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1929 Travel Air E-4000 - NC648H

Location: pioneer airport, recent articles.

April 25, 2017

November 03, 2016

September 15, 2016

August 11, 2016

EAA’s 1929 Travel Air E-4000 open-cockpit biplane (NC648H, serial number 1224) is among the last flying examples of the aircraft that launched American aviation and earned Wichita, Kansas, the title of “Air Capital of the World.”

The Travel Air Company was formed January 1925 in Wichita, Kansas by former employees of the Swallow Aircraft Manufacturing Company. Starting with a 900 square foot factory and six employees, the company grew by 1929 to 650 employees working two shifts in a state-of-the-art aircraft production facility. About 1,800 Travel Air aircraft were built in less than half a decade. Most were biplanes, using 16 basic designs. The company was unable to survive the Great Depression and was absorbed into the Curtiss-Wright Aeronautical Corporation. Travel Air officers included Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Lloyd Stearman, who later formed their own well-known aircraft companies.

The Travel Air E-4000 model was designed to compete with inexpensive World War I surplus Standards and Curtiss “Jennies.” Its major feature was a forward cockpit wide enough to accommodate two passengers (at least by 1929 standards!). Its rugged landing gear used rubber “bungee” shock cords, allowing landings on unimproved fields.

EAA’s Travel Air was among the last produced. Built in July of 1929, it sported a Wright “Whirlwind” J-6, five-cylinder engine, producing 165 horsepower. Bill Shank, one of America’s first civilian airmail pilots, was the plane’s first owner and the Shank family operated it from Indianapolis, Indiana for almost 30 years.

The aircraft was later donated to EAA and fully restored by EAA staff and many volunteers, including Gene Chase and Jim Barton. A more reliable, seven-cylinder, 220 horsepower Continental R670-4 engine was installed with a ground adjustable Hamilton Standard propeller. This engine/propeller combination was used on thousands of Stearman trainers during World War II. The aircraft was fitted with Schweizer release hooks for banner towing. Its original, narrow wheels were replaced with wider ones, offering better flotation on soft ground.

The airplane is now in regular flight service at EAA’s Pioneer Airport. Each flying season it delights Aviation Museum visitors with the sights, sounds and thrills of open-cockpit biplane flight.

Aircraft researched by EAA volunteer Fred Stadler.

1929 travel air biplane

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Fantasy of Flight

1929 travel air biplane

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  • 1929 Travel Air 4000

In 1924, Lloyd Stearman, Clyde Cessna, and Walter Beech formed the Travel Air Manufacturing Company in Wichita, Kansas. Their first effort was the Travel Air 1000, which was designed along the lines of the famous Curtiss Jenny.

A later model, the Travel Air 2000, was built with horn-balanced control surfaces, which were copied from the famous Fokker D-VII fighter from World War I. Because of the close resemblance to the Fokker, the 2000 was used in many 1930s war movies and became known as the “Wichita Fokker.”

The Travel Air 4000 was introduced in 1929 and is similar in design to the model 2000 but without the horn-balanced control ailerons. The pilot sits in the rear cockpit with room for two in the front. It represents a classic example of the round-engine biplane: slow-flying and graceful. A beautiful aircraft from a romantic era.

In 1930, the Curtiss Wright Corporation purchased the Travel Air Company. After the final model 6000 was developed, Stearman, Cessna, and Beech would go on to contribute much to American aviation history with their own individual companies.

Specifications

  • Year Built — 1929
  • Wingspan — 34’8″
  • Cruise Speed — 85 mph
  • Top Speed — 130 mph
  • Gross Weight — 2,412 lbs
  • Engine — Wright J-5 Whirlwind (223 hp)

Kermit’s Comments

This aircraft was built in 1929 and was restored by Kelly Mason in Washington State with a lot of attention to detail. I acquired it in 1996. Due to the long distance it had to travel, the aircraft was shipped by truck to Florida, where it was re-assembled and flown here at Fantasy of Flight. It is powered by a Wright J-5 Whirlwind engine, which was the same famous engine-type that powered the “Spirit of St. Louis” and Lindbergh across the Atlantic.

In 1997, this aircraft was used by the US Postal Service to help commemorate the first day issue of a series of airplane stamps. With the local Postmaster on board, I delivered the first ever airmail in the history of Polk City! Probably the last as well.

In this Section

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  • 1916 Brock Morane
  • 1911 Curtiss Pusher Model D
  • 1909 Herring-Curtiss Pusher
  • 1911 Valkyrie
  • 1917 Albatros D-Va
  • 1917 Fokker DR-1 Triplane
  • 1918 Fokker D-VIII
  • 1918 Morane A-I
  • 1915 Nieuport 17
  • 1918 Standard E-1
  • 1917 Standard J-1
  • 1918 Thomas Morse Scout
  • 1938 AVRO Cadet
  • 1934 Brown B-2 “Miss Los Angeles”
  • 1937 Bücker Jungmeister
  • 1934 Cierva C.30-A Autogiro
  • 1929 Curtiss Robin
  • 1931 Curtiss-Wright Junior
  • 1932 DGA-5 “IKE”
  • 1929 Ford 5AT Tri-Motor
  • 1932 Gee Bee R-2
  • 1931 Gee Bee Y Sportster
  • 1931 Gee Bee Z
  • 1931 Laird Super Solution
  • 1934 Pitcairn Autogiro PA-18
  • 1930 Sikorsky S-39
  • 1927 Spirit of St. Louis
  • 1931 Stinson Tri-Motor
  • 1941 Stinson Vultee L-1E
  • 1944 Bachem Natter Viper
  • 1945 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
  • 1939 Bücker Bestmann
  • 1936 Bücker Jungmann
  • 1945 Chance-Vought F4U-4 Corsair
  • 1944 Consolidated B-24J Liberator
  • 1944 Curtiss TP-40N
  • 1944 Fieseler V-1 Buzz Bomb
  • 1937 Fieseler Fi-156 Storch
  • 1937 Focke-Wulf Fw-44 Stieglitz
  • 1938 Grumman F3F-2
  • 1943 Grumman Wildcat
  • 1940 Martin B-26 Marauder
  • 1945 Nord Stampe
  • 1944 North American AT-6
  • 1943 North American B-25 J Mitchell
  • 1944 North American P-51C Mustang
  • 1945 Piper L-4 Grasshopper
  • 1954 Polikarpov PO-2
  • 1944 Short Sunderland
  • 1945 Supermarine Spitfire Mk 16
  • 1954 Bell 47G
  • 1956 Hiller Hornet
  • 1943 Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina
  • 1945 Grumman Duck
  • 1945 North American P-51D Mustang

Today's Calendar

1929 travel air biplane

Curtiss-Wright CW-A14D (Travel Air 4000) Single-engine Two-seat Biplane, U.S.A.

Archive Photos 1

1927 Curtiss-Wright "Travel Air 4000" (NC3242) at the 1995 Hawthorne Air Faire, Hawthorne, CA (Photos by John Shupek)

1929 travel air biplane

1929 Curtiss-Wright "Travel Air 4000" (NC8700) at the 1995 Hawthorne Air Faire, Hawthorne, CA (Photos by John Shupek)

1929 travel air biplane

1929 Curtiss-Wright "Travel Air 4000" (NC8700) at the 2000 Torrance Airshow, Zamperini Field, Torrance, CA (Photos by John Shupek)

1929 travel air biplane

  • Travel Air 2000
  • Role: Biplane aircraft
  • Manufacturer: Travel Air, Curtiss-Wright
  • Designer: Lloyd Stearman
  • First flight: 13 March 1925
  • Introduction: 1925
  • Primary user: Private owners, aerial sightseeing businesses
  • Produced: 1925-1930
  • Number built: Approx 1,300

The Travel Air 2000/3000/4000 (originally, the Model A, Model B and Model BH and later marketed as a Curtiss-Wright product under the names CW-14, Speedwing, Sportsman and Osprey), were open-cockpit biplane aircraft produced in the United States in the late 1920s by the Travel Air Manufacturing Company. During the period from 1924-1929, Travel Air produced more aircraft than any other American manufacturer, including over 1,000 biplanes (some estimates range from 1,200 to nearly 2,000).

