AT-10 Wichita. The AT-10, or Model 26, designed by a team led by T. A. Wells, trained over half of the Army's multi-engined pilots. Although Beech...
Designed by Doug Webber and Noel Hockaday, the two seat Model 6000 Speedster was delayed in production due to not being able to meet government spin regulations. The first two Speedsters, including NC15865 in this photo, were powered by a 95 hp four cylinder inverted A.C.E. Cirrus Hi-Drive air cooled engine. Cirrus engines, produced in Marysville, Michigan, from 1928 to 1935, were used mostly as power for the Fairchild 22 and Great Lakes Trainers. When the company folded, Menasco picked up the...
Richard Fairey began as a maker of flying model airplanes. By July 1915, Fairey Aviation Co. began construction of license built Short biplanes. From then on, Fairey was known for design and manufacture of aircraft mainly for the Royal Navy. Famous designs included the Fairey IIIF, the Flycatcher fighter, and the WWII Swordfish and Albacore torpedo bombers. The RN's first eight gun fighter was the Merlin powered two-seat Fairey Fulmar of 1940. Although large and slow, it did well in the...
Airbus, known for its flyby wire airliners, including the popular A320 series and the gigantic A380, also produces military aircraft. The A400M Atlas turboprop transport was designed to replace the Transall C-160 and the early model Lockheed Hercules. Able to use undeveloped landing strips and capable of aerial refueling, the Atlas has suffered from development delays and cost overruns. Some countries cancelled orders for the Atlas. The prototype's delayed first flight occurred on 11 December...
Edouard Nieuport (later changed to Nieuport) began building high speed monoplanes in June 1910. He was killed on 15 September 1911 and Henri Deutsche de la Meurthe with Gustave Delage as designer continued the name, but moved to building a series of over 10,000 V-strut sesquiplanes with rotary engines that became the backbone of French and Allied fighter squadrons. Delage broke the pattern in June 1917 with the Nieuport 28. It used untapered wings, twin Vickers guns, and a circular section...
The prototype Moth, G-EBKT, was first flown by Geoffrey de Havilland at Stag Lane on 22 February 1925, powered by a Halford designed Cirrus I engine of 60 hp. The name Moth was bestowed on the two-seater biplane in reference to de Havilland's reputation as a lepidopterist. Over its production life, the DH-60 was powered by Cirrus inlines of 60-90 hp, the 75 hp Genet radial, DH Gipsy inlines of 100 to 120 hp, and the 130 hp Gipsy Major inline. Aircraft were manufactured for civilian and military...
Designed by Armand Thielblot to an April 1945 US Navy specification for a new primary trainer, the XNQ-1 mockup was inspected in September 1945. Construction of three, two to fly and one for static testing, was authorized by the Navy. The prototype, Bu-75725, was first flown by Richard Henson on 7 October 1946, at Hagerstown, Maryland. It was joined in the test program by Bu-75726 in February 1947. Testing by Navy and Air Force pilots garnered good reviews. The Air Force gave it the designation...
Dr. Mikhail Leontyvich Mil (1909-1970) began his career working on autogiros with another noted Russian rotary wing pioneer, Nikolai Ilyich Kamov (1902-1973). During WWII, Mil was assigned to a Red Air Force autogiro unit. In 1947, he formed his own design bureau to pursue rotary wing research. His first helicopter, the Mi-1 "Hare" with an Ivchenko piston engine was completed in September 1948 and was produced for Aeroflot and the Soviet Air Force for passengers, crop spraying, and med evac....
Archibald Barkley began his career working with the Wright brothers and with pioneering companies Verville, Stout, Ford, and Curtiss. Teaming up with Harold Grow in 1936, they established the Barkley-Grow Aviation Corporation in Detroit. Their main product, with its patented multi-spar all metal wing, was the T8P-1, a twin engine, twin tailed airliner, which first flew in April 1937 piloted by Frank Cordova. Test flying was done by noted air racing pilot Lee Gehlbach. The T8P-1 was awarded Appro...
CASA or Construcciones Aeronauticas SA was formed in 1923 and became Spain's main aircraft company. It license-built aircraft from Dornier, Breguet, Vickers, Bucker, Heinkel, and Northrop in addition to producing aircraft of its own design. In 1980, it joined with Indonesia's IPTN to create Airtech for production of the CN-235 turboprop transport. Appealing to the military for its load carrying ability, excellent short field operations, and being adaptable to the maritime recon role, the...
The Czech Aero company got its start in 1919 manufacturing the Austria- Hungarian designed twin gun Phoenix fighter under license. Later, it produced its own designs for civil transports, fight- ers, and bombers. After World War II, the reformed Aero began production of a family of light transports, beginning with the Aero 45 of 1947. Designed by Jiri Bouzek, Ondrej Nemec, and Frantisek Vik, the prototype Aero 45 flew on 21 July 1947, the first Czech designed aircraft to be produced after...
