The Wichita Municipal Airport, was built starting in 1930, but was not completed until 1935 due to the Great Depression. Wichita Municipal Airport served the city for 17 years before the Air Force built a base and began to use the airport for its own operations.

Also in 1930, Beech’s Travel Air merges with United Aircraft and Transport, which included Boeing. This new entity also took over Stearman Corporation. This same year Al Mooney formed the Mooney Aircraft Corporation in Wichita.

In 1932, Walter Beech and his wife Olive form beech Aircraft Company. The first Beechcraft, the Model 17R Staggerwing, takes flight in November of that year.

The “world’s most efficient airplane” (at the time), the Cessna Airmaster, originally the model c-134, began production in 1935.

Credit to: Ian Clark  | www.360wichita.com

A Second World War fighter plane – the only complete one of its kind – is now on display in its full glory after being reassembled.

The Boulton Paul Defiant Mk 1 arrived at RAF Cosford in December 2016. It was accessible to visitors from March but had until now remained incomplete.

Its assembly has now been finished and the two-seat turret fighter is parked proudly in the museum’s ‘War in the Air’ hangar alongside a Spitfire and a Hurricane.

The fighter’s arrival at RAF Cosford was something of a homecoming with the plane having been built by Boulton Paul at its Pendeford factory in Wolverhampton in 1938.

The Defiant was in the skies during the Battle of Britain period but found its niche as a night fighter from 1940 to 1942.

They were used extensively later on in the war for air-sea rescue and target tug roles in the UK and Middle and Far East.

The museum’s model, serial number N1671, was operated by the newly-formed No 307 (Polish) Squadron RAF, and had its first operational flight in December 1940.

It was painted in its all black night fighter colour scheme the following January and in June 1941 had to be repaired after swinging off a runway in Somerset.

In October 1941 the aircraft was transferred to No 153 Squadron in Northern Ireland. It took to the air once with the squadron, its final operational flight.

In total it had amounted 13 hours and 35 minutes of flight-time in 15 sorties.

In June 1942 it was transferred again to No 285 (Anti-aircraft Co-Operation) Squadron where it was used for simulated attacks to exercise anti-aircraft defences.

The Defiant was originally set aside for preservation in 1944 and spent several years moving between RAF bases for display.

It was eventually acquired by the RAF museum in 1971 and after almost four decades on display at the museum’s London site, the aircraft was completely restored by Medway Aircraft Preservation Society at Rochester Airport in 2009, going back on display at the museum in 2012.

The RAF Museum at Cosford will be open throughout the Christmas period from 10am to 4pm, excluding December 24-26 and January 1. Entry is free.

Credit to: Robert Cox | www.expressandstar.com

As the de Havilland Beaver departs the ground, the smile will be on the face of the pilot. Every time you lift off, it seems like a miracle that such a big, heavy plane can get off the ground so quickly, even with a heavy load.

Arguably the best bush plane ever built, the de Havilland Beaver will celebrate 70 years in the sky in August 2017. Here in Idaho where most of our friends tool around the backcountry on a weekly basis, it’s always the Beaver that draws the most attention. Seeing one fly by, low and slow up the canyon, as you stand on an airstrip beside the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, is sure to make your day. Harrison Ford owns about a dozen airplanes and has often said that if he could keep only one, it would be the Beaver. With a big, nine-cylinder Pratt & Whitney strapped to the front, this 5,100-pound workhorse boasts a useful load of around 2,000 pounds (exact numbers depend on how it’s configured inside, among other things), and it’s built to operate out of short and rough airstrips. Strap on skis or floats and you have the ultimate adventure airplane.

Officially known as the de Havilland Canada DHC-2 MkI Beaver, the aircraft was meticulously designed as a purpose-built bush airplane capable of carrying heavy loads into confined, and sometimes rough, areas. Conceived and built in Downsview, Ontario, Canada, much of the Beaver’s early flight testing was done on floats.

The Beaver made its initial flight in August 1947, and the first production Beaver was delivered soon thereafter, in early 1948. By the time production ended in 1967, approximately 1,650 Mk.I Beavers has been built, in addition to a single Mk.II prototype with a 500-hp Alvis Leonides engine, and 60 Mk.III turbo Beavers.

Mods for the de Havilland Beaver

People adapt Beavers for all sorts of missions, depending on their needs. Larger windows, larger cargo doors, and a variety of seating configurations are just some of the approved mods. You can also get an increase in gross weight to 5,600 pounds for the Mk.I and 6,000 pounds for the Mk.III. Water operators like to move the air induction to the top of the cowl to prevent water ingestion. Stronger wing struts are popular with those who operate in the bush. Minnesota’s Wipaire, a maker of floats, has developed a turbine conversion. Viking Air Ltd. also has a turbine conversion, although the two are very different from one another.

Kenmore Air Harbor , which provides maintenance and a seaplane flight school (its sister company Kenmore Air provides commercial seaplane service in the Puget Sound area), has also converted a number of ex-military Beavers to civilian configurations for general aviation use.

Over the years, pilots’ fascination with the DHC-2 has only grown. Any time a de Havilland Beaver approaches a fly-in, all heads swivel to follow the big beast as it lumbers across the sky, and they flock around it after shutdown. Beaver enthusiasts even have a website dedicated to their favorite aircraft, at www.DHC-2.com. With its amazing durability, the de Havilland Beaver will continue to grace skies worldwide for many decades to come.

Credit to:

Crista Worthy with Steve Burak
http://disciplesofflight.com/