Design and Development 2

Primary Design and Development

The original Travel Air Model A was engineered chiefly by Lloyd Stearman’with input from Travel Air co-founders Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna, and Bill Snook’largely as a metal-framed improvement of his immediately previous design of the wood-framed, metal-cowled Swallow New Swallow biplane, with elements of the best fighter aircraft of World War I, the metal-framed German Fokker D-VII. Most subsequent Travel Air biplanes were derived, directly or indirectly, from the original Model A.

An interim design, the Winstead Special was derived by the Winstead brothers from an initial metal fuselage frame developed at Swallow by Stearman and Walter Beech, and subsequently discarded by Swallow. The rejection of the metal frame concept, by Swallow president Jake Moellendick, triggered the departure of Stearman and Beech, and the creation of Travel Air. The types shared a common structure of a conventional single-bay biplane with staggered wings braced by N-struts. The fuselage was of fabric-covered steel tube and included two open cockpits in tandem, the forward of which could carry two passengers side-by-side.

In common with the Fokker D-VII, the rudder and ailerons of first Travel Air biplanes had an overhanging "horn" to partially aerodynamically counterbalance the aerodynamic resistance of the controls when deflected, to provide a lighter control feel, and a more responsive aircraft. This gave Travel Airs their distinctive "elephant ear" vertical tails, and the similarly counterbalanced ailerons were also referred to as "elephant ear" ailerons’leading to the airplane’s popular nicknames "Old Elephant Ears" and "Wichita Fokker." Some subsequent models were offered without the counterbalance, providing a cleaner, more conventional appearance and less drag. Elevator forces were trimmed out by use of an inflight-adjustable horizontal stabilizer.

Like other aircraft in the Travel Air line, it was available with a variety of different, interchangeable wings, including a wing shorter and thinner than the rest known as the "Speedwing" designed, as the name suggests, for increased cruise speed. Travel Air entered a specially-modified Model 4000 (designated 4000-T) in the Guggenheim Safe Aircraft Competition of 1930, but it was disqualified.

Compared to other civilian ("commercial") open-cockpit biplanes of the era, Travel Airs were noted for their quality of construction, reliability, durability, speed, efficiency, payload and passenger capacity (two passengers in a small bench seat in the front cockpit, plus pilot in the rear cockpit’versus most biplanes of the era, which could only accommodate a single passenger in the front cockpit). They were also noted for superior comfort and easy flying. These various distinguishing characteristics led Travel Air to outsell all rivals by 1929.

Steam-powered

In 1933 a Travel Air 2000 was modified by George and William Besler where the usual inline or radial gasoline piston engine was replaced by an oil-fired, reversible 90° angle V-twin angle-compound engine of their own design, which became the first fixed-wing airplane to successful fly using a steam engine of any type. The Beslers are thought to have sold the plane to the Japanese in 1937.

Curtiss-Wright Production

Following Travel Air Manufacturing Company purchase in August 1929 by Curtiss-Wright, the Model 4000 continued in production into the early 1930s as the CW-14, and the range was expanded to include a military derivative dubbed the Osprey. This was fitted with bomb racks, a fixed, forward-firing machine gun, and a trainable tail gun. These aircraft were supplied to Bolivia and used during the Gran Chaco War, which eventually led to Curtiss-Wright’s successful prosecution for supplying these aircraft in violation of a U.S. arms embargo.

Operational History 2

In addition to a wide range of normal aircraft applications, and conspicuous use in a minor South American war, Travel Air biplanes also saw extensive use in early motion pictures.

Normal Operations

During the 1920s and very early 1930s, Travel Air biplanes were the most widely used civilian biplanes in America (not counting war-surplus military trainers re-purposed for civilian use) ’ with the arguable exception of their chief competitors, WACO biplanes. Travel Air production ended in the mid-1930s, under the Curtiss-Wright Corporation.

Initially, Travel Air biplanes were very widely used for executive transport, wealthy-sportsmen adventures, air taxi and air charter service, light air cargo transport, and some bush flying. Many were also used in barnstorming: exhibition and stunt flying, selling recreational rides, and early air racing.

Commercial operators found the Travel Air biplanes very versatile and useful, owing to their substantial payload, simple and reliable systems, rugged construction and (for the times) substantial speed and efficiency.

Towards the end of their useful lives (the late-1930s through the early 1970s), they were heavily used for the harsh work of bush flying and cropdusting, and Travel Air biplanes were among the most heavily used cropdusters in America’perhaps second only to the World War II surplus Stearman Kaydet biplanes also designed by Lloyd Stearman.

Today, most remaining Travel Air biplanes are regarded as treasures, having been carefully restored at substantial cost, and are used sparingly and carefully for personal recreation and/or modern-day barnstorming (exhibition flying and selling rides).

Military Operations 2

The Osprey, a Travel Air biplane variant by Curtiss-Wright, was armed with bomb racks and machine guns, and supplied to Bolivia, who used them in the 1933 Gran Chaco War with Paraguay (in violation of a U.S. arms embargo, for which Curtiss-Wright’s was eventually successfully prosecuted). Numerous plane-makers attempted to get their aircraft into the war, for publicity, and the Osprey initially benefited the most from this international competition. Fitted with single machine guns fore (fixed) and aft (moveable), and bomb racks, the rugged, reliable Ospreys were the preferred mounts of the Bolivian pilots’of several competing aircraft supplied. The resulting heavy use led to high losses’half of the original 12 units being lost in accidents or action, another five or so were employed, though precise outcomes are unclear, owing in part to repairs on some of the "lost" aircraft, which were returned to service. However, the action brought favorable publicity and credibility to Curtiss-Wright aircraft.

Movie Industry 2

Travel Air biplanes were widely used in 1920s/1930s war movies, particularly to represent the airplanes they were patterned after: Germany’s Fokker D-VII fighter, the top fighter of World War I. In the motion picture industry, they were known as "Wichita Fokkers." In fact, Hollywood’s demand for Travel Air biplanes was so intense that Travel Air’s California salesman, Fred Hoyt, coaxed Travel Air co-founder and principal airplane designer, Lloyd Stearman, to come to Venice, California in 1926 to exploit the movie industry demand for his aircraft by starting a short-lived independent Stearman Aircraft Company which re-opened back in Wichita in 1927.

Some of the many movies using Travel Air biplanes (2000 and 4000, in particular) included:

  • Wings (1927) (Lauded for its technical accuracy, it won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Picture)
  • Flying Fool (1929) (Pathè film, one of the early leading roles for William Boyd, later famous as Hopalong Cassidy)
  • Hell’s Angels (1930) (Howard Hughes’ extravagant war epic)
  • The Dawn Patrol (1930)
  • Heartbreak (1931)
  • Ace Of Aces (1933) featured five Travel Air Model Bs, and numerous other planes.
  • Hell in the Heavens (1933)
  • Flying Devils (1933)
  • Murder in the Cloudsquick (1934) featured NC406N
  • Model B: Travel Air Model A fitted with a Wright J-6 piston engine.

