AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2011 - 60

It is here in this flat, wind-swept, middle-of-the-prairie landscape that Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Bill Lear started what became aviation empires, general aviation’s manufacturing mecca, and America’s supplier of aircraft during world wars, halcyon economic times, and, lately, the toughest recession since the Great Depression. For Brewer, a native Wichitan, aerospace engineer, and career aviation employee—on a leave of absence from aviation parts supplier Spirit AeroSystems to serve as mayor of Wichita—the economic ups and downs of his city mean hard work, but nothing he can’t handle. When you live in Wichita, you get used to the changing economic landscape. And you always reach out to help your neighbor. When you’re a Wichitan, you’re a member of a close-knit family, and you take care of that family.

The Air Capital Stearman, Cessna, Mooney, and Beechcraft all were founded in Wichita in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Cessna and Hawker Beechcraft remain in Wichita today, along with Bombardier Learjet and Spirit AeroSystems, and both Airbus and Boeing maintain workforces in Wichita. Oil was discovered in Wichita in 1914, and it became a major oil center—profits from oil meant local entrepreneurs could invest in the then-nascent aircraft industry. From 1917, when the Cessna Comet was introduced by the Swallow Airplane Co., until 1927, when Dwayne Wallace and Clyde Cessna started the Cessna Aircraft Co.—and from 1927, when Walter Beech started Travel Air and grew it to more than 600 employees— Wichita was a testbed for aviation. But then the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression started

what has now become a pattern in the aviation industry—“seven years up and three years down.” With World War II, aviation manufacturing was back. There were 111,000 residents in Wichita in 1939; by 1943, there were 184,000. Beech Aircraft produced thousands of the Model 18 Twin Beech starting in 1937. The Cessna 172, introduced in 1956, set world sales records—more than 14,000 were built in 13 years. Then came Bill Lear and his Learjet; the first Learjet was produced in 1963. In 1977, nearly 17,000 aircraft were produced; by 1982, however, production was down to 4,200. In the 1980s, production again reflected the economic times: Beech laid off 2,500 people and Cessna 3,045 between mid-1981 and early 1982. Learjet laid off 1,000 people in 1984. The General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994 halted the freefall and Cessna,

Kansas public officials and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood addressed more than 2,000 employees from Cessna, Bombardier Learjet, Hawker Beechcraft, and other Wichita general aviation companies in March (right). The Kansas Aviation Museum is housed in the original municipal airport terminal, built in 1935 (below). Its art-deco exterior was renovated in 2005. Cessna Aircraft project pins from 30 years ago (left).

AOPA PILOT •

60 • JULY 2011

AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2011