X-Nico

6 unusual facts about Travel Air


Beechcraft Travel Air

Although developed and initially marketed as the Badger, a 1956 letter from the United States Air Force notified Beechcraft that the name had been unanimously chosen as a reporting name for the Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 bomber; therefore, Beechcraft elected to reuse the Travel Air name, which came from the predecessor company to Beechcraft, the Travel Air Manufacturing Company.

Travel Air

Additional types that had been close to production number from 8 to 16 were built while under Curtiss-Wright management such as the Curtiss-Wright CW-12.

Aside from the Wichita Fokkers seen in such movies as Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels, likely the most famous of the open cockpit biplanes was N434N, a D4D (the ultimate derivative of the BW) painted in Pepsi colours for airshow and skywriting use which survives in the National Air & Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy annex.

Travel Air Type R Mystery Ship

The Type R "Mystery Ships" were a series of wire-braced, low-wing racing airplanes built by the Travel Air company in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Travelair

Beechcraft Travel Air, a twin-engined light aircraft of the 1950s/1960s

Travel Air, a 1920s US aircraft manufacturer, taken over in 1929 by Curtiss-Wright



see also

Eremas Wartoto

Ahead of the launch of Travel Air in July 2011, allegations were made by the media in PNG that parliamentarian Paul Tiensten had assisted with illegally financing the company by giving K10 million to Wartoto.

Paul Tiensten

It was alleged that Tiensten conspired with Travel Air’s owner, businessman Eremas Wartoto, to make the payment while he was National Planning Minister, despite being aware that the company was inactive.