Like other Travel Air aircraft, Model 4000 variants were distinguished by letters prefixed (or occasionally affixed) to the basic designation to denote different engine and wing fits. These letter codes included:

Engine Codes

  • A: original wing with "elephant-ear" ailerons
  • A: Axelson engine
  • B: "Standard wing" with Frise-type ailerons and three fuel tanks
  • C: Curtiss engine
  • D: "Speedwing"
  • E: Revised "standard wing" with a single fuel tank
  • K: Kinner engine
  • L: Lycoming engine

Travel Air Models

  • Travel Air 2000: first production model
  • SC-2000: Powered by a 160-hp (119-kW) Curtiss C-6 engine
  • Travel Air 3000: Powered by a 150-hp / 180-hp (112-kW / 134-kW) Hispano-Suiza Model A or Model engine.
  • Travel Air 4000: Powered by a 220-hp (164-kW) Wright J-5 engine
  • A-4000: Powered by a 150-hp (112-kW) Axelson engine
  • B-4000: Powered by a 220-hp (164-kW) Wright J-5 engine
  • BC-4000: Floatplane version
  • B9-4000: Powered by a 300-hp (224-kW) Wright J-6-9 engine
  • C-4000: Powered by a 170-hp (127-kW) Challenger engine
  • E-4000: Powered by a 165-hp (123-kW) Wright J-6-5 engine
  • K-4000: Powered by a 100-hp (75-kW) Kinner K5 engine
  • SBC-4000: Floatplane version
  • W-4000: Powered by 110-hp (82-kW) Warner Scarab engine
  • Travel Air 8000 (aka 4000-CAM): Powered by a 120-hp (89-kW) Fairchild-Caminez 447 engine
  • Travel Air 9000 (aka 4000-SH): Powered by a 125-hp (93-kW) Ryan-Siemens engine
  • Travel Air 11: D-20000 powered by a Wright J-6 engine

Curtiss-Wright Models

  • CW-14C Sportsman: Version with 185 hp (138 kW) Curtiss Challenger engine (1 built).
  • CW-A14D Deluxe Sportsman: Three-seat version with 240 hp (180 kW) Wright J-6-7 engine and NACA cowling (5 built).
  • CW-B14B Speedwing Deluxe: Version with 300 hp (220 kW) Wright J-6-9 engine (2 built).
  • CW-B14R Special Speedwing Deluxe; Single-seat racer built for Casey Lambert with supercharged Wright R-975 engine (1 built)
  • CW-C14B Osprey: Militarized version with Wright R-975E engine
  • CW-C14R Osprey: Militarized version with Wright J-6-9 engine
  • CW-17R Pursuit Osprey: CW-B14B with uprated engine; possibly not built

Military Operators 2

  • Bolivia: 20 purchased 1933-34.
  • Colombia: 3 CW-C14R Osprey from 1932.
  • Ecuador: 2 CW-14Rs purchased 1931.
  • Panama: 2 acquired 1931.
  • El Salvador: 3 from 1933.
  • Venezuela: 3 CW-14Rs purchased 1932.

Curtiss-Wright CW-A14D (Travel Air 4000) Specifications 3

General Characteristics

  • Capacity: 2 passengers
  • Length: 23 ft 6½ in (7.17 m)
  • Wingspan: 31 ft 0 in (9.44 m)
  • Height: 9 ft 1½ in (2.78 m)
  • Wing area: 248.0 ft² (23.03 m²)
  • Empty weight: 1,772 lb (804 kg)
  • Gross weight: 2,870 lb (1,302 kg)
  • Powerplant: 1 × Wright J-6-7, 240 hp

Performance

  • Maximum speed: 155 mph (249.44 km/h)
  • Range: 600 mi (966 km)
  • Service ceiling: 16,000 ft (4,877 m)
  • Initial climb: 1,000 ft/min (5.08 m/s)
  • Shupek, John. The Skytamer Photo Archive , photos by John Shupek, copyright © 1995, 2000 John Shupek
  • Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Travel Air 2000

From 1931 to 1953, Andy Stinis performed skywriting in this airplane for Pepsi-Cola. During those years, skywriting with smoke was a premier form of advertising, and Pepsi-Cola used it more than any other company. Pepsi-Cola acquired the airplane in 1973 and used it for air show and advertising duty until retiring it in 2000. Peggy Davies and Suzanne Oliver, the world's only active female skywriters since 1977, performed in it.

The Pepsi Skywriter is one of more than 1,200 Travel Air open-cockpit biplanes built between 1925 and 1930. Popular and rugged, Travel Airs earned their keep as utility workhorses and record breakers. The design was the first success for three giants of the general aviation industry, Lloyd Stearman, Walter Beech, and Clyde Cessna, who in 1925 established the Travel Air Manufacturing Company in Wichita, Kansas.

The Pepsi Skywriter is one of more than 1,200 Travel Air open-cockpit biplanes built between 1925 and 1930. Travel Airs were popular and rugged aircraft that earned their keep as utility and record-breaking workhorses and saw service around the country as crop dusters, barnstormers, and as private planes for the sportsman pilot. For 40 years, pilots flew the Pepsi Skywriter across the United States for the Pepsi-Cola Company delivering a unique form of advertising known as skywriting.

Three future giants in the aircraft industry, Lloyd Stearman, Walter Beech, and Clyde Cessna, came together as young aviation enthusiasts in Wichita, Kansas, to build the Travel Air. During 1923 and 1924, Stearman and Beech worked at the Swallow Aeroplane Manufacturing Company as chief designer and vice president/test pilot respectively. The Swallow aircraft met with success, but Stearman and Beech lobbied to try a design with a steel tube, instead of wood, framework. When management declined, Stearman, Beech, and William Snook left Swallow to start their own company, and brought in Clyde Cessna, a successful farmer who liked to build airplanes. They incorporated the Travel Air Manufacturing Company in January 1925 and immediately designed a three-place, open-cockpit, fabric-covered biplane with a Curtiss OX-5 90 hp engine. Stearman had the steel for the tubing tested to his satisfaction at the Agronomy Department at Kansas State Agricultural College, as there were no aviation standards yet in place. Steel tubing braced the cockpit and steel wires braced the fabric-covered spruce spar wings and ribs. Steel was also used for the rudder and elevator leading and trailing edges, and the horizontal stabilizer leading edge, while the vertical stabilizer was spruce. Spruce strips were used to fair the outside of the fuselage and the turtledeck was spruce. Beech wanted redundant control cables running from the cockpit back to two elevators control horns. The landing gear was a standard duralumin speader bar between vees with bungee shockcords.

Travel Air #1 had a striking look with its fully enclosed cowling for the OX-5 engine, balanced ailerons on the upper wing that overlapped around the edge of the wing, and a blue fuselage with silver wings. Ira Beach made the first test flight on March 13, 1925. Travel Airs performed well in the 1925 Ford Reliability Tour and National Air Transport purchased a Model B for its airmail contract work. OX-5 A and B models became Model 2000s in March 1928 with ATC number 30. The Wright J-4 and J-5, significant radial engines that dramatically improved the performance and reliability of aircraft, were then offered on the airframe and, after 1928, those aircraft became the Model 4000. The 4000 found popularity with better performance and versatility through a wide variety of engine, wing, passenger seat, and landing gear combinations. The Speed wing, for example, was a shorter wing with a new airfoil that made the aircraft faster and required a recertification of the airplane to a D-4000. Ted Wells, later the designer of Beech's Staggerwing, owned the first D-4000 that also sported the first NACA cowl built by Travel Air. By early 1927, both Stearman and Cessna had left Travel Air, leaving Walter Beech in charge, and the newest Travel Air was a cabin monoplane. In 1929, Beech allowed the large Curtiss-Wright Company to absorb the company as a division, but it could not survive the depression, and closed in September 1932.

