Aircraft Models

 Elsewhere

     Walter H. Beech's rose from test pilot to become general manager of Swallow Manufacturing, which built wood frame airplanes.  Beech believed that the future of aviation would be dependent on metal framing.  He resigned his job and established  The Travel Air Company.  He set up the new business in Wichita, Kansas, in 1925.  He started with only 900 feet of rented space, but his new all-metal designs were revolutionary and the planes sold like the proverbial hotcakes.  Its model 4000 was biplane that carried a pilot and two passengers.  Its model 6000 monowing carried a pilot and six passengers.  By 1929, Travel Air was the world's leading manufacturer of commercial aircraft.    The success was short-lived. A combination of the economic catastrophe of the stock market crash and a soft aviation market flooded with production from dozens of companies saw the end of numerous independent manufacturers.  Travel Air folded.  Staggerwing Museum; Tullahoma, Tennessee honors Beech and the Travel Air Company.  The famous mystery ship is on display in its gallery, one of the very few famous planes not obtained by the Smithsonian.