 | |
| Industry | Aerospace |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1925 |
| Founders | |
| Fate | Merged with Curtiss-Wright Corporation |
| Successor | Curtiss-Wright Corporation |
Key people | Herbert Rawdon |
| Products | Aircraft |
The Travel Air Manufacturing Company was an aircraft manufacturer established in Wichita, Kansas, United States in January 1925 by Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Lloyd Stearman.
An early leader in single-engine, light-aircraft manufacturing, from 1925 to 1931, Travel Air was the largest-volume aircraft manufacturer in the United States in 1928 -- the principal contributor to Wichita becoming named the "Air Capital City" by the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce.[1][2]
Travel Air produced the trend-setting Travel Air Mystery Ship racer, which forced radical changes in U.S. military aircraft. Travel Air also developed early small airliners, including Delta Airlines' first, and the first civilian plane to reach Hawaii by air.[1][3]
With Walter Beech as its last President, the company was acquired by Curtiss-Wright Corporation, and moved to St. Louis, Missouri, before production ceased in the Great Depression. However, Beech returned to Wichita in 1932, acquired the abandoned Travel Air factory, and resumed production under his own name, with the Beech Aircraft Corporation — producing what would have been the 17th Travel Air model, but as the Beech Model 17 "Staggerwing."[1]
- ^ a b c Phillips, Edward H.: Travel Air: Wings over the Prairie, Flying Books (1982), ISBN 0911139001
- ^ sidebar: "...Aircraft Production Numbers..." in "Monocoupe: Speed for the Common Man," Winter 2011, AAHS Journal, Volume 56, No.4, American Aviation Historical Society, retrieved December 31, 2022
- ^ "Travel Air S-6000-B 1929-1930," "Aircraft by Type," History, Delta Flight Museum, retrieved December 31, 2022