In 1929, NC434N, serial number 1340, was built as an E-4000, meaning it had a J-6-5 engine and most likely B wings (not the original "elephant ear wing). The D4D model officially arrived in February 1930 with a Wright J-6-7 (Wright R-760-ET) 240 hp engine (the second "D" in D4D) that improved the cruising speed to 110 mph with a range of 520 miles, and the aircraft's ceiling rose to 14,000 feet. N434N received the Speed wings and J-6-7 engine in 1930 and was recertificated as a D4D. Andy Stinis, of the Skywriting Corporation of America, purchased the aircraft in 1931 and flew it out of Floyd Bennett Field, Long Island, New York.

Skywriting, defined as the process of writing a name or message with smoke from an aircraft against a blue sky, began in England after World War I, the brainchild of Major John C. Savage, RAF. His first successful demonstration was at the Derby at Epsom Downs, in May 1922, when Captain Cyril Turner wrote "Daily Mail" above the track. Turner then came to the United States in October 1922 and wrote "Hello U.S.A." above New York City. Allan J. Cameron, along with Leroy Van Patten established the Skywriting Corporation of America at Curtiss Field, an American branch of the Savage's original company. They acquired the patents for mixing the writing gas the United States, and, although it was nothing more than light oil fed through the exhaust system, they controlled the market for years. In 1923, using the Skywriting Corporation, the American Tobacco Company launched the first and very successful skywriting advertising campaign for Lucky Strike cigarettes. Pepsi-Cola Corporation became one of the longest-running contractors of skywriting; in the late 1930s and mid 1940s, it contracted or owned a total of 14 aircraft. In 1940 alone, it contracted for 2,225 writings over 48 states. Andy Stinis flew for Pepsi-Cola from 1931 to 1953.

In 1973 Alan Pottasch and Jack Strayer of Pepsi began a search for old skywriters and found N434N still with Andy Stinis. They intended to display it at the Pepsi corporate headquarters in Purchase, New York, however, Strayer, a former skywriter, soon persuaded Pepsi to install navigation and communications equipment and tour it once again. In 1977, Strayer hired Peggy Davies as a second pilot and then, in 1980, when Davies became a Pepsi corporate pilot, Strayer hired Suzanne Asbury. Pepsi also gave the aircraft a bright red, white, and blue paint scheme. Strayer died in 1981 and, in 1982, Steve Oliver joined Asbury as a second pilot for the Pepsi aircraft fleet that included N434P, another 1929 Travel Air. In 2000, Suzanne and Steve Oliver suggested that the aircraft should be retired for safety's sake, and Pepsi-Cola Company donated it to the National Air and Space Museum. The Pepsi Skywriter is currently displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport.

This object is on display in Aerobatic Flight at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA .

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Aircraft Walkthrough: Magic Air Tours 1929 Travel Air 4000 Biplane

Published on September 15, 2012 by Mike Singer in Aircraft Walkthroughs

After our interesting discussion about flying scenic tours over the San Juan Islands, Magic Air Tours owner Rod Magner gave us a detailed look at the aircraft that makes it all possible: his 1929 Travel Air 4000 biplane.

In this 25-minute video Rod shares his deep knowledge of the Travel Air 4000–gleaned from more than 6,000 hours in the cockpit of this particular airplane (including more than 6,000 landings at the Eastsound Airport). You’ll learn about:

  • The history of this particular Travel Air.
  • The aircraft’s specs and performance.
  • The engine, brakes, electrical system, and fuel system.
  • The instrument panel (which includes many original instruments).
  • The modifications Rod has made.
  • The challenges of taxiing the Travel Air.
  • The unexpected health hazards of flying an open cockpit biplane.

One Response to “Aircraft Walkthrough: Magic Air Tours 1929 Travel Air 4000 Biplane”

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As a CFI, it is hard enough to teach people to treat every prop as it may be hot, when professionals are hanging onto the blades and even moving the blade. Please set an example for students and new pilots.

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Travel Air 4000

Project description.

1929 travel air biplane

Role:  Biplane aircraft

National Origin: United States

Manufacturer: Travel air, Curtiss-Wright

First Flight: 1925

Primary User: Private Owners, aerial sightseeing businesses

Number Built: 1300

The Travel Air 2000/3000/4000 (originally, the Model A, Model B and Model BH and later marketed as a Curtiss-Wright product under the names CW-14, Speedwing, Sportsman and Osprey), were open-cockpit biplane aircraft produced in the United States in the late 1920s by the Travel Air Manufacturing Company. During the period from 1924–1929, Travel Air produced more aircraft than any other American manufacturer, including over 1,000 biplanes (some estimates range from 1,200 to nearly 2,000).

Travel Air biplanes were widely used in 1920s/1930s war movies, particularly to represent the airplanes they were patterned after: Germany’s Fokker D-VII fighter, the top fighter of World War I. In the motion picture industry, they were known as “Wichita Fokkers.” In fact, Hollywood’s demand for Travel Air biplanes was so intense that Travel Air’s California salesman, Fred Hoyt, coaxed Travel Air co-founder and principal airplane designer, Lloyd Stearman, to come to Venice, California in 1926 to exploit the movie industry demand for his aircraft by starting a short-lived independent Stearman Aircraft Company (re-opened back in Wichita in 1927).

Some of the many movies using Travel Air biplanes (2000 and 4000, in particular) included:

  • Wings  (1927) (Lauded for its technical accuracy, it won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Picture)
  • Flying Fool (1929) (Pathè film, one of the early leading roles for William Boyd, later famous as “Hopalong Cassidy”)
  • Hell’s Angels  (1930) (Howard Hughes’ extravagant war epic)
  • The Dawn Patrol  (1930)
  • Heartbreak  (1931)
  • Ace Of Aces  (1933) featured five Travel Air Model Bs, and numerous other planes.
  • Hell in the Heavens  (1933)
  • Flying Devils  (1933)

General characteristics

  • Capacity:  2 passengers
  • Length:  23 ft 7 in (7.19 m)
  • Wingspan:  31 ft 0 in (9.45 m)
  • Height:  9 ft 10 in (3.00 m)
  • Wing area:  248.0 sq ft (23.04 m2)
  • Empty weight:  1,772 lb (804 kg)
  • Gross weight:  2,870 lb (1,302 kg)
  • Fuel capacity:  58 US gal (48 imp gal; 220 L)
  • Powerplant:  1 × Lycoming R-670, 22hp

Performance

  • Maximum speed:  155 mph (249 km/h; 135 kn)
  • Cruise speed:  132 mph (212 km/h; 115 kn)
  • Stall speed:  56 mph (90 km/h; 49 kn)
  • Range:  530 mi (461 nmi; 853 km)
  • Service ceiling:  18,000 ft (5,500 m)
  • Rate of climb:  1,000 ft/min (5.1 m/s)

Logo

1929 Travel Air 4000

N9872 s/n 1059

1929 travel air biplane

1929 Travel Air 4000 Features

  • Airframe total time: 1700 Hours
  • Engine time SMOH: 25 Hours
  • Time since restoration completed: 25 Hours
  • Last annual inspection completed in April 2013

Additional Equipment

  • Completely restored in 1996 with all new wood, fabric and paint.
  • 2 passengers in front seat.  Continental W-670 engine with Hamilton Standard ground adjustable prop.
  • N3N Original style 30 X 5 wheels and tires with Hayes hydraulic brakes.
  • Ceconite fabric installed in 1996.
  • 3 fuel tanks with 80 gallon total capacity.
  • Logs back to 1952.  Paperwork all complete with appropriate 337 forms.
  • Paint and fabric condition is near perfect.
  • Cockpits in near perfect original condition.
  • No radios installed.
  • Always hangared.