PZL or Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze was established in January 1928 to be Poland's main aircraft design and manufacturing concern. Known in the early 1930's for a series of parasol wing monoplane fighters designed by Zygmunt Pulaski, PZL went on to produce one of the finest twin engine bombers of the pre-WWII era. The PZL 37 Los (Elk) had excellent performance and, had the war not intervened, would have been exported to a number of countries. After the German blitzkrieg, what was left of PZL was...
Known for its reliability, range, and cargo capacity, the Bellanca Pacemaker won the hearts of bush pilots and record setters. As an example, Russell Boardman and John Polando flew from Floyd Bennett Field to Istanbul in a Pacemaker called "Cape Cod" nonstop, a distance of 5,011 miles in 49 hours and 20 minutes between 28 and 30 July 1931. In the far north, Bellancas hauled fish, were used for aerial mapping, and mounted on floats and skies, provided mail service to remote Canadian and Alaskan...
The Swiss firm Pilatus has designed and manufactured military training aircraft since the Argus engined P-2 of 1945. The 1953 P-3, with a Lycoming O-435, was developed into the PT6A powered PC-7, which was popular with many air forces from the late 1970's. The more refined and more powerful PC-9 first flew on 7 May 1984. With a 1150 hp Pratt & Whitney PT6A de-rated to 950 hp, it entered service with Australia, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, and other Asian and Middle Eastern nations. Pilatus is...
Designed as a basic trainer with light attack capabilities, the S. 211 first flew on 10 April 1981. Powered by a 2,500 pound thrust P&W of Canada turbofan, it has a maximum speed of 414 mph and a service ceiling of 40,000 feet. With four underwing hardpoints, it can carry a variety of bombs, rockets, and gun pods. Only three countries ordered the S. 211: Haiti (4), the Philippines (24), and Singapore (30). Over 60 percent of the airframe was made of composites. The two crew members sit in...
During World War II, the British relied on the United States for transports. Realizing they could be left behind after the war was over, the Barbazon Committee looked at setting requirements for post-war airliners. Some designs, like the huge Bristol Brabazon with eight Centaurus radials and the ten engine Saunders-Roe Princess flying boat, were colossal failures. Only two became serious trend setters. The graceful de Havilland Comet had to overcome some mysterious early crashes before proving...
The Republic XF-91 falls into the category of mixed powered point defense interceptors that followed World War II inspired by German experiments with the rocket powered Messerschmitt Me-163B Komet and Bachem Natter. Designed to a December 1945 Army Air Force requirement for a bomber interceptor that would be supersonic and could climb to 47,500 feet in two and a half minutes, Republic's AP-31 design was ordered on 29 March 1946. It was to join the French Sud-Quest Trident and British...
Giuseppe Bellanca came to New York from Sicily in 1911 with a degree in engineering. By 1914 he was running a flight school at Mineola, NY. One of his students went on to become a Caproni bomber pilot in WWI and later mayor of New York City. That student was Fiorello LaGuardia. Bellanca believed an aircraft's function was to transport people and payloads efficiently. His Columbia high wing monoplane set an endurance record of 51 hours and 11 minutes flown by Clarence Chamberlain and Bert Acosta...
Hawker Siddeley Kestrel FGA. Mk. I (XV-6A) Evolved from the Hawker P.1127, which made successful use of the Bristol Siddeley Pegasus vectored thrust turbofan, the Kestrel paved the way for the V/STOL combat capable, and later battle tested in the 1982 Falklands War, Harrier, that remains in service with the USMC, Italy, India and Spain. Work began in 1958. The first free flight of P.1127 serial number XP831 took place on 19 November 1960. Another prototype and four development aircraft...
Prior to World War II, Yugoslavia manufactured a number of fighters and floatplanes, plus license manufactured the British Bristol Blenheim bomber and Hawker Hurricane fighter. After the war the aircraft industry's recovery took a number of years. Soko, formed in 1951, began with license manufacture of Westland Whirlwind and Gazelle helicopters. In 1957 it initiated work on the Galeb and Jastreb series of jet trainers and light attack aircraft. Then, in 1966, came the Kraguj, a single seat...
The Concorde was not the first airliner to exceed Mach 1.0. That honor goes to a Douglas DC-8-40 with Rolls Royce Conway engines that broke the sound barrier in a shallow dive on 21 August 1961. First flown at Long Beach on 30 May 1958 by A. G. Heimerdinger, the DC-8 was designed to replace the piston powered DC-6 and DC-7 and compete with Boeing's 707. Somewhat late to the market and without the benefit of military versions like Boeing's KC-135, only 556 DC-8's were built, compared to 856...
