Beech Aircraft Corporation

Beech Aircraft Corporation
legal form	Subsidiary of Textron
founding	1932
Seat	Wichita , United States
Branch	Aircraft construction
Website	www.beechcraft.com

The Beechcraft Corporation , often also called Beechcraft or simply Beech , is an American aircraft manufacturer of smaller models for both civil and military aviation.

history

Beech Aircraft Corporation was founded in 1932 by Walter Beech and his wife Olive Ann Beech in Wichita, Kansas . Originally only civil transport aircraft were to be developed and built, but soon training aircraft were also included in the range. The military also discovered the capabilities of some Beech models, for example the Beech T-34 Mentor has been used for pilot training in many countries for many years until today.

The first model was the Beech Staggerwing Model 17R, of which several units were also used in the US Army . The Bonanza model was developed in 1948 and is still in production today.

On February 8, 1980, the company was bought by Raytheon . In 1994, Beech Aircraft formed Raytheon Aircraft with Hawker, which Raytheon had acquired from British Aerospace a year earlier . Since the separation from the parent company in 2007, this company has been called Hawker Beechcraft , which went bankrupt in 2012 . As a result, Beechcraft was taken over by Textron .

Beech models

Civil

Beechcraft Starship

Beech D.17S Staggerwing (1943)

• Model 17 staggerwing
• Model 18 Twin Beech
• Model 23 musketeer / sundowner
• Model 24 Sierra
• Model 33 Debonair
• Model 34 twin quad
• Model 35 bonanza
• Model 36 Bonanza
• Model 50 Twin Bonanza
• Model 55 & 58 Baron
• Model 60 Duke
• Model 65 Queen Air
• Model 76 Duchess
• Model 77 Skipper
• Model 90 King Air
• Model 95 Travel Air
• Model 99
• Model 100 King Air
• Model 200 & 300 Super King Air
• Model 400 Beechjet
• Model 1900
• Model 2000 Starship

Military

• XA-38 grizzly
• AT-7 navigator
• C-6 Ute
• C-12 Huron
• C-43 Traveler
• C-45 Expeditor
• CT-128 Expeditor
• CT-134 Musketeer
• CT-145 Super Kingair
• RC-12 Guard Rail
• T-1 Jayhawk
• T-34 mentor
• T-42 Cochise
• U-8 Seminole
• U-21 Ute

Automobile production

In 1946 the company made two prototypes of a passenger car . The Beechcraft Plainsman was a four-door, six-seat sedan with an aluminum body . An air-cooled four-cylinder engine of Franklin drive a generator, which the four -wheel motors supplied with current. Each of the electric motors produced around 25 hp .

Web links

Commons : Beech Aircraft Corporation  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Hawker Beechcraft website at hawkerbeechcraft.com (English)
• Beechcraft Corporation website
• Beechcraft on aircraft-info.net (English)
• RTP-TV AeroSpace Show: 1942 Beech C45 Aerobatic Video on rtptv.homestead.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ George Nick Georgano (Editor-in-Chief): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , p. 141. (English)
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Ron Kowalke: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1946–1975. Krause Publications, Iola 1997, ISBN 0-87341-521-3 , p. 806. (English)
3. ↑ Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 , Chapter Beech; Beechcraft Plainsman.