Asking Price: SOLD

AIR & SPACE MAGAZINE

Moments and Milestones: Travel Air’s Mystery Ship

George C. Larson

The "Texaco 13," the most famous Mystery Ship, set more than 200 speed records in the early 1930s.The "Texaco 13," the most famous Mystery Ship, set more than 200 speed records in the early 1930s.The

Back in the 1920s, the National Air Races were as popular as NASCAR events are today. The race got its start on Long Island but relocated to Cleveland in 1929. That year, a couple of employees of the Travel Air Manufacturing Company in Wichita, Kansas, and its head honcho, Walter Beech, who was one of the founders (Clyde Cessna and Lloyd Stearman were the others), got it in their heads to build a racer that would beat the fast and powerful military pursuit aircraft that dominated competition. But because the factory was running full bore to fill orders for its airplanes, the two race enthusiasts couldn’t build a racer on company time.

In 1928, Travel Air delivered more than 400 aircraft, and the following year it became the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial monoplanes and biplanes: A workforce of about 1,000, producing at a peak rate of 25 a week, delivered 547. One reason for the impressive sales figures is that aircraft straight out of the factory were making headlines by setting records and winning races. In 1927, a Travel Air 5000 owned by Phillips Petroleum won the Dole Race by flying from Oakland, California, to Wheeler Field in Hawaii.

From the beginning, Herbert Rawdon and Walter Burnham kept their racer project a secret from the public. They named it the R (for Rawdon) and, working nights and weekends, incorporated every new breakthrough in the science of aeronautics. One, developed by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, was a cowl—a shroud around a radial engine that greatly improved cooling airflow and reduced drag.

The airplane’s later “Mystery S” moniker, which seems to have come from newspaper stories, reflects how secretive Travel Air was about it, covering it with canvas and hiding it in hangars. It was compact and light, and built around a 400-horsepower Wright Whirlwind engine that may have been tweaked to produce more power. The plywood monoplane wings were thin and braced with wires. The fuselage followed the shape of the cowl; in front of the brief opening for the cockpit was a windshield so small it looked flush with the skin. A turtle deck extended from there to the vertical tail, constituting a kind of fairing for the helmeted head of the pilot. Enormous wheel pants extended the painstaking effort to reduce drag.

On race day in September 1929, pilot Doug Davis flew the airplane, no longer a mystery but forever after known as the Mystery Ship, in a 50-mile, closed-circuit, pylon race, took the lead, and never looked back. After that, the Travel Air R set a list of records that few have matched since. In a 1971 book on the history of Beech Aircraft commissioned by the company, writer William H. McDaniel quoted a report from an undisclosed source on the airplane’s triumphal 20,000-mile tour of the continent: “The old world had justly prided itself on the achievements of its Schneider [Trophy] fliers…but it had not a single machine that could stand long flights day after day with the same engine at speeds above 200 miles per hour.” And that was the Mystery Ship’s true contribution to aviation.

George C. Larson, Member, NAA

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George C. Larson | READ MORE

George C. Larson served as editor of Air & Space from 1985 to 2005. He is currently an inactive pilot, but holds a commercial pilot's license, with instrument and multi-engine ratings. He is between airplanes at this time, but has owned or operated a Grumman American AA-5B Tiger and a Mooney 201. He has been writing about aviation since 1972, when he joined the staff of Flying Magazine.

1929 Travel Air Mystery Ship

Golden age of air racing.

The Travel Air Mystery Ship was built by Travel Air incorporated whose president was Walter Beech, who loved air racing, and was designed by Herb Rawdon and Walter Burnham,The aircraft utilized a fixed landing gear and was one of the first low wing monoplanes.Wing span measured 29 feet 2inches,with an overall length of 20 feet 2 inches.With its advanced inclosed cowling and a 400+ H.P. Wright J6-9(R-975)radial engine,it was able to set speed records in excess of 235 mph.

​2023 Barnstorming

It's a Barnstormers Life

HELLO GOODFOLKS!! Strap on a leather helmet and goggles and relive the past. The 1920s-30s were the golden age of aviation and barnstormer pilots traveled the country and introduced the masses to the skies above.  Goodfolk  & O'Tymes Biplane Rides is your opportunity to experience that unique feeling from the early years of aviation. We are the only commercial biplane ride company in the Dayton, Columbus, and Cincinnati area. This past year we were able to add another beautiful biplane to our fleet. We still have the most popular 1929 Travel Air 4000 that can carry up to two passengers, but including a 1930 D-25 new Standard  that can carry up to four passengers has really made Goodfolk and O'Tymes Biplane Rides one of the most popular barnstorming businesses East of the Mississippi. You can take your pick to ride in one or both of our beautiful biplanes. Both aircraft will give you a piece of history to take home with you.  

​Have you ever dreamed about flying like a bird?  Well, experience that dream with Goodfolk & O'Tymes Biplane Rides. The low and slow flight  characteristics  of these flying machines will allow you to step back in time and enjoy the pleasures of flying like a bird. Let the wind blow through your hair and the smells from the countryside give you the magical feeling of the early barnstorming years. Whether this is something to mark off your bucket list, a unique idea for a romantic date, surprise your spouse for an anniversary present, a wedding proposal, birthday, Father's day, or just a joy ride, Goodfolk & O'Tymes Biplane Rides is here for that occasion. We are here to make some of the most memorable dreams come true.

2023 Scheduled Events

Call to set up private tours.

937 877 0837

Moraine Airpark, 

Dayton, Ohio

(Sunday Funday )

July 14-16, 2023

Barnstorming Carnival

Springfield, Ohio

July 18th, 2023

Haggerstown, IN

July 28- July 30th

Porter County Airport

Valparaiso, IN

Aug 10-12th

All OHIO balloon Festival

​Marysville, OH

Port Clinton, OH

Here is your opportunity to enjoy the freedom of barnstorming. Our Travel Air 4000 is able to carry 2 passengers side by side in the front seat or bring up to four people so you can share the fun and excitement all together in our New Standard biplane.

TAKING A RIDE

www.barnstormingcarnival.com

  Explore the birthplace of aviation in a dimension that many will never get to experience. Flying over the beautiful countryside will only make you appreciate this wonderful earth from above.  Sightseeing areas such as the Air Force Museum, downtown Dayton, Yellow Springs, and the lush countryside of the Miami Valley area are just a few places to experience. America is the land of the free and when you take a ride in this beautifully restored Travel Air 4000 you will truly appreciate the beauty of our freedom. Experience what barnstorming was like in the 1930s.

Check out our new online store. Purchase Gift Certificates, Shirts ,

  • Calendar of Events
  • News and Links

Mother & Daughter 

1929 Travel Air 4000 " Ace"

July 15-16th 9th Barnstorming Carnival. One of the best family friendly events in the area. 

​Free community event that offers many activities for people of all ages. Click the official Barnstorming Carnival website below to get more information.

Joy of barnstorming

Biplane Fun

937-877-0837

National Museum of the United Air Force

D-25 New Standard

Two friends having fun

1930 D-25 New Standard

Fun for 4 people

Eposode 1               Episode 2

​ 2023 Events

​ Serving Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati area

Article about Goodfolk & O'tymes

Enjoy a fun biplane video

ulyGoodfolk & O'Tymes Biplane Rides © All rights reserved.

FOX News

Meet the American who made flying safe, Archie League, daredevil pilot and first air-traffic controller

Archie League soared through the skies, skimming cow barns co-piloted by danger. 

The young aerial daredevil gained a bird’s-eye view on the need for safety. 

A Missouri native , League was hired to direct aircraft at Lambert Field in St. Louis in 1929. This incubator of dauntless pilots and air safety seers grew into Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. 

The barnstormer forged a league of his own in aviation history .

MEET THE AMERICAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, ALBERTA KING, ‘GAVE HER ALL FOR CHRIST’

Archie League is the nation's first air-traffic controller — and became an essential figure in American and global air safety for nearly half a century.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

"Through one man’s eyes we can see all of aviation history almost to the present," St. Louis author and historian Jeannette Cooperman told Fox News Digital. 

"By the time he left the industry, we had been through air wars and the atomic age and very sophisticated advances in radar. League saw it all."

He interrupted his career in aviation to serve as a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II . 

He returned to civilian life and became a key executive in what’s now the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). 

After saving a single pilot on a stormy night in St. Louis, League helped pioneer methods, mechanics and logistics that make air travel today the world’s safest mode of transportation.

Millions of Americans, along with many more around the world, fly every day above the vast safety net that League first stitched together with flags and a folding chair in the American Heartland. 

Archie William League was born on Aug. 19, 1907, in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, to Archie L. and Itaska Snow (Magner) League. 

Like many boys his age, League was gripped by the thrill of flight. 

He was only a teen in the 1920s when he took to the air with the daredevil craze of the day: barnstorming dangerously over rural and small-town America, thrilling earth-bound dreamers below. 

"Spinning, diving, and doing loop-the-loops above the clouds, engine roaring, little plane shaking," Cooperman wrote last year in The Common Reader, published by Washington University in St. Louis. 

MEET THE AMERICAN WHO TAUGHT THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN TO FLY: PIONEER PILOT CHARLES ‘CHIEF’ ANDERSON

"He and the other barnstormers in his flying circus entertained folks across Missouri and Illinois."

St. Louis emerged as the center of global aviation in the late 1920s after another essential figure in the history of air travel flew past over a barrier in a feat that still grips the imagination.

Charles Lindbergh, a Lambert Field mail pilot, flew non-stop solo across the Atlantic Ocean on May 21, 1927. His effort and his aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis, were funded by some of the city’s leading businessmen . 

"Lindbergh became a world hero who would remain in the public eye for decades," the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum reports on its website.

"His flight touched off the ‘Lindbergh boom’ in aviation — aircraft industry stocks rose in value, and interest in flying skyrocketed."

Lindbergh instantly made the world smaller. And he made his home airfield busier. Too busy for the times.

Pilots gripped by aviation fever took off, flew and landed amid growing danger over the heartland air hub of St. Louis. 

The City of St. Louis hired Archie League to solve the emerging problem of crowded runways at Lambert Field.

"His communication tools were simple: a red flag for ‘hold’ and a checkered one for ‘go,’" the FAA reports in its history of air traffic control. 

"His other equipment included a folding chair, drinking water and a pad for taking notes."

League was actually something of a new kind of traffic cop — "the first person on the ground to direct planes so they would not collide," notes NASA in a timeline of landmark moments in air-traffic control. 

Growing danger grew out of the clouds, too.

MEET THE AMERICAN WHO SERVED AS THE MODEL FOR HUCK FINN, 'KINDLY YOUNG HEATHEN' TOM BLANKENSHIP

"In October 1929, a small biplane faced severe weather conditions, including dense fog, as it approached [Lambert] airfield in St. Louis," reports the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA). 

"As the aircraft neared the field, League transmitted a series of calm and concise instructions to guide the pilot to a safe landing."

It was, the organization claims, the first-known instance of an aircraft guided to safety by a specialist on the ground.

The moment, NATCA notes, "laid the foundation for the role of air traffic controllers as unsung heroes of the skies."

The air-traffic control industry took flight side by side with air travel. 

League earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from Washington University in 1937, then joined the Federal Bureau of Air Commerce. It has since evolved into the Federal Aviation Administration. 

Col. Archie League served as a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces battling Japan in the Pacific in World War II, before returning to lead the industry. 

He eventually became the FAA’s director of air traffic controllers in 1965, with responsibility for air-traffic control and safety across the entire nation. 

League retired in 1973. 

The miracle of modern transportation delivers millions of people to all corners of the earth safely every single day today.

Archie William League died on Oct. 1, 1986 in Annandale, Virginia. 

He was 79 years old. 

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League’s name, says NATCA, is "reverently whispered through the annals of aviation history."

The greatest testament to his contributions to the modern world is found in the safety record of air travel. 

Delays, in-flight passenger dust-ups and the rare tragic disaster generate headlines. 

Yet there were only six fatal accidents worldwide in all of 2023, according to industry resource FlightGlobal.com. 

League's name is synonymous with safety among people in the aviation industry. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association honors its top members each year with the Archie League Medals of Safety.

The legacy of the global industry "began with the brave actions of a single air traffic controller guiding a struggling aircraft to safety," NATCA notes. 

"The story of Archie League and the genesis of federal air traffic control serves as a testament to the power of human ingenuity and collaboration in shaping the course of aviation history."

To read more stories in this unique "Meet the American Who…" series from Fox News Digital, click here . 

For more Lifestyle articles, visit www.foxnews.com/lifestyle .

Original article source: Meet the American who made flying safe, Archie League, daredevil pilot and first air-traffic controller

Passenger, left, checks in on United Airlines at Chicago O'Hare International Airport; Archie League, right, the first nation's first air-traffic controller.

The once-forgotten flying wing has taken over the US's bomber fleet

  • The B-21 bomber pairs cutting edge tech with a throwback aircraft design.
  • It is based on a visionary aircraft design that dates back to World War II.
  • That aircraft, the YB-49, minimized drag but proved too hard to fly with 1940s technology.

Insider Today

Described by Northrop Grumman as a sixth-generation bomber, the US Air Force's new B-21 Raider pairs the most modern stealth and targeting technology with what is actually a throwback-style design.

It is similar in appearance and mission to its direct predecessor, the B-2 Spirit , and demonstrates the ascendancy of the flying wing design for the most sophisticated bombers. But for all its space-age looks and capabilities, it is the product of advances in flight control technology based on a visionary aircraft design that dates to World War II.

Originally designed before America's entry into the Second World War, the YB-49 flying wing was intended to be America's first intercontinental bomber. Over the course of its development, however, it oddly proved to be both too advanced and too antiquated for its time.

The flying wing

The YB-49 was the final iteration of a flying wing bomber concept created by legendary aircraft designer Jack Northrop, founder of the Northrop Corporation.

The backdrop behind its development was stark. In 1941, concerned that an outright Nazi German victory in Europe would eliminate the ability to fly bombers from allied airbases in the continent, the United States Army Air Forces wanted a bomber capable of carrying about 10,000 pounds of ordnance at least 6,000 miles for round-trip intercontinental bombing runs in the event of war.

Most of the bombers at the time had ranges of around 2,000 miles and payloads ranging from 4,000 to 5,000 pounds. Consequently, engineering practices of the time would have likely called for a design that was up to three times larger than existing bombers.

But Northrop saw this as an opportunity to field a new kind of military aircraft; one that utilized the high-lift low-drag flying wing design.

The flying wing is designed to eliminate as much drag as possible. In conventional aircraft design, wings are needed for lift, but the tail structure, fuselage, and even the engines protrude outwards and create drag, reducing lift potential and thus engine efficiency.

Moreover, in a conventional design like the B-17 , the bulk of the weight is centrally located in the fuselage, thus requiring heavier wings to support the weight. A flying wing, on the other hand, distributes weight over the span of the entire aircraft, meaning it can carry heavy loads while weighing less.

The concept was unorthodox. It had been proven possible by the British-made Dunne D.4 and D.5 models in 1908 and 1910 respectively, at the dawn of the age of flight, and Northrop himself built something of a prototype called the X-216H in 1929.

A larger test aircraft, the N-1M , was tested in July of 1940, proving the potential of the flying wing design. Northrop argued that because flying wings weighed less and were more aerodynamic, it could carry more bombs further, faster, and higher than conventional designs, and was the best way to build an intercontinental bomber.

Convinced by his prototypes, preliminary designs, and arguments, the US Army Air Forces contracted Northrop to develop such a heavy bomber in 1941.

Efficiency of structure and design

The first result of Northrop's efforts was the XB-35; a 172-ft wide and 53-ft long flying wing. The central focus of the aircraft was the emphasis on efficiency of structure and design.

The bomber's nine-man crew operated in a sealed section in the center of the aircraft that included a cockpit, equipment bay, crew cabin, and observation station. Eight bomb bays could carry some 10,0000 pounds of bombs, and the range was expected to amount to 7,500 miles.

The XB-35 was powered by eight piston engines driving contra-rotating propellers that were housed inside the wing. It also featured elevons — then a new type of control surface on the wing's trailing edge — to control pitch and roll and split ailerons on the wingtips to control yaw.

The bomber's small frontal area and profile also provided the added benefits of making it difficult for enemy fighters of the time to hit and for radar to detect.

But the bomber wasn't destined to serve in the war it was designed for. Delays caused by engineering difficulties and wartime priorities for the Northrop Corporation slowed development, and when Britain held, the need for a transcontinental bomber became less urgent.

In May 1944, the full production contract was canceled, but the USAAF allowed the continued development of the 13 pre-production XB-35s under construction for testing purposes. Two years later and with WWII over, the XB-35 conducted its first flight on June 25, 1946.

Though 13 aircraft were built, the program was beset by problems. The contra-rotating propellers proved so troublesome that they were eventually replaced by single prop engines. But this change drastically reduced performance, so much so that it was decided to scrap the propellers entirely in favor of the emerging technology of jet propulsion.

Two of the XB-35s were fitted with eight jet engines and were redesignated as YB-49s. First flown on October 21, 1947, the jet engines improved performance but came at a cost; two bomb bays had to be converted to house fuel tanks, and the added weight decreased the bomber's range and payload by more than half.

The YB-49 also proved to have problems with excessive yawing, as movements that shift the aircraft's nose to the side are known, limiting its ability to accurately deliver bombs. And although nuclear bombs didn't require high degrees of accuracy, the YB-49, designed in the days before knowledge of the atomic bomb was common, was unable to carry them.

On June 5, 1948, one day after the delivery of the first YB-49 to the Air Force, a flight test ended in catastrophic failure when the bomber broke apart midair and crashed, killing all five of the crew. The Air Force blamed structural and mechanical failures, while Northrop claimed the pilots had pushed the aircraft beyond its limits.

The following September, the Air Force changed the role of the YB-49 to reconnaissance, with a new intended designation of YRB-49. However, just four months later, the project was canceled due to budget cuts.

Northrop was allowed to continue testing the sole remaining YB-49, but on March 15, 1950, it was destroyed when its landing gear collapsed during a high-speed taxi run test.

The Spirit and the Raider

As the Air Force had decided against converting the remaining 11 XB-35 airframes in November of 1949, the flying wing concept was completely dead. With the aircraft originally drawn up in 1941 and planned for propellers, the technology just did not yet exist for it to fly the way it was intended.

It was both too advanced and too antiquated for its time.

The shuttering of the program was particularly hard on Jack Northrop, who had personally invested so much in the flying wing. In 1952, he sold his holdings in his company and retired.

Decades later, however, he would be vindicated. In 1979, the US Air Force initiated the Advanced Technology Bomber (ATB) program, which called for a new long-range strategic bomber with stealth features to evade enemy air defenses.

Remembering that the YB-49 proved difficult to detect, Northrop Corporation looked into the flying wing. The problems with aerial instability could now be solved by computers utilizing fly-by-wire technology and differential thrust, and so a flying wing design was submitted.

In April 1980, as a tribute to its founder, the company obtained permission from the Air Force to show the 85-year-old Northrop the new design. Northrop reportedly broke into tears when he saw the design and stated, "Now I know why God has kept me alive for the last 25 years."

In 1981, the Air Force selected Northrop's design as the winner of the ATB program. In 1997, the stealth bomber was officially introduced into service as the B-2 Spirit.

The B-2 has since conducted bombing operations in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, and holds the record for the longest combat bombing operation in history . They remain some of the most potent weapons in the US inventory, and their deployments are almost always meant to convey American strength and resolve.

As advanced as the B-2s are, the cost to produce and maintain them have proven to be a limiting factor — so much so that the original order for 132 Spirits was reduced to just 21. In order to maintain a powerful bomber force and to keep up with technological innovation, the Air Force launched the Long Range Strike Bomber program in 2011.

The result is the B-21. Developed by Northrop Grumman, it is a completely updated aircraft meant to deal with contemporary and modern air defenses. Its design is also built on an open-system architecture concept , meaning it can be more easily armed and upgraded with weapons and systems that have yet to be invented.

At the unveiling of the B-21 in 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that "the B-21's edge will last for decades to come."

The Air Force is planning to field at least 100 B-21s, with the first entering service in the mid-2020s via the initial low-rate production contract. They are expected to replace both the B-1 and B-2 bombers by the mid-2030s.

Watch: America's B-2 stealth bomber is unlike any military aircraft in the world

1929 travel air biplane

  • Main content

IMAGES

  1. 1929 Travel Air Bi-Plane Takeoff & Landing

    1929 travel air biplane

  2. 1929 Travel Air Biplane Over Sacramento Photograph by Phil Wallick

    1929 travel air biplane

  3. 1929 Travel Air 4000

    1929 travel air biplane

  4. 1929 Curtis-Wright Travel Air E-4000 Biplane Flies in Editorial Stock

    1929 travel air biplane

  5. Aircraft N9952 (1929 Travel Air C-4000 C/N 1150) Photo by UKEscalera

    1929 travel air biplane

  6. Aircraft N8877 (1929 Curtiss-Wright Travel Air 4000 C/N 913) Photo by

    1929 travel air biplane

VIDEO

  1. Biplane haben eine eigene Physik :D

  2. 1929 Travel Air S6000B

  3. Flying On A Vintage Plane

  4. Vintage Airplanes and Grass Runways ✈️ ❤️

  5. 1929 Biplane landing

  6. Modern Day Barnstorming in an Open Air 1929 Biplane to the tune of Top Gun 😁 #goodfolkandotymes

COMMENTS

  1. Travel Air 2000

    The Travel Air 2000/3000/4000 (originally the Model B, Model BH, and Model BW, respectively) were open-cockpit biplane aircraft produced in the United States in the late 1920s by the Travel Air Manufacturing Company.During the period from 1924-1929, Travel Air produced more aircraft than any other American manufacturer, including over 1,000 biplanes.

  2. 1929 Travel Air E-4000

    EAA's 1929 Travel Air E-4000 open-cockpit biplane (NC648H, serial number 1224) is among the last flying examples of the aircraft that launched American aviation and earned Wichita, Kansas, the title of "Air Capital of the World.". The Travel Air Company was formed January 1925 in Wichita, Kansas by former employees of the Swallow Aircraft ...

  3. Travel Air

    1928 D-4-D at the Hiller Aviation Museum. 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 ...

  4. 1929 Travel Air 4000

    The Travel Air 4000 was introduced in 1929 and is similar in design to the model 2000 but without the horn-balanced control ailerons. The pilot sits in the rear cockpit with room for two in the front. It represents a classic example of the round-engine biplane: slow-flying and graceful. A beautiful aircraft from a romantic era.

  5. Curtiss-Wright Travel Air 4000, Single-engine Two-seat Biplane, U.S.A

    The Travel Air 2000/3000/4000 (originally, the Model A, Model B and Model BH and later marketed as a Curtiss-Wright product under the names CW-14, Speedwing, Sportsman and Osprey), were open-cockpit biplane aircraft produced in the United States in the late 1920s by the Travel Air Manufacturing Company. During the period from 1924-1929, Travel ...

  6. Travel Air D4D

    This object is on display in Aerobatic Flight at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA . 1929-2000 CRAFT-Aircraft Travel Air Company Three-place, open-cockpit biplane with red, white and blue paint scheme. Wright J-6-7 (Wright R-760-ET), 240 hp engine. Wingspan: 9.3 m (30 ft 5 in) Length: 7.3 m (24 ft 1 in) Height: 2.4 m (8 ft 11 in)

  7. 1929 Travel Air Bi-Plane Takeoff & Landing

    05-12-2018 On-Board footage form this 1929 Travel Air D-4000 NC8708 taken at the 2018 Fullerton Airport Day. Sorry about my camera not liking the Open Cockpi...

  8. 1929 Curtis Wright Travel Air 4D Biplane Built

    1929 Curtis Wright Travel Air 4DComplete overhaul of a 1929 Curtis Wright Travel Air 4D by Rick Hansen. Rick Hansen has built 3 Hatz Biplane Grand Champions ...

  9. Aircraft Walkthrough: Magic Air Tours 1929 Travel Air 4000 Biplane

    After our interesting discussion about flying scenic tours over the San Juan Islands, Magic Air Tours owner Rod Magner gave us a detailed look at the aircraft that makes it all possible: his 1929 Travel Air 4000 biplane.. In this 25-minute video Rod shares his deep knowledge of the Travel Air 4000-gleaned from more than 6,000 hours in the cockpit of this particular airplane (including more ...

  10. Travel Air 4000

    The Travel Air 2000/3000/4000 (originally, the Model A, Model B and Model BH and later marketed as a Curtiss-Wright product under the names CW-14, Speedwing, Sportsman and Osprey), were open-cockpit biplane aircraft produced in the United States in the late 1920s by the Travel Air Manufacturing Company. ... During the period from 1924-1929 ...

  11. One-of-A-Kind 1929 Travel Air Flown Home to Peru

    Carver Aero. It's a love story that spans nine decades and involves a one-of-its-kind 1929 Travel Air Model 10-D airplane. Hermann Carus, Inga Carus' great uncle, was an early adopter of ...

  12. 1929 Travel Air 4000 for Sale

    1929 Travel Air - SOLD; NAF N3N-3 Project; Aircraft Charter; Aircraft Management; About Vine Jet. VineJet Office & Retail Space; Contact Vine Jet; 1929 Travel Air 4000. N9872 s/n 1059. 1929 Travel Air 4000. 1929 Travel Air 4000 Features. Airframe total time: 1700 Hours; Engine time SMOH: 25 Hours;

  13. Moments and Milestones: Travel Air's Mystery Ship

    In 1928, Travel Air delivered more than 400 aircraft, and the following year it became the world's largest manufacturer of commercial monoplanes and biplanes: A workforce of about 1,000 ...

  14. 1929 Travel Air 4000 for sale

    1929 THREE-SEATER BIPLANE • $120,000 • FOR SALE BY OWNERS • Rare and raring-to-go 1929 Travel Air N9872. With Continental W-670, TT 2358/501 SMOH, Sensevich W98AA prop TT 501, Trig TT22 transponder ADS-B Out, Trig radio, Intercom, Garmin GDL 31 GPS - annual due March 2023.

  15. 1929 in aviation

    September 24 - United States Army Air Corps Lieutenant Jimmy Doolittle makes a completely blind take-off, flight, and landing. September 27-29 - Dieudonné Costes and Maurice Bellonte set a new world distance record, flying 7,905 km (4,912 mi) from Le Bourget in Paris, to Qiqihar, China, in a Breguet 19.

  16. 1929 Travel Air Mystery Ship

    The 1929 Tavel Air Mystery Ship. The Travel Air Mystery Ship was built by Travel Air incorporated whose president was Walter Beech, who loved air racing, and was designed by Herb Rawdon and Walter Burnham,The aircraft utilized a fixed landing gear and was one of the first low wing monoplanes.Wing span measured 29 feet 2inches,with an overall ...

  17. Travel Air video

    7.2K views, 178 likes, 26 loves, 6 comments, 62 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from EAA - The Spirit of Aviation: Check out this freshly-restored 1929 Travel Air biplane, piloted by Rob Lock, taking...

  18. Rare 1929 TravelAir On Way to EAA AirVenture

    No reactions. Aviation enthusiasts headed to EAA AirVenture 2021 will enjoy a rare sight as a 1929 TravelAir Model 10-D airplane takes flight to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The TravelAir -- the last of its kind -- will fly in on Sunday, July 25, and will be on display in the Antique section of EAA's Vintage area throughout the week for aviators to ...

  19. Goodfolk & O'Tymes Biplane Rides

    We still have the most popular 1929 Travel Air 4000 that can carry up to two passengers, but including a 1930 D-25 new Standard that can carry up to four passengers has really made Goodfolk and O'Tymes Biplane Rides one of the most popular barnstorming businesses East of the Mississippi.

  20. Meet the American who made flying safe, Archie League, daredevil ...

    Archie W. League is widely considered the first air-traffic controller. He began by directing aircraft with flags in 1929, then helped make flying safe for millions of travelers.

  21. The once-forgotten flying wing has taken over the US's bomber fleet

    The latest US Air Force bomber, the B-21 Raider, is based on a visionary aircraft design that dates back to World War II. Menu icon A vertical stack of three evenly spaced horizontal lines.

  22. Captured a/c on Eastern front in 1914

    The Aerodrome Forum > WWI Aviation > Aircraft: Captured a/c on Eastern front in 1914 User Name

  23. Eastern Front. Winter 1915

    The Aerodrome Forum > WWI Aviation > Aircraft: Eastern Front. Winter 1915.

  24. Boeing Aircraft Company introduces new jet at Moscow Air Show

    TRAVEL 1. Footloose in Vancouver 2. From Baja to Barrow ... Boeing Field Air Museum (Historic company profile and musuem feature to come) Boeing Aircraft Company at Moscow Air Show MOSCOW: Boeing displayed a Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) and a large scale model of its newly conceived airplane, the Boeing 7E7, at the MAKS International Aviation ...

  25. Dmitry Samoylov (pilot)

    1940 - 1960. Rank. Colonel. Battles/wars. World War II. Korean War. Awards. Hero of the Soviet Union. Dmitry Aleksandrovich Samoilov ( Russian: Дмитрий Александрович Самойлов; 31 December 1922 - 15 August 2012) was a Soviet fighter pilot who flew in World War II and later Korea, during which he became credited as ...